Weekend Wrap-Up: Beautiful Blogger edition

I'm a little late with this, but I have a good excuse. I was out of town this weekend, and am just now finding my way back into our regular routine.

We went to Arizona for a family party: my aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary. We stayed with my wonderful friend, and had a marvelous time!

We drove, and I was thrilled because I got this gadget so I can listen to my iPod in the car. I so love the Shuffle feature; keeps me from getting bored! Because I won the new iPod last weekend, I gave Riley my old iPod so there were times when the girls were stuck in their headphones and other times where they took them off so they could sing along with me. The drive was a lot of fun.

But it was way more fun when we got there. I got to spend some great quality time with my friend, and the girls get along with her son beautifully so we all had some fun just hanging out at her fabulous new digs. Oh, and the wine bar we went to was also great. Not too pretentious, good wine, good food (my fave was the bruschetta with dates and chorizo), and great conversation.

Saturday, we went shopping with my sister, then had lunch with her, her husband and my parents. Then we got to spend more time with our friends before heading out to the party.

Things have changed so much from when I first came back to L.A., and only felt like I knew a few cousins. Now I really enjoy the company of so many cousins and other family members. And the girls are really close to my cousins' kids so they had a blast, too. We all had a good time.

And then we went back to my friend's and opened another bottle of wine :) (Not the kids, obviously.)

The drive home on Sunday felt longer (of course), and the girls were crankier, but they just wanted to get home already, too. When we finally got home, we all retreated to separate rooms to enjoy some alone time.

I took Monday off work to do laundry and everything else that didn't get done on the weekend, and have to say, I especially enjoyed the quiet!

But now we're back in full force. I have a PTA meeting Tuesday night, a parent-teacher conference Wednesday, Open House on Thursday...oh, and of course, there's my job!

I also was happy to come home and discover that Vivianne's Vista honored me with this lovely award:



She might not be so pleased to discover that I'm going to break the rules of the award, which are:

* Thank and link the person who gave you the award,

* Pass the award to 15 bloggers you recently discovered and think are fantastic,

* Contact the winners and let them know they've won,

* State 7 things about yourself.

Well, of course, I'll say thank you to Vivianne! She's one of my newer bloggy friends, and I'm so pleased I found her (don't remember how).

And being a blogger means I have no trouble stating 7 things about myself:

1. My friend observed this weekend that I'm very calm in a crisis, and wow, this wasn't me for so long that I'm really proud of this change.

2. She also noted that I'm a total sap. She caught me teary-eyed while we were watching Sixth Sense. So not a movie you'd think of as a reason to cry, but yep, I got a little verklempt! And I sobbed during the Gilmore Girls series finale. Twice.

3. I'm really really bummed that my local grocery store has stopped carrying my favorite chili dark chocolate bar.



4. I only like dark chocolate. Don't like milk chocolate and HATE white chocolate.

5. I get lost very easily. We have a lot of construction going on in town (I'm convinced that our fair city got the lion's share of stimulus funds for transportation because I cannot currently get anywhere without running into road work), I even got lost on my way to work last week. I gave some very strong hints to my parents and my sister that I do not have a GPS, and it's my bday next month!

6. Songs that still leave me with chills whenever I hear them: "Defying Gravity" from Wicked, almost anything from Next to Normal, "Get Out and Stay Out" from 9 to 5, "Epiphany" and "Finale" from Sweeney Todd.

7. I broke my vow to never watch American Idol again. Because, you know, I'm not all that good with vows anyway!

So, clearly, the rules I'm not going to follow are about passing it on. I have been such a bad, bad bloggy friend lately that I'd be hard-pressed to find 15 winners that would actually remember me! Let alone, 15 that haven't already won this.

So if you are a blogger and you are reading this, consider yourself awarded!