pixie's temple

One of my favorite weekends so far this year.

That’s how I would sum up my ultra-lovely Memorial Day weekend. After nine days of rain, the weather couldn’t have been better. Sure, 90° and humid aren’t IDEAL conditions to some, but I’m not complaining. I loved it. Everyday was wonderful and could have only been better if there were a few more to be had before heading back to work.

Friday was a relatively casual affair. I started off the day with a cup of coffee and a visit to my local weight watchers center for my weekly weigh-in. I was up four-tenths of a pound—no biggie, as I’m sure it was a result of the margarita and pizza I had for dinner on Thursday night. After that I went and picked up some tomato cages and marigolds for our garden. I also got this kick-ass water wand for the hose. It has a telescoping arm, a head that rotates 180° and 10 different settings for the water (from the lightest mist to a full on jet stream). It rained a bit that afternoon—which cut into my sun time—but was sporadic enough to not be an issue. That evening Josh and I planted the garden, then my sister-in-law came over to pick up some boxes for her upcoming move. She brought some hotdogs and baked beans over for dinner. I had already put together some homemade mac-n-cheese, which ended up rounding out the impromptu meal nicely. We had a couple of cocktails and Josh and I ended the night with Donnie Brasco and some together time. The captioning on DB cracked me up. At one point in the movie, Al Pacino’s character is making some chicken marsala. One of the things he mentions adding is College Inn chicken broth. The captioning said, “then I add some collagen”. Hahaha…collagen—that’s not quite the same, you asshats.

Saturday morning was beautiful. We hit the grocery store—which was really uncrowded for a holiday weekend—for food stuff and propane. Then it was yard work, house cleaning, and a trip to the liquor store (which ended up costing $71) before our company arrived. That afternoon my Mom, Stepdad, and two of their closest friends came over. The main reason they came by was so their one friend could see our house. But…I made some Mai Tai’s (from scratch, not from a mix) for us to enjoy while they were here. After two rounds of drinks and a few stories from the guys we all packed up and headed over to my Mom’s house. There we had more drinks—wine for the girls and Coronas for the boys—and a great dinner of steak, chicken, shrimp, salad, rice, fruit, and carrot cake. YUM! We had such a great time laughing, joking and indulging on fine food, alcohol, and conversations. Once we got home, Josh and I had a few more cocktails and then went for a nice evening walk in our neighborhood.

Sunday rocked because—unlike our normal Sunday’s—we didn’t have to clean the house! We enjoyed the gorgeous morning with our coffee and just leisurely went about our day without the worry of having to work the next day. We spent the majority of the day either outside or in the cool basement (it was hot, hot, hot and humid that day). We barbequed some burgers and dogs, played bocce ball, and—surprise—drank beers and mai tais. We also managed to get in a quick round of kickball and another walk. At the end of the day, my entire upper body was sunburned and I was spent.

Monday flew by. It was really just about Josh and I spending our last day off together. We grilled out some lunch and went to a park we had never been to for yet another walk. It was a nice area along the river but the entire trail was flanked by tons of poison ivy. I’m terribly allergic to PI, but I wasn’t diving in and rolling around in it, so I was okay. Of course, we were there at the hottest part of the day and by the time we got back to the car I was sweating profusely. I think a combination of the walk, the heat and the beer I drank had a detrimental effect on my ability to stay awake because by 7 pm I was beat. We crawled into bed around 10:30, sad that the weekend was over, but happy that we had such a great time. Those are the kind of weekends that I live for—family, friends, good food, fun times, and togetherness.

It was awesome.