back home

The whirlwind birthday weekend is now over, and I'm sort of glad to be back home. It was a great weekend! It started with my haircut on Friday. Tracy and I enjoyed a great visit, with juicy conversation and a glass of wine - that's my kind of haircut! :) Later on Friday evening, Tim came over to visit, and we had some nice conversation and bonding.

Saturday morning was Nick's portrait session at JCPenney, and he did great! He was so cute and cooperative, and we couldn't believe how tall and grown-up he looked. I was forced to buy several sheets of various poses, because they were all so darn good! Drat. Luckily, I had a coupon and got a great deal - just a little over $3 per sheet, and no sitting fee.

After the portrait session, I did a little shopping in the mall, but really didn't spend much - just got two shirts and a small backpack for Nick and some hand wash at Bath & Body Works. Then, I met Tim for a quick lunch at our fave Japanese place, and it was time to get back to Dad's to prepare for the big bash. We got the party-room all decorated with Cars stuff, and Tim arrived with the fabulous Cars cake that he had ordered for the occasion. My Dad went for pizza, and the party got underway. There were a total of 17 people, and we had a blast! There was much eating of pizza and drinking of punch, and lots of laughter and cuteness on Nick's part. He got way too many gifts, but got some neat stuff. And he got more clothing than usual, which was kind of refreshing! He'll certainly need new clothes this summer, and everything he got should fit him well and is really cute.

The party wound down, and we got the birthday boy to bed, after which I retired as well, since I had to get up early on Sunday to go sing. The singing went fine, and I then returned to Dad's house to change and relax for awhile until it was time to go to Target with Tim and our friend Jennifer. I was very excited about the Target trip (who wouldn't be?), but unfortunately, I was pretty tired by then, and my stomach felt awful - I'm not going to go into the gory details here, but suffice it to say that I ate like crapola all weekend, and I think that my stomach just couldn't handle the abuse, since it's not used to that anymore. I only ended up buying a couple of small things, and was glad to be out of Target and back home. We decided to nix our planned trip to Sam's Club, since I just wasn't feeling up to it. I spent the rest of Sunday evening chilling out at Dad's, and Dad got us Chinese carryout - yum! By 9:30, my exhaustion had really caught up with me, and I was just dead tired. I actually went to bed at 9:45, and fell asleep the instant my head hit the pillow. I slept for 10 glorious hours! I don't get to do that very often anymore.

Today, we got up, got ready, and came home. On the way out of Springfield, I stopped at the bookstore of Drury University, my alma mater, to check out their apparel. I bought myself a really cute Drury t-shirt; I had been wanting a Drury garment for some time, so I'm pretty pleased about it! When fall comes, I might get Nick a Drury hoodie or something similar.

Today has been all about unpacking and processing all the birthday gifts, etc., and I've finally taken some time to relax and get online. Soon, the season premiere of Dancing with the Stars will be on, and we're planning to check that out - we're particularly interested in Marlee Matlin.

So, there you have it. Now, it's back to the regular weekly grind. Nick's checkup is tomorrow, but other than that, it's a pretty quiet week. We might go to St. Louis on Sunday to join some relatives at their Easter dinner - we still haven't decided.