Good times — sister’s visit full of eating, shopping

What a fun weekend. Lots of time hanging out with my family, eating awesome meals, and a bunch of shopping. And the weather was nice. And did I mention the shopping?

My sister Emily, who lives in Fishers — about 1 and a half hours south — came for the whole weekend, from Friday night to Monday night this past weekend. The visit was for my other sister, Sara’s, birthday and happened to be over Emily’s spring break. Emily works for the school system as a social worker, so she gets those awesome school breaks the rest of us drool over.

Anyway, Em arrived Friday night. She’s the ultimate low-maintenance guest – she said “I’ll just pick up McDonald’s on the way!” God love her. I didn’t even plan out meals or grocery shop, figuring we would do it together the next day.

So, she arrived and after visiting a while we went over to Sara’s house – right down the street. We visited with her kids for awhile. London was so happy to see her aunt Emmy and Aunt Eri. After they went to bed, we had a few beers and hung out. It was really nice. It doesn’t happen that much. Usually when we’re all together the rest of the family is around so it’s cool for the three sisters to be together. We munched on some delicious salads Sara made us – later Sara would ask 50-60 times if we liked her “impromptu” salads. She and my dad both derive great pleasure from asking the same question over and over again, and if it involves something they did well, all the better.

After awhile Sara turned on the recent Oprah show on the missing identity case that happened a few years ago near Marion, Indiana. An amazing story. It’s basically about a group of Taylor University students who were in a terrible wreck and the identities of two of them were switched afterward – leading one family to think their daughter had died, but hadn’t, and the other family to take care of a daughter who wasn’t really theirs. Crazy. The families were so neat and handled it so well.

In the morning we just hung out at my house. Emily and I loaded up on coffee as we played with Ella during the morning. I made us some grilled cheese sandwiches and veggie soup. One of our favorite meals. We went grocery shopping after Ella’s morning nap, then returned to lay around for awhile before Sara’s birthday party at Rachel’s. Sara, my mom and London stopped by to visit afer seeing High School Musical on Ice.

The party that night was very fun. Rachel made a bunch of pasta that the kids loved and I picked up awesome salads from Casa’s. And we were all so happy the weather was finally nice. The kids got to play on the swing set and Grant’s big bouncy house he got for Easter.

Afterward, another night of hanging out having a few drinks followed — at my house this time. Am I in college again? Well, not quite. We only had the energy to watch bad realty television and stay up until about 12. By the way, I really don’t care to see Danny Bonaduce ever again. His latest reality show features desperate stage moms bringing their kids to him to help make them stars. That’s just wrong on so many levels.

Sunday, was basically another day of hanging out, coffee drinking, and … Rock of Love! Yes, apparently Rock of Love is on at 11 a.m. Sundays. We people with Tivo-like recording systems have no idea when shows are on anymore. I just check my recordings everyday and hope for the best.

So, we ate our (awesome) black bean quesadillas and watched Bret Micheals continue his noble quest for his “rock of love.” It was a good episode too. They brought different family members on to reveal more about the remaining girls. We about died when Daisy’s ex-boyfriend’s sister came on. She keeps trying to claim there’s no connection anymore with him. The episode really got good when they all sat down to watch a taped concert of Brett’s. Destiny danced around like a groupie in the front row hoping for a backstage pass. It was so weird. Did you catch that her family was there? And they were all sitting in a living room watching a taped show? Thankfully she got the boot at the end. And we were really on the edges of our seats when Daisy announced that she had something else to tell Brett. Yes! Another juicy story from Daisy’s past! But it was only to tell Brett that Destiny said she didn’t “love” Brett, like she did. Oh girls. How did they know you’d make such a good show?

Later Emily and I decided we really needed to do a test shopping run in Fort Wayne. We had a trip to the outlets in Fremont planned for Monday, but we couldn’t wait. So, we hit the mall for a couple of hours. Emily is so funny shopping. She has the most dramatic reactions. She saw a necklace and bracelet she wanted and said “I’m not sure I can live without this.”

That night we had another party at my mom’s. Lately it’s become kinda common for us to take our kids and go hang out at my mom’s house on a Sunday, and eat a fabulous meal my mom’s prepared. Sara calls this the “meal plan.” It’s just like those glorious days of college, before real responsibility sank it. We’d just wonder over to the cafeteria with our meal card in hand and choose from the many different food options. Now, it’s my mom’s house. And the meal is always awesome with lots of side dishes and fresh fruit and vegetables. Love you mom.

Afterward, my dad took me, Emily, my nephew Grant, my neice London and Ella for a ride in a wagon, pulling it with his 4-wheeler. He went very slow, but I still was really nervous having Ella with me. It was so nice out though and the land is so pretty behind my parents’ house.

The next day all of us girls went shopping – me, Em, Sara, my sister-in-law Rachel and my mom. It was really fun. We really stocked up on clothes for our kids and ourselves. Sara’s kids sure got a lot of jammies. We teased her a lot about buying Finn 9 pairs of pajamas. But she said, “Well, there are 7 days in a week, people.” I bought Ella some shoes that are to die for. And of course when I showed Emily each pair she said something like “Well, are these the cutest shoes you’ve ever seen in your life or what?” Love it!

We did have somewhat of an intervention when our mom picked up some sparkly/sequence looking little loafers. Sara said it looked like she should be at a bowling alley. I thought they looked like something Micheal Jackson would wear. Sorry mom.

We had an awesome lunch at Ruby Tuesday’s too. Their salad bar is so good. I teased Sara and pointed out that they had carrots. It’s the only thing she puts on her salads.

So we had a great, great time. We hope Em comes up every year for her spring break. She did mention that maybe when our kids our older they could come stay with her over their spring break. Sara really liked the idea. She said “We should do this every year Em, until of course, that year when we send all our kids down.”

How could I resist these shoes?