Fun, Family and Friends

I managed to make it out of Massachusetts on Friday during the storm. Hubby was super sweet and drove me to the airport on the messy roads. The only airline flying out (lucky for me) was Southwest. I not only made it to Baltimore, but my flight was only about 10 minutes late! I have to say, I was quite impressed.

Saturday was spent with family - I love hanging out with my cousins, and do so every chance I can get. We are all really close. M just turned 5 in February and for his birthday, all he asked for were gift cards to Toys R Us. He used them all to buy this.

The iCoaster. Is it me, or does it seem like everything these days has an "i" in front of it? The thing is pretty cool though. The little ball that goes around the track is magnetic, and it has a little elevator it goes up and a trampoline it bounces off of. The gates the ball goes thorough even light up. The picture only shows about half the set up. It also plays funky beat box type music as it goes. The "i" part I guess comes in because you can plug your iPod into it and play music from there instead. We played with this for quite a while.

While M was busy with the iCoaster, my other little cousin, S who is 6, kept herself busy.

My sister is such a good sport. I avoided the face painting and opted to take pictures instead. S got her face painted as a skunk, and she then painted my sister into the rare and noble white tiger. Luckily they were water soluble paints and came off pretty easily.

Sunday morning I met up with my surrogate knitting group - I missed you girls!

Lolly, me, Jolene and baby Joe, Jody and Colleen. We had a great time just hanging out, drinking coffee and tea and catching up. It had been way too long!

Sunday afternoon before Naomi and I headed back home, we went bowling. Dave and Busters over at Arundel Mills Mall was a pretty darn neat place to bowl.

Between the huge TV's and the glowing balls, they had comfy booths to sit in and automated scoring. Guess the lanes around me are still in the dark ages!

The drive home was quick and uneventful. I did get some knitting done on both my Sigrid sock and the Merletto mitt. The end of both projects is near!

Recovery

It really feels like last week never happened. It was here and gone so fast I don't really remember it. All the driving and franticness has now passed and life is restored to (semi)normalcy. After we finally got home from Westminster in the storm, I found everyone where they should be. (do you think our house is a little cold? A blanket and 3 dogs weren't enough - he needed the hat too...)

Cozy on the couch. We were doggie sitting for Diana (the brown blob behind his knees) who is the cuddliest Rhodesian Ridgeback I've ever met. Everyone seemed to ride out the storm just fine....
I did manage to pick up the nasty bug that has been going around somewhere between New York and Maryland. I haven't been this sick in a while. Luckily my sister has a very comfortable couch as I spent all of Friday and most of Saturday on it. I missed a meetup with Colleen and some of the other Maryland knit buddies I've made - they went to a new yarn store, and it looks like they had lots of fun. I don't get to see them too often, so I was really disappointed I had to miss it, but I was feeling so horrible, and coughing so badly, there was no way I could go.

Saturday I managed to get medicated enough to go to my cousins birthday party at Pump It Up. This place is crazy - they have all kinds of inflatable slides, obstacle courses and places for the kids (and adults!) to jump around. All indoors!

The kids had a blast and wore themselves right out. Even hubby got in on the fun!

The slides were pretty fast - I think they were coated with something to make them even faster than just the regular plastic they were made of.

I wish I had more knitting content. I was so sick that I didn't even knit most of the time I was down there. Looking at the needles moving made me really nauseous. Not good. No progress was made on Aldebaran - in my fog of sickness I even forgot to have my sister try it on! The second Broken Cable Rib sock is now through the gussett and on to the foot. I worked a bunch on it last night to try and catch up. I picked it up and it felt like I hadn't knit in ages! I'm still coughing like crazy but am determined to kick this thing. I hate being sick!!

We did get great news while we were down in Maryland though - we will be doing another vacation this summer on the Outer Banks!! Our family has done a vacation every year for the past 4 years or so on the Outer Banks, and last year in Delaware. It is a lot of fun, sun and sand! We didn't think we were going to do one this year as everyone is traveling a bunch, and didn't think we'd have time, but my aunt came through! She's rented a house for the end of July and I couldn't be more excited! I love the beach! Something to look forward to....warm weather.....