Crazybusybeautifulwonderful Weekend

I am still coming down from the energy and exhaustion of this great thanksgiving weekend! In a nutshell:

Friday
For the first-time ever, I ventured out on Black Friday. E, Claudia and I braved a local mall where it was of reasonable high patronage. No doors being broken down and certainly no fatalities (people really need to chill out no matter how many percentages they are going to save).

I didn't make any great deals, but did take care of 4 gifts and gave E some time in the play area.

When looking at the necklace Claudia got her mom and asking E if he thought it was pretty, his response was a heartfelt, "No, it's not pretty for boys."

We raced Claudia home, swung by the house got some stuff and ran to pick up his friend D and D's mom, Laura. I got an early Christmas treat from them - a box full of cool magazines, from a magazine swap she and I did - so we both got stuff that we never would get ourselves and it will be great down time to flip through the pages of the New Yorker, Paste or the Smithsonian. We took the boys out to the southeastern part of town to their favorite place - Pump it Up - where there was open bounce on Friday for two hours. A parents dream. Running, bouncing, squealing and chasing left the boys tired enough for us to take them to IKEA to hang in the play area while we shopped and I scored an early birthday gift for E - his first easel/art center.

At 5:00 we scooped the boys out of IKEA and raced them home and then to our place where I changed and took off for a little Lara time. Joining me for my free time was Claudia and Tristin and we saw what may be the best film of 2008 - MILK. Sean Penn was phenomenal as Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to a public office when he won the City Supervisor seat in San Francisco in 1978. Gus Van Sant does a fantastic job editing his footage with archival footage and the film contains all of the elements of a fantastic feature: Compelling story, strong script, outstanding acting by the entire cast (and Penn needs the Oscar for this one) and a really well cast show, at that. We finished up the night catching up over Mexican food, a real treat indeed.

Saturday
I was able to sleep in and hit another movie on Saturday. This time it was with Claudia and Deejah as we took in Four Christmases, the new Reese Witherspoon, Vince Vaughn flick. I just have to say that Vince Vaughn needs to make more movies. He is so great and charming and funny and fabulous. John Favreau needs to be in more movies and the scene of them all playing Taboo needs to go down in history as one of the funniest - especially if you are a Taboo! player - as we all are.

Deejah had to split, so we took in another dose of Mexican fare at one of our favorite places that we don't venture too all that often because of its proximity (or lack there of) to us. It was devine. Blue corn shredded beef tacos, whole beans on the side and fabulous chips and salsa. Their food is prepared in the same style as in Mexico and outside of not having an ocean in our view, it was almost as if we were back at Las Palomas.

A trip to the mall for another quick gift and home for super-sized story time with E - FIVE books! He said after that he wanted five books every night. We'll see how willing he is to get in bed when I actually ask him too, and if he does, I have promised five stories per night. It is my favorite time of day.

I finished the night in the wee hours of the morning, finishing up my annual holiday cd and artwork. This year's a goodie for sure!

Sunday
The morning started a little rough - four hours of sleep will do that to you - but I made it to the mountain with Claudia and E had a play date with Gramma Kathy while T went in for holiday hours. Claudia and I took a different, less strenuous path today as we are both nursing exhaustion and colds. It proved to be just the right amount of effort and the weather couldn't have been better. We followed our effort with the usual trip and winding down at Starbucks.

Back to the house for tidying up, some lunch and then off to pick up E. He and I were both tired and snuggled and watched Toy Story. T made it home in time to string up the lights and only one trip to Target was required for an extra extension cord.

I also took time today to prepare our holiday card, order the cards and envelopes and do a couple of loads of laundry.

To look back at everything...wow... a lot got accomplished this weekend. It was a good mix of have-tos and want-tos and it left just enough time tonight to sqeeze in some reading.