They came from South Carolina . . .

. . . for a weekend visit (2 weekends ago). The grandparents - Babci and Grampy - that is, not some aliens.

We had a very nice weekend.

Saturday, was a quiet day. Uncle Sean came up and joined us. Then, the girls (and Sean) went to the bead shop while the boys ran some errands. Having Uncle Sean to entertain little hugs in the store was great - Babci and mom looked at beads (and bought) for over an hour! He kept her busy the whole time, first having her clean up the beads that had been dropped on the floor and handing them to the shop staff. Then, he answered her questions - "what is this?", "its a bead", "oh, a bead, what's this?", "this is also a bead", "oh, and what's this?", "a bead" (surprise!).

That evening, we went to Macaroni Grill for dinner. Luckily for the grandparents, who had been freezing since arriving in the great north (Maryland), we were seated next to the fireplace. Dinner was nice, but there was a problem with the order and poor Uncle Sean had to wait a while for his meal. Service was a little slow, probably more so for the grandparents, which is surprising since people in the south are supposed to enjoy a slower pace of life.☺ The kids had fun drawing all over the tablecloth and stayed entertained for the duration of the meal.

After kid bedtime, dad and Grampy watched an HBO movie, "Taking Chance", while the ladies worked on the crossword and sudoku. The movie is a true story about the trip a Marine escort takes to return the body of a young Marine to his family. For the full synopsis, go here. I think the guys enjoyed the movie and I, while trying not to watch a sad story, had a hard time not getting sucked in to parts of it.

Sunday, after mass, we headed to the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. The kids had never been and its been years since either of us have been there - college for me, probably high school for the hubby. Uncle Sean meet us there and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. The shmoo was fascinated by the various planes and rocket ships and couldn't resist running from display to display. Little hugs seemed less interested but still had fun. She's been talking about the "airplane and rocket museum" ever since and can't wait to go back.

Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

Pile on the bed (air mattress in the living room):
Not to leave out the Darby dog:
Some shots from the museum:

Serious man-to-man discussion about rockets:
The trip home on the Metro:
A little coloring with Babci Monday morning:
Everyone was sad to see the grandparents go on Monday although, I think the kids were much more affected - both had a terrible day at daycare. Little hugs received her first incident report (ever!) for kicking a friend. Definitely worse day ever. The shmoo had some trouble controlling his anger (short fuse, followed by yelling and stomping) and managed to get into a lot of mischief with his main partner-in-crime. Not sure it was the worst day ever but it made the top 5 list.

We're already looking forward to another visit. Hopefully next time will be a beach somewhere or in South Carolina with a ride on grampy's boat - this is something both kids are looking forward to.

Three Reviews

(OK, I'm already slacking. My second post was started 4 days ago and I'm just finishing it and sharing it today, January 29th.)

This past Thursday was a rare occasion for us - we watched a movie, on a weekday night, because, somehow, the kids were in bed and asleep(!) earlier than usual. The movie was one of my choices - "Someone Like You . . ." starring Hugh Jackman and Ashley Judd. I had recently finished reading Piece of Work by Laura Zigman and noticed on the inside, back cover that one of her other books, Animal Husbandry, had been made into a movie (in 2001, I'm a little out of touch). Small tangent - I've read all four of her books and would rate them in the following order: 1. Dating Big Bird, 2. Animal Husbandry, 3. Piece of Work, and 4. Her - which interestingly, is almost the order I read them in, just switch the last two. The movie was cute but it lacked that spark necessary for a really good romantic comedy. I'm still not sure if it was the script or the casting, maybe a little of both. I like Ashley Judd and Hugh Jackman but I think they lacked chemistry together.

Friday, I had my yearly review with my manager - he's not a project manager on my current project, so he's not familiar with what I do on a day to day basis, he's more of a personnel manager for me. I was actually pretty nervous going into it since last year's review went so terribly wrong. Long story short, I ended up yelling at my manager (yes, I actually raised my voice, and I can say that is the one and only time I've yelled at someone at work) and I slammed the conference room door on him (and right in the face of the next employee waiting for their review). Whoops. Anyway, this year went MUCH better - hard not to. I got the rating I feel I deserve and he said a lot of very nice things about me. We also had a nice conversation about our families (we have kids that are similar ages) and what I was planning on doing with my career in the next year. All in all, a great review and a much more pleasant experience, probably for both of us.

One more movie review. Friday night, we watch "Definitely, Maybe" with Ryan Reynolds and Abigail Breslin. A young girl convinces her divorcing dad to tell her the story of how he met and fell in love with her mother - only he combines multiple romances and changes names - and she has to figure out which one he ended up with. I thought it was pretty cute - I think we both enjoyed it. Although, sometimes I do get tired of the predictable endings in these romantic comedy movies.