Weekend Recap

Hope you had a great weekend, whether it was packed with fun or spent relaxing.

Kristin brought home her school pics on Friday. It hit me that this is the last time this will ever happen for me as a mom. That is to say, next year she will be a senior, so there will be expensive studio photos, but no more of these traditional little photos. No more deciding what to wear on "picture day" at school. Sigh. This is my baby, and every teeny little step along the way of her growing up stings just a little.

Saturday morning, the three of us, Katie, Jorge and I, trekked out once again to Kristin's XC meet, where I hunted for the elusive "money shot" of Kristin running in the race--a pic where she does not appear to be running in London fog or is disguised as someone else's kid. Or a tree.

So here we are before her race. Just look at that face--an expression of her true feelings about us being there with camera in hand.


And please note what supportive, involved, maniacal parents we are, prepping her muscles and giving her pep talks beforehand.




And I'm pleased to report this serendipitous photo op:


Yes, I finally snapped a couple of her that are decent. So that quest was finally over, but my chase for the smack-talkin' inspirational team t-shirts was still on.

Like this one, for example: "Run like you stole something." Nice.


Or how about this one, a quote from Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights:


And there were a few more gems such as:

"The wolf is only as strong as the pack, and the pack is only as strong as the wolf."
"Our sport is what your team does for punishment."
"We don't run pretty fast. We are pretty, and we run fast." (Girls' team.)
Or how about this quirky one: "Insert clever team t-shirt message here" between parentheses.

After XC, we came home and cleaned the house and went to the grocery to get food for a surprise 50th birthday party I hosted for my sister-in-law, Cathy, on Sunday.

Here she is coming in the door as we yell, "Surprise." Note that we live in London, which is also foggy indoors, even though it looks like I might have blurred this picture, which we all know from the XC meets I never do. And then we all said in our best Cockney accents, "'Appy birfday, gurhlie!"


Here is another of my special effects shots called, "Double Blind: Flash Ricochet!"


Here is her son, Travis, and his 8 month old son, her first grandchild:


Here is the birthday girl with her cake:


Here is one of the gifts I gave her, wind-up grannies with walkers who race each other. These were so cute I almost didn't let her take them home.


Here is the entire group following my order to make a goofy face, which is probably my favorite family portrait of the fam ever:



Finally, I battled allergies all weekend with massive amounts of Benadyl and Claritin and ate my weight in sugar.

How about you? How was the weekend?

Tomorrow: Preview Wednesday's Random Dozen meme questions--get a headstart!