On Friday evening I went out with my wonderful bestie Shelli and a dozen other ladies for Shell's bachelorette party. I'm not a party planner, and I'm not social. The only two people I knew were the bride to be and one of the other bridesmaids, who happens to be one of my very good friends. I am not comfortable around strangers, I'm not a planner, I'm not an extrovert, and I don't have piles of money to throw at strippers. But Melissa (who is a lot like me) and I still managed to plan a super fun night (if I do say so myself). By the end of the night I was 20% comfortable with the strangers (since I started out around 2% I'd call that a success), and one of them went into labor. True story--I planned a bachelorette party and it was so exciting someone had a baby. Well, not at the party. She left for the actually birthing part, which was good, because I'm positive that the wait staff at P.F. Chang's was not prepared for it.
Saturday morning a certain midget decided 5:45 was the perfect time to wake up in the morning. I disagreed. But then he disagreed back--quite loudly. At 6:00 I caved and fell asleep next to him on the couch while he watched Cars. Eventually Matt got up and I decided Lightening McQueen had had enough, so we started our day. We went to the Omelette Parlor, which is one of my favorite restaurants ever. They have the most delicious omelettes you've ever tasted, and they're cheap, and...sigh. They lost their lease because the Vons next door wanted to expand. So As of Monday my beloved Omelette Parlor is no more. An Orange County icon is gone. Booooo. At least I got to have one more Mrs. Beecher's Delight (spinich, mushrooms and jack...mmm...).
After breakfast we went home and readied ourselves for the beach. Then we headed out. We got there pretty early, beat the crowds, and had a glorious couple of hours playing in the sand. Not so much the water--it was frickin' freezing. But we expected that--the Pacific is fairly cold, and it takes a month or two of sunshine for it to warm up. Not that it matters--I don't swim in the ocean. But Matt does, so he actually cares. Ben is 50/50. Sometimes he likes it, sometimes he doesn't. Nevertheless, it was a lovely morning.
After Ben's nap we went up to Riverside for the birthday barbecue of our good friends Karen and Steve. We love them. So much so that we're willing to endure the heat of Riverside for them. As always, it was a fun evening. Delicious food, great company. And the kiddie population of these gatherings grows every time. It's so fun. Several years ago when we started the parties it was a bunch of twenty-somethings, some married some not, maybe a couple of babies here and there. Now it's a big fat party with a bunch of babies, toddlers, and full-on kids running around. We're growing up. The most exciting part for me, though, is that after being with my hunk of beef husband for almost six years, I'm finally comfortable around his people. I can actually call them my friends now. That's how shy and socially crippled I am--it takes me six years to make friends. But I did it. Now I don't have to cling to Matt like I'm a sucker fish--I can freely socialize. I only took one picture, and not even a very interesting one, because I was having too much fun. Even though it's boring I will post it, just so I can prove I was there.
Ben started losing it around 8:00 (fair enough--that's past his bed-time, and he did, after all, wake up at 5:45am), so we took off. We watched TV while we did laundry (McQueen ate all evening long, which is great because he's been on a hunger strike for the last couple of weeks, but his feast included a great deal of strawberries and watermelon) then went to bed nice and late because we could. The angel boy slept until 8:00, which was fantastic. We took our time in the morning, Matthew made a delicious breakfast, then it was off to Irvine Park, one of my favorite gems of Orange County.
Another lovely morning. We started off at the Orange County Zoo. It's a cheap thrill at $2 a person, and Benjamin could honestly hang out all day with the goats in the petting zoo and not ever know or care that there was anything more than that. As always, he just ran around petting, brushing, and cuddling with goats. And when he tried to bond with one and it walked away, he would yell,"Wait! Wait! Wait goat!" Sweet little boy.
Adjacent to the goats is a chicken and rooster coop. Ben has barn puzzle at home and he's learned what a rooster says. So when he saw the rooster at the zoo he shouted "doocadoocadoo!!!" over and over again with so much joy I could have cried.
After the goats and roosters we strolled around the rest of the zoo (it's small, so it didn't take long), then we wandered to the other side of the park for a little picnic lunch by the lake. After that we did the train. Ben loves trains--that should go without saying. But apparently he much prefers to either look at them from afar or conduct them. All morning whenever the train went by he stared at it in awe and said "choo choo!" We thought he'd love to have a ride. But no--it was not so. He cried and held onto me for dear life as though he thought he'd be violently thrown from the train going 5 miles an hour through the park (he wasn't). He's been on this train once before, and the train at Disneyland, and has been surprisingly underwhelmed. But he's never freaked out quite like this. Maybe because he makes his train get violently thrown off the tracks with a loud "chash!" he thinks the invisible hand that's pushing the train he's riding on will do the same. Who knows.
After the train debacle we headed home for an obviously much-needed nap. We had a low-key afternoon and evening. When Ben went to bed Matt and I made Avatar cupcakes and watched the movie. Meh. Cupcakes were better than the movie. The visual effects were cool, but the writing was lame and the story was basically Pocahontas (which I hated) with blue people.
Because God was smiling upon us, Matt and I both had Monday off. So we had a pajama morning with chocolate chip waffles and watched some Cars. Then we had a barbecue with our neighbors, the Gibbs. We pulled out our new and bigger pool, stuck the slide in, and let the kids go to town. And boy did they ever. Adalee was a tad reticent at first, but Ben was having the time of his life, and it wasn't long before Adalee joined in. They were squealing and laughing and cracking each other up. Once again, I was near tears I loved their joy so much.
After pool time the kids ran around the courtyard while Jesse barbecued. Adalee fell and bit her lip (Ben's been giving her lessons). An orange juice popsicle later (of course Ben had one too) and she was great. We had a tasty lunch, swap off the crumbs, and went inside for a late nap.
I would have been okay if this weekend had gone on forever. Although I don't know--maybe it's like Christmas. Three days of the beach, the park, and the pool are special because they're rare gems. I will never know. But I got a little taste of my sweet summer to be, and I have to say, it's a little challenging to go to work every morning. Is it June 18 yet?
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