January 09, 2017

Baby shower weekend

After a super crazy weekend, I'm so looking forward to a few low-key days.

On Friday, my sister (along with Shawn and her friend Jen) drove here from Illinois. Once they got to the Michigan/Indiana border, the roads were TERRIBLE due to the lake effect snow on the western side of Michigan. So, they had to pull off the road and get a hotel for a few hours while the salt trucks went out. I was really worried they wouldn't be able to get here, but after four hours at the hotel, they were able to get on the road again.

On Friday night, we celebrated Eli's birthday. He wanted to go out for wings at the local bar, so my parents, brothers, and sister all went out for his birthday. It was super fun, and Jeanie ended up winning $144 at Keno (and Jen, her friend, won $72)! I was chatting too much to play, but my luck may not have been as good as theirs.

On Saturday, my mom called me to say that she wasn't sure if we should eat the rice that I'd made on Thursday. I made 50 servings of rice on Thursday for the Javanese lunch we planned to have at Becky's shower on Saturday. Apparently, when my mom was looking up the best way to reheat rice, she discovered that rice can be a major cause of food poisoning. (I won't get into all the details here, but if you Google it, you may be as surprised as I was!). So, on Saturday morning, I went about making 50 MORE servings of rice to use instead of the stuff that I'd made ahead of time. Thankfully, it all worked out well. (Chances are, the rice I'd made ahead would have been fine, but we didn't want to risk it).

Becky's shower was great! We had it at my mom's house, because she has a huge back room that works well for parties. When Becky was opening gifts, there was one from my aunt that was just awesome--her son, Kevin, and my brother, Brian, were really close growing up (they are the same age). Somehow, Brian's middle school project (an autobiography) wound up at my aunt's house, and she recently came across it. She put it all in a binder and gave it to him at the shower.

He read a few things out loud, and this one was almost eerie! He wrote that he wants to be a pilot for NorthWest when he grows up--and that's exactly what he did. (NorthWest eventually became Delta.)


I bought the baby a little pilot outfit and an airplane bouncer/jumper (photos are from Amazon, because I forgot to take pictures):


I also knitted a baby blanket in the colors of the nursery. It's been fun to work on it!


After the shower, I packed an overnight bag to head to Brian and Becky's house. My kids, parents, siblings, and spouses all went over there for dinner on Saturday night (Brian made filet mignon, and it was amazing, even coming from someone who doesn't care much for steak), and then my parents took Noah and Eli home with them while the rest of us spent the night. We had a lot of laughs, especially when trying to take a family photo (Brian has the photos on his camera, so I'll have to wait until I get them to share). Somehow, this blurry outtake is the only one I have on my phone, haha:

Jeanie wanted us all to wear Lions shirts, because of Saturday's game

Yesterday, Brian made eggs Benedict. We had a relaxing morning with mimosas before saying goodbye and parting ways (Jeanie, Shawn, and Jen went back to Illinois). Jerry and I went to pick up the kids, because Eli's birthday party was at the bowling alley yesterday afternoon. First, I took Eli to get his hair cut. There is a YouTuber that Eli likes, and he's been growing his hair out so that he could get it cut like this particular YouTuber. It ended up turning out so cute! And of course, he enjoyed his party.


When we got home, Jerry and I worked on cleaning the house. It took a beating this weekend while we were in and out so much, and I never had a chance to clean anything. It's amazing how messy a house can get in just a couple of days, especially when I wasn't even here to mess it up! It felt really good to go to bed with a clean house, though.

Today, I'm going to work on catching up on everything--laundry, blogging, grocery shopping, etc. I've been thinking about my blog a lot lately, and I'm thinking I'd like to get back to the informality of posts like when I first started Runs for Cookies. That might mean writing a post full of things to say; but also, I might simply just post a photo and a caption for that day--it all depends on what/how much I have to say (if anything at all). I know I've made so many changes recently, but I'm still figuring out where I want to go from here. I'm just going to wing it for now, until I figure it all out.

A few people have asked me about my virtual 5K this year. Sadly, I decided not to do it this time. When I first did the virtual 5K, it was for my 31st birthday (3.1 miles for age 31). It was super fun, and had a great turnout, so I decided to do it again for three more years. This year, however, I'm going to just focus on having a relaxing birthday without an agenda. But don't let that stop you from running or walking 5K in the freezing winter, though! ;) I always love seeing pictures from people's runs.

Speaking of, it has been SO COLD here lately! I used to really like the cold, especially for running; but, the older I get, the harder it is to tolerate. It's been really difficult to stay motivated to run when the temp is in the single digits. But, now that I'm officially training for Indy, I just have to do it. I'll probably be spending a lot of time at the rec center for my runs, but it just sounds much more tolerable than running when I can't even feel my face ;)

6 comments:

  1. Sounds like a fun weekend, I love that airplane bouncer!

    Bummer about the virtual 5k, but hey it's your birthday and it's about what you want to do! Maybe you could host a run some other time of the year just for kicks! I always enjoy seeing your post-run report and all the different ages that read. :)

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  2. One of my sons based his hairstyle on a YouTuber as well. Kids!

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  3. Eli is such a little stud!! Sounds like a great weekend! I completely understand your decision not to do the virtual 5K. I can't imagine how much work that is! Besides, I'm out of running commission right now anyways due to an ankle injury ;)

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  4. Cute hair!! Very 50s--love it!!

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  5. That blanket is beautiful! Such a cute bouncer too.

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  6. Sounds like a very weekend had by all!
    Eli's hair looks great, very stylish!
    I love your blog and always enjoy your posts :)
    Stay warm!

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