This photo describes my weekend best. The feeling of cold, running water on tired, hot, & smelly feet. We had a long & harder than normal week which left us both feeling worn out. Nothing in particular happened, just one of those weeks. On the good side, it left us feeling mellow and quiet. Our road trips usually consist of us jabbering non-stop about the future, the past, and everything in between.. But this time we sat in silence. No radio, no voices… just watching the landscape roll by. At one point, though, we did have a staring contest with what we thought was a tiny alien on the hood of the car. Turned out it was the water sprayer for the windshield. It won.
As a reward for our vehicular decompression, we erupted in loud laughter at the sight of our welcome sign which included a photo of the horse from my previous post. I’d never noticed how forced my smile was. Foreshadowing the mountainside terror?
This is what we got to wake up to both mornings. Little J. & C. smiling nonstop (except for when Jack the frog escaped its box outside. We had to pause for some well-deserved lip trembles followed with questions about death & God.)
Saturday morning/afternoon, we headed for a state park and found a little nook of woods all to ourselves. We forgot half the food/drinks we meant to bring (even though we had 3 hours to pack), yet somehow survived. Instead we nibbled on a little of this and that, while trying to come up with nicknames for our husbands, who are both named R. It’s been rumored that I only married my R. b/c of his name in an attempt to model my entire life after K. (i.e. Single White Female). It all started with the dark-rimmed glasses junior year in college. Anyway, we came up with Slim and Twiggy. We tried to force it the entire day, but gave up after a few hours.
After lunch, we had a grueling water balloon toss. I employed the patented side lunge/volleyball dig (Coach B. would’ve been proud) while K. went for the standard Medjugorje stance. It probably would’ve taken a miracle for us to have a decent round.
Then, another exciting game of chase.
Followed by catch.
…And a walk through the creek. I managed to kidnap one of the peanuts on this journey.
This is a sign of a good day of fun.
But we still have the energy to take a classic self portrait. God forbid we go a day without one of those.
When we came home, some of us took naps, while the rest made cocktails. Namely, me & K. On the menu was pizza margherita with homegrown lettuce & arugula. I forgot to take photos of their garden which is bustling with beans, tomatoes, squash, eggplant, watermelon, & other stuff as well. Twiggy and I were salivating.
I made K demonstrate her heritage and got a great photo of Slim hollering out something in an italian accent as he slid the pizza onto the grill. He declined the opportunity to show his face on the blog, along with my husband. Which is why in all the photos Twiggy is shot from the back.
After pizza, we put the kids to bed and tried to recreate a night we had a few months ago, the last time we were up. We had played Loaded Questions and absolutely died laughing the entire night. The risk/reward ratio is always high when trying to recreate an experience, but we were determined. I think the first time we played, we were in such awe of our wittiness (well, their wittiness. I just take their answers and then tweak them as my own in future rounds) that we went in to Saturday night’s game cocky. It was still really fun, but now I think we know each other’s humor slant, so could easily pick out who said what in each round. I guess no one really knows what I’m talking about unless you’ve played the game. Let me know when you want to play. I’m there.
So Sunday we slept in and ate breakfast that Slim made. Classic eggs/sausage (from his brother’s plant) & bagels. Then R-squared went golfing while K. & I took a walk with the kids. She took a moment to sunbathe on a metal slide, while I tried out for the Olympic Gymnastics team. We ended up going home prematurely because of the humidity & heat and hung out in the a/c watching TLC home makeover shows (heaven!).
Twiggy & I left shortly afterwards for a smooth journey home. This time we really got to see the Iowan cornfields which, I know you will laugh, is really pretty! Your eye travels for miles with little blips of old white farmhouses on dirt roads. …And then I zonked out for 2 hours. Sorry Twigs. We can’t wait for our next trip up!
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