Whew!

What a busy weekend! My sister was here, so it seemed like we were constantly on the go – I can’t believe we packed in so much over two days.

Jen and I spent most of Saturday in NYC. I bought the tix last year, but the date finally arrived: we saw “The Boy From Oz” starring Hugh Jackman. The show itself was a little boring, but Hugh Jackman was phenomenal – our favorite part was his interaction with the audience – he picked out a couple ladies in the audience and teased them all throughout the show. Hilarious and really showed off Jackman’s natural sense of humor (since it was all ad libbed in character). And for the record, Hugh Jackman is HOT HOT HOT.

Jen brought the couch pillows that my mom made to go with the valances we just put up. They are fabulous and I’m so glad I can get rid of the ugly pillows we were using in the meantime!

Sunday was a quieter – after church we vegged out in the living room and watched “Mystic River” – a pretty good movie, although at 1:24 into the movie I figured out what would happen (it had an hour to go). I think I may have actually PAUSED the DVD player to announce how I thought it would end to my sister (who had already seen the movie). Sure enough – I was right! Didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the movie though – Tim Robbins definitely deserved the nomination (although the WIN I’m not so sure about), and Sean Penn was great (again – deserved the Oscar nom but the win, I don’t know). I must say I love Clint Eastwood’s directing style – very low key and simple, but powerful all the same. One of his other movies, “A Perfect World”, is just as much fun to watch.

Last night we housed a mini-childcare for our church since our neighbor was hosting a committee meeting next door. While the childcare workers played with the kids downstairs Jen and I hibernated upstairs and Denis took CootieGirl out for a long walk. When Denis brought CootieGirl back I changed her into her swimsuit and we went to our other neighbor’s house to use their pool for a few minutes. CootieGirl continues to love the pool. By the end of the 30 minute “session”, we had CootieGirl standing at the top of the ladder (held by Jen) and she almost jumped off the step into my arms (I held her hands while she “jumped”). My little water baby…I’m going to have to make an effort to get over the YMCA on the weekends for family swim time.

After childcare was over, Jen, Denis and I divvied up some poker chips and played for about an hour and a half. At some point I was down 3/4s of my chips, but then had two stunning hands (straight to K and straight to Ace) and managed to make back all but three of my chips. I was thrilled by that, considering how bad my luck has been lately. We weren’t playing for money – just for practice, but Jen enjoyed the hands-on experience.

We all went to bed early – but then Denis realized he hadn’t seen Stinky in a few hours, so he looked all over the house for her. I knocked on Jen’s door and asked if she had seen her lately, and she said yes. Then I remembered that I saw her at some point during the poker game in the kitchen. After scouring the whole house despite my opinion that Stinky was fine but just hiding, Denis put on shoes and went outside with a flashlight to see if she had gotten out somehow. After he went outside, I went to the basement – she wasn’t there. I then went up to the attic and just as I heard Denis come in the house I looked under the bed in our attic and voila – Stinky was snoozing away quite contentedly under there.

Jen goes back to VA this morning (she’s probably on the road already).

Oh, and by the way – she thought the burgundy painted cabinets in the bathroom looked fabu.