LONG Weekend

Whew. I'm pooped! It's bad when you need to come back to work just to recover from the weekend. And that is especially bad if the weekend didn't even involve any alcohol beverages and Waffle House trips at 2 am!

My parents came down for the weekend and we set out to conquer quite a list of chores. H was working, so he foolishly thought he would be let off the hook. Little did he know....our kitchen sink and my dad had other plans.

Friday night we rode down to The Wharf in Orange Beach for the Zac Brown Band concert. I only go to few concerts every year, and most of them are Widespread Panic shows so this was a treat for me. Plus it's really nice to do something fun with the parentals every now and then. I realized my mom obviously hasn't been to a concert or sporting event in about 15 years because she was shocked and appalled by the $6 beers. Note to mom: Don't ever go to the Super Dome where Bloody Mary's are $12 and domestics are $8! The bleachers are much more uncomfortable when you are 6 1/2 months pregnant, but other than that it was a blast. And it was cute to see mom and dad snuggling and dancing to the slow jams.

Saturday morning, my parents where up with the chickens AS USUAL. Apparently no one ever told them that weekends are for sleeping in because they were up at the crack of dawn. Seriously--we had walked the dogs, gone out for breakfast, and taken showers before 8. Sigh. Unfortunately I will never break them of this habit. Trust me--I've tried.

Mom and I set out to register for baby items. It is just as much fun as it sounds! I'm not really much of shopper, it's just never been my cup of tea. I'm good for an hour or so and usually one or maybe two stores. But all day trips are just not for me. I think it stems from an incident in my childhood that I refer to as "The Living Room Curtain Debacle of '94". It was a terrible, horrific day of my life that involved my mom dragging me to multiple department stores in and around the Wiregrass area in search of living room curtains. We spent 9 hours looking at-you guessed it-curtains. And we went back to the same stores more than once to "get a second look" at things. I eventually passed out from exhaustion in the floor of Dillards and got a good 2-hour nap.

It took me an hour to pick out my wedding dress, if that tells you how hard that whole experience was for me.

Anyway....back to my point. She really helped me with the registeries because if it would have just been H and I, we would be lost. As a matter of fact, our first trip to Babies R Us should have been filmed we were so clueless! So now we will have a ton of stuff, even if we don't know how to use half of it! Who am I kidding--I don't even know the purpose for half of it! And mom had me registering for everything under the sun. I bet the CEOs of Graco and Walmart are sitting in their plush offices having a good 'ol laugh at the suckers who find it necessary to buy some of this stuff. And then they go out on their yachts and toast to my mom--the lady who thinks it's necessary to buy a mesh sack to wash baby clothes in. Because obviously you can't just put clothes in the washing machine!

Meanwhile back at the ranch...dad was busy fixing a leak in our kitchen sink, which I thought meant replacing the washer in the faucet. I came home to discover my husband and dog under the house and half of the backside of it laying in the yard. Apparently our drain pipe was half rusted through and the contents of our garbage disposal have been piling neating under our house for the past few years. Yum.

After MANY enjoyable hours of my dad (the perfectionist) and his son-in-law (still tired from his night shift the previous night) working on the pipes AND 7 trips to the local hardware store, everything was patched up and ready to go. I bought pizza for my labor crew and they settled in to watch a bootleg copy of True Grit while I hit the hay at the exciting hour of 9 pm.

Woo hoo for Saturday nights!

Good thing I went to bed early because I was up early AGAIN the next morning. But sadly not early enough to catch the sunrise trip to Krispy Kreme donuts that our two houseguests took. So mom and I walked the pooches while daddy did a final inspection on his handywork from the day before.

And lo and behold...the dang pipe was leaking again! Arghhh. It's enough to make a saint cuss--and he did, actually! But after one trip to Lowe's and about 3 more hours worth of work--the pipe was repaired and the giant gaping hole in the back of my house was patched. Patched with plywood, but it was patched nonetheless.

Then mom and dad got the heck out of dodge before he found another task to tackle.

And I promptly took a 2 hour nap to recover from my hard job of supervising the repairs.

Overall, it was really a great weekend. Dayleigh's room is painted, furniture is en route as I type, and the registries are DONE. I kid and joke and give them a hard time, but it's always great when I get to see my parents. I love them dearly and they provide some nice perspective into the Hysterical District. Plus my mom likes to clean, which is an added bonus!

And she can always find some dog hair to sweep up!