Weekend Recap

We started out with a busy weekend planned, but we got lots of rain on Friday night and all day on Saturday. Anthony's cross-country meet (at 8am) was cancelled, and so were Eric's and Alex's soccer games (at 9am and 1pm, respectively). We didn't have to take Natalie early to her friend's birthday party/sleepover. Patrick and I were able to have plenty of time to get to the wedding we were invited to.

Because of the more open schedule, I was able to take Anthony shopping for a new dress shirt on Saturday. He wanted a black dress shirt that was more fitted, and then a creme-colored tie or something like that to match his date's dress. This was all in preparation for Homecoming which is next Saturday. We spent a good hour and a half trying on various shirts. The selection was a little more limited with black shirts that with white. It didn't help that his neck is only 14 1/2 inches around. Several of the shirts had arms that were too baggy for his liking. Finally, we found two that he was happy with. One was $69.50 and the other was on sale for $45. I asked him if he liked the $69.50 one enough to warrant the price difference. Luckily, he said no and we got the $45 one. I asked him remember this reasoning when it comes to choosing colleges. ;)

After shopping with Anthony, we picked up Alex from a birthday party/sleepover that was located near the mall. I have to say that it was weird dropping him off at a girl's house for a birthday party/sleepover, but he went last year and we saw no reason he couldn't go this year. After all, there were 20+ other kids there. He had a lot of fun and he even got about four hours of sleep. We are glad when he gets out there and socializes instead of playing video games at home all of the time.

Since Patrick and I were at the wedding, we couldn't take Anthony to a party he was invited to on Saturday evening. Instead, he was picked up by one of his friends, the girl who he is taking to Homecoming. The party on Saturday was a big shindig for another friend's 18th birthday party. Patrick picked him up after we got home from the wedding.

On Sunday, Alex's soccer game at 4:15pm was also cancelled, but Eric's soccer game at 1pm was still on. Figuring out when we were going to church wasn't straightforward. We ended up going to the 11am mass and Patrick and Eric had to leave after Communion.

I picked up Natalie from her sleepover just before going to church. She claimed to have gotten about 9 hours of sleep, but she ended up taking a nap after lunch to rest up for her swim tryout at 4pm. I may have mentioned this briefly already, but she's been swimming at our gym for a while (2 1/2 years, maybe?). She's had really good coaches there and she's gotten a lot of attention (meaning small groups) but she has always been lacking good competition. In August, she went to her first really big swim meet, and she did really well. The best part of it was she got "official times".

There's been some recent coach turnover at our gym, and the experienced coach (Coach Kris) is now at a local swim club. Our gym now has a very inexperienced coach and they haven't been able to tell us when they'll get another one. Partly because of Coach Kris, and because of those "official times" in August, Natalie was able to get one of the spots on their team. It'll be a little cheaper, although the location is farther. They have practices on Mondays through Fridays for 1 1/2 hours instead of the one hour she's been practicing. The best part is that two of her friends from our gym swim team are also going to be there, and so will be her previous coach. She's pretty excited all around. She went to the "tryout" today, but that was more of a formality. We'll be going to a lot more swim meets in the future. She starts tomorrow.

For those of you needing an "Eric fix", here's a picture I took tonight. I had asked him to show me his muscles, which he did with his right arm, but he made this weird shape with his left hand. When I asked him about it, he acted upset and said that it was something he had made up. I'm still not sure what that had to do with making muscles, but he loves making up his own stuff.

Speaking of making up stuff, Eric and I have recently modified the words to "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". Basically, every time you're supposed to say "star", we say "dinosaur" instead. He gets all giggly every time we sing it, which is every night at bedtime. For a long time now, he's had me sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to him whenever I put him to bed. He likes that song so much that we sing it twice each time.

Tomorrow will be the first time in the four years or so that Patrick will not be picking up Natalie from her school for piano lessons. Eric will have to take the bus without her. He did fine last Wednesday for Natalie's first cello lesson. Lots of growing and changing around here!