A busy weekend and a party

Aaron called us on Friday. They were coming down this way for a wedding and wanted to hang with us after, spend the rest of the weekend with us as it were... Back Labor Day weekend they were supposed to come by, but it turned out they didn't even come down after all.

We were psyched. Always nice to see them... so they got here Saturday afternoon while I was out at Dan and Honey's babyshower. Doug stayed home to wait for Aaron and Michelle. I didn't want to take Geoff, he usually isn't well behaved at social events where he isn't the star. I should have brought him -- Ben played with all the kids (I bet his new girlfriend absolutely loved watching that. He's so cute when he's with them...) and the kids got all good and worn out. But if I had, then he may not have made it through the evening with our visitors. Here are some quick pics from the shower:

Here's Dan doing some last second cleaning up in the yard. He missed a few doggie deposits. We made a lot of fun of him -- not only is he colorblind, he's dogshit blind.	The lovely expectant parents...
My buddy Brian's daughter riding one of the gifts the baby received -- an elephant rocking "horse". In Thailand, elephants are lucky. This made Honey almost cry...	Another shot of Brian's girl, showing me her manicure. She's a hot ticket, this one...
	Me and Jessie at one of those armlength picture shots.

Jessie and I had a great time with the whole gang. We left a half hour later than I'd wanted to, mostly due to Honey not getting to the party on time. When we pulled in the driveway, Doug, Aaron, Geoff and Michelle were heading out to Pedro Diego's, a mexican joint in Haverhill. So we all went along, had a great dinner, drank WAY too much sangria (it all hit me hard when I got home, I barely made it to bed).

We had a lot of good laughs. Aaron picked on Geoff and it was fun. It's always fun to be with Aaron and Michelle and I hate that we don't see them often enough.

Aaron was in rare form... made all kinds of crazy suggestions to Geoff, like make a scary face for mom! This was the result.	Geoff actually looks great in this picture, but Aaron is a mental case! Too bad he didn't smile nice.
Doug and Michelle sat on the other side from us (Doug and I are flanking the kids, so we didn't sit together). They behaved quite normally through the meal, instead of like weirdos. Like Aaron.	Aren't they the loveliest couple. Especially with this wall paper! Ewwww!
Jessie took this one -- too bad Geoff is hiding.
And we got the waitress to take this one... she was really interested in the camera, we spent about 20 minutes yakkin' with her about digital photography.

Next morning we decided a little Geocaching would take the edge of the hangover off of us. We had a light breakfast of toast and coffee, lots and lots of water, and went and did two geocaches right near our house. One of them is at Winnekenni Castle, where Doug and I were going to put one! So we are kinda disappointed that it's there... we still may put one in there but way back on the trail on the far side of the pond. People can do them in tandem.

The other one was on the north side of the Merrimack River in the Meadowbrook conservation area. We were home by 3, and Aaron and Michelle hit the road. They are still in the process of moving stuff out of their old apartment, and Aaron had homework to do. So they figured they'd better hightail it out of there.

When we told Geoff where we were headed, he got his knight's helmet out. He loves to come up here, and he decided he was going to save the princess. So here he is guarding the castle... watch out!
This was Michelle's very first geocache. Doug gave her the GPS... she lead us right to it.	I am MOJO JOJO! Mojo came home with Michelle as her take from the cache.
	Mojo also got to hang out on the Dudley Porter fountain, which we'd never seen before. It was pretty cool.

I felt great after geocaching -- no longer hung over, and quite happy. Doug on the other hand passed out and was down for the afternoon.

The rest of my Sunday was spent at another social gathering without my husband, this time at a neighbor's house. Our friends Shelley and Steve hosted a little neighborhood cook out. We live around the corner from them, but most of the people there are from over beyond their house, I didn't know hardly any of them.

I met some wonderfully nice new people -- very funny and intelligent. Lots of little kids. Good beer and wine, good chicken divan.

I amused them with my wit, entertained them with my parenting skills (Geoff was picking on a girl named Devon who goes to our church and the two of them have a history. She doesn't deal well with being picked on, and he loves to get a reaction... fuel to a fire).

The rain held off and when it did start raining we sat under a really nice tree in their yard, mostly sheltered but for a few drops.

Shelley has the most amazing garden. And I love sitting in their yard. So the rain didn't bother me in the least. Football last night... it wasn't exciting enough to hold my attention. I was painfully exhausted and fell asleep 5 minutes into the Steelers' game. I woke up at halftime, crawled to bed.

Maddie and her new kitten, Jigsaw. Their old cat, Uncle Bobby, doesn't really care for this young upstart. I love Uncle Bobby. He's the best cat. He meows to me when I walk down the street, and if I say hello to him, he comes running. This one is still too wild to get to know well.

Another example of Shelley's garden work. It was too dark out, with the storm coming, to take good pictures of the garden. Notice all the leaves on the ground behind the table there... I'm not ready for it to be fall yet. These sunflowers are all over the place right now, thanks to Shelley. Our church front yard, her yard -- the street is filled with happy little faces dancing in the breeze...

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When I got up this morning I noticed that I had hit something yesterday with the car. The bottom fender on the front passenger's side is all caved in. I pulled a U turn at a wrong entrance for Meadowbrook, and must have hit a rock. I didn't feel it when it happened, sort of aware of running over something but I thought it was a sandbar in the parking lot.

Doug was pissed at me when he saw it. I hope it can get fixed. We've had that car 2 years almost and hadn't gotten a ding or a scratch on it.

Today I've been busting my ass on Professor CM projects. He's got a meeting this afternoon with one of the people he was hired by to do a website for... he had me do most of the work while he gathered the content. I had the text and layout of the site put together, but no graphics... so when I got email this morning saying they were on for a 3pm meeting, I panicked... I slammed as much together as quickly as possible. I was so busy that I didn't notice it had started pouring like mad, and the dogs were out in the pen in the yard... I heard the rain finally as it was hitting Jessica's airconditioner, making that artillery sound rain makes when hitting hollow metal. I ran out to get them. They were drenched and sad.

Oh did I feel awful. Nothing worse than the look on a dog's face when you've forgotten them in the rain.

They're sleeping now... I need to get a shower and do some housework. I already feel like this week is getting pissed away and it isn't even started yet.

Friday night I'm supposed to work for Cateringman at a function. They are doing a big event for Ducks Unlimited, over 500 people are going to be there, so all the staff is on call. I just remembered that -- and we were going to go to NY for the weekend to see my sister. I have no idea how we are going to work this one. I have to talk to Doug and figure it all out.

I hate my life when it's busy.

Alright -- to care for my house and my body now. More later.