The Rest of the Story

My mom used to listen to Paul Harvey on the radio in the car. I can remember the tone and everything when he would say, "And now for... the rest of the story."

So, I slept like a rock at April's house. I was exhausted! I barely made it to midnight. I woke up twice, I think, but each time I went right back to sleep and dreamt each time. So I know I was sleeping hard! April had to go to work at 9:00, and I heard her leave. But I stayed there with Courtney until April's mom got there. I didn't even get out of bed until 10:15. Courtney had been up since sometime around 7 and was downstairs watching cartoons. April's mom got there around 11:05, and she brought these huge chocolate-covered donuts from a place called Lamar's, which is in Oxford, AL. That was seriously a huge donut. I ran up to the library where April is working to pick up a book that is always checked out at my library. And it fits into my medical horror genre, so yay! It's The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen. Yes, Christina, I know I said I'd wait and read your copy of the book. But I have to have 5 medical horror books, and I am struggling at finding good ones! I like Tess Gerritsen anyway, but I have read all her books except this one. But anyway, so thanks April! You are awesome! I went to the 12:00 session at the Temple before returning home. I talked to my mom on the way home, as well as Brad (who had called me the night before when I was watching My So-Called Life, and he made fun of me for it, which he used to do 12 years ago as well). They were all getting ready for the combined birthday party for Benjamin and Desiree. Both Christina and Tarylyn blogged about it, so if you want to see pictures, click on their blogs! My sweet babies are growing up.

Once home, I essentially dropped my backpack full of stuff, changed clothes, watered my flowers, and met Virginia to head over to Jeni's Pampered Chef party. That was fun. We learned about power-cooking. One of these days I'm going to be rich enough to afford all the Pampered Chef products that I want ;). Until then, I will settle for what I purchased while at the party: a meat drain guard thingy (this will come in handy), and the measure-all cup. Both of these are things I will use, so I feel like they were a good investment. Oh, and I also got a free 7-inch bamboo spreader with any purchase. So there's that too... I will say I didn't like the bamboo salad tongs. During the power cooking, the chef made a cheeseburger salad for us to eat while we were there (and Jeni made this chicken broccoli braid, which was divine). The food was wonderful (I did have my camera, but then I thought people would think I was nutty if I took pictures...).

After this, Virginia and I went to Coldstone for ice cream. I got the All lovin' no oven again. It's the 2nd one in the picture. Yum. Anyway, this was my birthday present to Virginia (I was sworn to secrecy at the time, but I think it's okay to say it was her birthday now :)). Then Celeste (she and I work together in nursery at church) came over and we all went down to Circuit City in hopes that I could get Hope Floats for $4. But they were sold out :(. But I did buy Julie's Christmas or birthday present... So Julie, that movie you keep telling me you don't own (surprisingly), you will own it soon. So don't buy it for yourself :)! Then we returned to my apartment and played the "I Love the 80s" board game. Whew, that lasted until about 11:30, and I was pretty bushed by then. Oh, and Virginia won. It was harder to play with only three players, because it's a team game. I forgot that little detail... Oh, but here we are. And please ignore my vastly-sized cranium. I'm telling you Elka, I have a humongous head. Yikes. In this picture, I'm blaming it on perspective. But even so... My head is ginormous!
So, I called Christina around 12:30 to see how the birthday party went for the kids. She said it was good. They had 2 cakes. Apparently Desiree started the day by being a little pill. But, she knew it was me on the phone and I could hear her in the background tell Christina, "I want to talk to Aunt Hawla." So so sweet. How can you not just want to grab her up and hug her and squeeze her??? And then, shortly thereafter, I crashed once again.

Sunday morning was very rainy and stormy! Great weather for sleeping. I do not know where my umbrella is (I thought it was in the car, but I was wrong). So, I got wet going to my car in the morning and also going into church. Oh well. After church, I went to Virginia's and tried copying one of the family video DVDs. Virginia's Play Station wouldn't played the finished product, though, so I only copied one and wanted to take it home to make sure it would play in my DVD player before copying the others. So, before I left, Virginia made some beef stir fry for us to eat for lunch. It was very good. Perhaps I need to invest in a wok. That seems to be a cool way to cook stuff up. I left Virginia's at about 2:45 and got home and put the DVD in to play. Good news! It works! I let it play the whole way through (4 hours!) just to make sure it was all there and complete. And it was! I was such a cute little 3-year-old :). I really was a tattler (on Brad). I can't believe I was the same age in that video that Desiree and Samuel are now. Sigh. It's really unbelievable. Probably one of the cutest things I say to my dad is this: "Daddy, are you taking a picture of me?" And he says, "Yes, hon." And I say, "Of me standing on this wock? (rock)." And then I have this cute little smile. Yep... I was once a sweet, innocent little thing ;).

Anyway, that sums up the rest of my weekend. Oh, except that hair-dryer died last night after my shower. I wasn't done drying it either. I will be purchasing a new one of these now, eventually...