That was a weekend...

This was one of those weekends that you only do once in a great while. I suppose on the surface, it wasn't as much as I'm making it out to be. But when you add two little ones in the mix, it sort of increases the...oh, how would you say it...the exhaustion factor...exponentially. In other words, add one child...it doesn't just add one degree of exhaustion, it adds twice the degree. Add a second child...it doesn't just add two degrees of exhaustion, it adds four times the degree. See what I mean?

Friday night, Abigail decided to wake up in the middle of the night and have a problem going back to sleep. That was between 2-5am...or 3-6am...but who's counting? It was 3 hours of little or no sleep. She was gracious enough, as was Joshua, to let us sleep in till after 8. But we were still pretty tired. That morning, we packed up the kids and went to Lakewood to celebrate a surprise birthday party for Danielle's aunt. It was a cowboy western theme. So, we did our best to dress the part. Abigail was probably the best dressed in an outfit we got at one of the baby showers. It was one of those outfits that when we got it, we thought "that's a cute outfit...not sure I'd dress her in it...unless Danielle's aunt has a surprise birthday party with a western theme". Okay...not the last part. But personally, though the outfit was really cute, I really didn't think I'd dress her in it. But since pulling it out last month, we've probably put her in it 4-5 times including the surprise birthday party yesterday.

The party was a lot of fun. Her aunt was REALLY surprised. Got really emotional which almost got me tearing up. It was really special. The kids did great. They did some line dancing too. Threw me back to my line dancing days. Yes...truth be told...there was a time in my "younger days" when a group of us from the church college group (or was it the singles group) would head down to the Neon Cactus...at the Disneyland Hotel. It's not there any more...this was before Downtown Disney and all that. But they did line dancing and it was a lot of fun learning all the different types of dances. So, it was kind of cool to do some of these dances at the party and feel like I already knew how to do some of them. It was also fun holding Joshua or Abigail while doing them.

Left the party about 1:30 which is already getting past their naptime. Abigail fell asleep pretty quick while Joshua took a little longer even after we got home. Then after naps, we packed up the kids one more time - mostly getting food prepared for Abigail - and drove to Canyon Lake to a house warming party for some friends who just got married and moved out there. Canyon Lake is by Lake Elsinore, so it took a good hour or so to get there - with traffic. Had a good time seeing the house and visiting with friends. Got home from that about 9:45pm. Abigail had fallen asleep, but Joshua still needed some help. Nonetheless, that made for a long day.

Today, the big event was that our neighbors invited us to go to a Clippers game in the evening. So, we still had to prepare everything for those who would be watching our kids. But first we went to church in the morning. That's always a good time to get grounded, to worship and connect with friends. Afterwards, we did lunch and prepared for the evening. Immediately after naps, I took Abigail over to a friend of the family who was going to keep her overnight. We figured since we'd be home late, there was no sense in trying to transport Abigail home like that. Instead, we'll pick her up first thing in the morning. We had a neighbor girl who's in 8th grade watch Joshua for the evening. We met up with our neighbors around 5pm to start heading towards the Staples Center for the game which started around 6:30.

The cool thing about this opportunity is that we got to sit in the VIP section. It's not quite court level...one level up I guess, but you have a different entrance which isn't quite as crowded - in fact, it wasn't crowded at all - and you can order food to be served to you. You still have to pay...and the prices are as outrageous as you might expect. But at least you can have it served to you in your seat. Pretty cool thing really. Apparently, our neighbor has 2 Lakers season tickets. And there's some system where you can trade tickets with others...sounds similar to how you do exchanges with timeshares. But since Lakers tickets are such a hot commodity...and especially depending on the team they're playing, he can trade his 2 Lakers tickets (for a particular game) for 4 Clippers tickets...in the VIP section no less. So, that's how he got us there without paying extra. That's a good deal...especially since the Clippers aren't that bad of a team. They played the Orlando Magic tonight and whipped them by over 20 points.

We got home just after 10 and fortunately, Joshua was already asleep. Which was a good thing because we were wiped. So, it was a good weekend. But I'm glad it's over. I'm going to bed now!