living like normal people

This weekend I didn't have to work. At all. It was amazing to go to bed Friday night without the Saturday crunch looming over my head. I slept like a baby all night Friday night, then snoozed when my alarm went off at 7. I eventually got out of bed, showered, and then headed over to my sister's house. I watched Owen's soccer game with Christie and Nora and it was cold and windy, but I didn't care because I wasn't at work. Also, the sun was shining all morning and that made the chilling wind a little less chilling.

After soccer on Saturday, we took the kids to the mall to get their picture taken at Picture People. It was something I would describe as slightly hellish. Every chance she got, Nora would crawl off the backdrop. She didn't do this in a bratty way, she just was smiling and laughing, thinking "look at all this space!" So it was my job to bring her back and sit her in front of her brother. And every chance he got, Owen would lean into Nora, essentially smooshing her. She didn't get mad, just thought it was a great opportunity to crawl away. Andy M's job was to keep Owen from crawling away, which he was doing to immitate his sister. Christie's job was to flap her hands and clap and say "cheese" behind the camera man to get the kids to smile for the camera which they were never in front of. It was really tiring for all of us.

After roughly fifteen minutes of corralling the kids, the photographer announced that he had enough shots and told us to wait 15 minutes to see the proofs. After approximately 45 minutes, Christie went up to the counter to check the status of our pictures. The guy who had just photographed the kids asked her "have you been helped yet?" and Christie said "yes, we already had our pictures taken, we're just waiting for the pictures" and he said "okay, just wait over there and someone will be right with you". So we waited more. Then some other guy came over to show us our pictures. While we were sitting looking at pictures, the second guy had to go in the back for something. The first guy (who actually took our picture) came over to us and asked "have you been helped yet?" We think he had some sort of short-term memory problem.

On Sunday it was a really beautiful day here in Northern VA. Andy and I decided to go on a walk and grab some lunch in the process. We walked for a really long time. There's a funny story that I should tell here, but I've lost my will to write for now.

Anyway, it was a normal weekend and it felt excellent. So glad to be back to life.