What a Weekend

We stayed relatively busy this weekend. I think. Yesterday, we went and got new tires for my car. I had a slow leak in one from a nail that was too close to the sidewall and the tread was pretty close to dead on two more, though I only replaced one of them. Interesting note: these are the original tires from when the car was purchased in 2001, so we got some good years of use out of them, if only 20,000 miles. We then took the kids out to lunch, looked at houses (we're in the market, though out aspirations outreach out resources by about 20% right now), then went and got the car. Then, after getting home, we let the kids play outside (we don't do this much because we generally don't trust our neighbors, but there are a couple kids with responsible parents out here right now, so we let them get in the courtyard if we've got the window open), while I went to get a fishing license. I get home and find out my wife thought I was going to the grocery store, which we needed to do as well. She was in the middle of about 12 loads of laundry, so I hopped back in the car with the Apple and we went to the heeb and got some vittles for the week. They had fresh corn on the cob, so I picked up a few ears to go with the steak we made for dinner, and headed home with a full trunk of chow. We got back right around time to start dinner; the kids had been out about 2 1/2 hours, which is not bad. We ate dinner ("ate" being a relative term as I think there was more steak on the kids' plates after they ate than before) and got the kids all bathed. Then, we let them bring their sleeping bags downstairs where they got to camp out for the night and watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

This morning had us up nice and early, and the kids got to have cinnamon raisin English Muffins for breakfast. After that, the Princess and the Apple and I went to wash my car. My goal is to wash it more this year than I did last year, and I'm only 1 wash away from eclipsing that after today and last month. We had fun, and got back just in time to let the kids have a midmorning snack while the wife finished her makeup so we could go to the mall. I'm not a big fan of the mall, but some things needed to be bought, such as new slacks and shirts for me to replace some of the older (and ink-stained) outfits in my ensemble. After that, the Boy and I got our ears lowered. The Apple also got new shoes today, so he was giddy (Spider-man!), and the kids got to play on the toy in the Mall while I took the wife's ring to get an estimate to replace a missing baguette. After some pretzels, we went and watched a movie (Horton Hears a Who - I have some disdain for movies based on Dr. Seuss books due to my understanding that he did not want his stories made into movies and his wife sold the rights after he died so she could live off the fat the movies garnered), and let the kids ride on the carousel. We then went and looked at a few more houses, much to the chagrin of the children, who can think of few things in the world less thrilling than riding in a minivan while their parents discuss traffic, neighbors, trees, corner lots, taxes, etc. We finally ended up back at home, just in time to start dinner and listen to the children continuously try to find new and unique ways of injuring each other. After dinner, the kids ended up back outside, while the wife and the Apple went for a little walk, and forgetting to tell me, causing me a mild state of panic because the Apple wasn't where I could see him in the courtyard and the other children didn't know where he'd gone (I figured the Apple and his mom were together, but didn't know, which leads to concern). Finally, we got them back in, they decided to try to injure themselves a little more, and ultimately all ended up in bed.

OK, so perhaps the weekend wasn't quite as chock-full as I thought when I sat down, but, it kept us busy, and cost us a whole lot more than we'd intended on spending (the tires and the clothes took a lot out of the paycheck). We'll be ok, but I don't think we'll be dining out this week. At least, not until Sunday.