The weekend was huge and we are exhausted – which I’m not sure how you are supposed to feel after a long weekend?! But anyway – it was fabulous. Bill turned 40. Happy Birthday to you gorgeous!
Memorial Day is beautiful here – and even moreso upstate where people really know how to show their patriotism. Flags, flags and flags – it is stunning. People also kind of spin out here over this weekend because it means summer is basically here. So people get all excited and soak up the sun. I kind of just groan and moan about the humidity and start counting down until those days in October where the breeze at 4pm turns cool and it is time for the coats to come out. I have to say – the novelty of four actual REAL seasons is something I don’t think I will ever get sick of here!
Apologies in advance – I took NO real photos this weekend.
So in point form –
* Memorial Day weekend started with one of the best pedicures I have had in my life – and it is just around the corner from home. SCORE!
* We got our Zipcar and the feral creatures who had it before us left it FULL OF DOG HAIR OVER EVERYTHING. Not cool. At all.
* It was our first time driving to Albany where we had to cross the Brooklyn Bridge at the start of our trip. It was way cool driving over it ourselves.
* Bill started celebrating his birthday with a guy night at Dan’s boating around their lake and cooking steaks and doing boy things like that. I on the other hand achieved a personal milestone. I drove. By myself. On the interstate. Rocking along to the country radio station. I was so excited I missed the exit for the mall.
* I got lost and ended up in Schenectady.
* I turned around, got my bearings and got to the Mall. 35 minutes later than I planned.
* I LOVED BEING IN A MALL!! I got more shopping done (ie I had 4 shopping bags) than I have in the 2 years in the city. Reasons why shopping at the mall was better than shopping in the city – there was actual STOCK in the stores, I didn’t have to line up for 20 minutes for a transaction, I didn’t have to think about how I was going to get purchases home, there were no tourists, I got to walk around in air conditioned comfort and if something wasn’t there I could just go into the next store – rather than travel another hour in another direction to go to the other store I’d like to.
* I then headed over to have dinner with Colette. We sat on the front porch, drinking raspberry lemonade, watching bunny rabbits hop around their garden and enjoying the gorgeous dusk and greenery. I thought I understood what ‘greenery’ was – but I really didn’t We then had a lovely dinner to make up for the boys night happening 30 minutes away!
* On Sunday morning we had a meeting with Cylon the music minister at Holy Spirit, to go over the music for our ceremony. As the wedding is going to be so small, my concern was selecting hymns that required a lot of singing when there isn’t going to be the crowd to sing. I actually emailed Cylon today to let him know that I’d be quite happy with How Great Thou Art being sung right through the ceremony…! 😉 But regardless, he was a great help and all the musical selections have been confirmed.
* We then had a family birthday feast for Bill’s birthday. Eileen bought along the cake and it looks like we now know the place where the wedding cake will be coming from as well. Yeah! In America the wedding cake is a HUGE deal. No fruit cake and almond icing here… it is a really big part of the whole day.
* We then set about doing our usual trip to Albany routine. Shopping and stocking up on staples to take advantage of the cheap prices out of the city. We filled the car. Oops.
* We had a fantastic dinner at the Italian restaurant Bellini’s in Slingerlands (love the town names!) Some of the best gnocchi I have eaten!
* We then had a drive thru bagel for breakfast, took a trip back in time by visiting the local K-Mart – it was like the twin of the K-Mart at Northcote Plaza!
* After one last visit, we hit the road – taking the historic route 9 (our favourite way home!) and making it a 5 hour drive home. One minute we were cruising through gorgeous scenery and the next… we were in Times Square.
View from the dash –
A major part of our trip I have excluded. We had an Amazon order waiting for us in Albany… our Kitchen Aid mixer. With LOTS of accessories. I will be doing a full post on it – but we got the Kitchen Aid Professional 600. It is one of the most beautiful pieces of kitchen equipment I have ever laid my eyes on. This is how our new baby looked straight out of the box –
I have wanted one of these for probably close to ten years… it is also something that Bill has always wanted. Now – we have it! Just absolutely beautiful. As well as having the meat grinder and pasta maker they also had a special deal on that meant we get the ice cream maker for free. SCORE!
PS – I’ve joined the #blogeverydayofjune crew – lots of my fellow library pals back in Australia have just created a flurry of excitement in the blogosphere with this initiative so I had to join in. Sally has a whole list of participating librarians on her site.