1. Friday night party food | 2. Much-needed down time | 3. Annie's most favorite instagram photo ever | 4. FatMumSlim's Photo-a-day, every Saturday at baseball | 5. Waiting for Dinner | 6. No Frill Grill | 7. Norfolk @ Night, we took a drive (and it's not all tattoo parlors, really!) | 8. They take Callum for the night AND give us carrot cake? Really? | 9. Why do the dogs always come lie on the rug the second I've finished vacuuming? | 10. Better him than me on the roller coaster | 11. FatMumSlim's Photo-a-day, Father | 12. Finish off the night with ice cream (and another flooding rain storm, of course.)

So we've had a pretty nice weekend, all things being equal. Callum's weekend was pretty awesome-sauce, actually. Not at all shabby for the first weekend of the school year. We had a neighborhood get together on Friday night. Just a super-casual front yard gathering. My next-door bestie put it together when we realized that we've had a lot of turn over in the past several months and we barely recognize half of our neighbors these days. It was quite perfect actually. Although maybe a wee bit hot. Practically everyone on our block showed up at some point, and there were kids everywhere! The older kids played badminton and sardines and the littler kids rode their scooters up and down the sidewalks.

I took pictures, with the thought toward a blog post, but let's face it that kind of photography is simply not my strong point. Oh, how I wish it were. I had such high hopes. I haven't looked at my photos yet, but if there's anything good, I'll pop them on for Wednesday. Or maybe I'll do plums.

While I vacuumed and cleaned out the fridge, Callum had a sleepover, went paddle boarding, to an end of summer beach concert and then to Busch Gardens with Neel. See him there on the Alpengeist? More power to him; totally not my scene!

Neel has two grants due on Wednesday so this Labor Day weekend has been much about labor for him, for sure. If you've known me for any length of time, you know that this late-August/early-September time frame is always a rough one for us. Starting school, birthdays, I'm generally in the thick of headaches (although this year has not been that bad), and Neel is oftentimes totally snowed under at work. It's almost always hard. Are there any times of year that are like that for you? It's now for us, and January a bit too. Every year, we sink a little. But we'll pull it back from the brink. I've learned this much for sure. We always do.

As you can see from Annie's favorite instagram photo ever (!), our bathroom reno continues apace. Sort of. We've hit a bit of a snag. A snag besides the fact that the guys showed up and caught me and Callum in our jammies again. (To be fair, they'd apparently called the night before but because we were out with the neighbors we never knew.) I think we can work it out, but frustrating.

We did manage a nice dinner out while Callum was at his friend's house. Took some work to figure out what we wanted. For a small(ish) town, Norfolk has a lot of great restaurant options, and when you add in the beach there is plenty of wonderful food to choose from. We were too beat to head to the oceanfront and not really hungry enough to be in the mood for anything. We landed on an old standby where I was good and didn't order some of what I consider to be the best crinkle fries in the city! Neel and I never run out of things to talk about and there's been a lot going on lately, but we had a great talk at dinner Saturday night. Not just about what had been going on but how we were doing. Remember that whole busy vs. fulfillled thing I was talking about? Well, we're a bit of both, and it's not often we get to talk like this. We made some kinda big decisions. Ones I'm excited about. As usual, Neel didn't talk enough and we're on different timelines (right Neel?!), but all these things we'll get worked out. I'm ready to do something big. And I love how you think you can know someone so well, be so lock step with them in so many ways and think you'll know how they'll react to something and then poof! They surprise you! Marriage is crazytown sometimes.

It was so nice to have Callum back home. They got rained out of the park and came home in a rainstorm. He has a love hate relationship with sleepovers. He does love going, but my boy is a homebody at heart. It's hard not to love that about him.

We have a big week coming up. I hope you guys are off relaxing today. Poor Callum will be doing homework and Neel will be writing. Happy Labor Day to us! We'll (finally) do Callum's back to school dinner tonight. We always take him out to dinner for back to school. He always picks hibachi. What do you guys have going on? xo

Guys. We did it. We got him off to middle school. I am so proud of this kid. Doesn't he look pretty cool? He was nervous, but ready. He usually rides in with friends but asked that we take him in this morning, and Neel and I were happy to oblige on this first day. It's a whole new routine, dropping him off in a whole new part of the school. The security guard who directs traffic recognized our car, and started to direct us to the Lower School, but his smile was wide when Neel's blinker indicated that we needed to turn right, not left. I won't deny that I got a little teary after we dropped him off, but they were mostly happy tears. Mostly.

And we had just the best weekend to finish off the summer. On Friday, Callum and I got his books at the book store (now that was daunting!) and headed off to our end-of-summer tradition. I'll leave that story for Wednesday, if it's okay with you. You might be able to guess that it involves a boat. And lunch. Lunch with the best shoestring fries EVER! Couldn't pass them up! The kids in the neighborhood are starting school in stages, with a chunk having started last week, a group today and then another batch after Labor Day. So we're all starting to gather on porches in the evening to see how everyone is faring with their fresh starts. It's an exciting time. The weather has been exciting too. I woke up Saturday morning to thunder and lightning (and a headache of course), and it's so muggy and damp that things feel decidedly tropical. Callum and Neel slowly wandered downstairs and we had a lazy morning as the rain beat down. Right up until the doorbell rang at 10. Nice. It was our bathroom guy. Yay! We were all still in our jammies. Boo. Um, yeah. That wasn't fun. Neither was the fact that Neel decided to show these guys both bathrooms without telling my so I had so dash ahead of them and make sure my bra was whisked out of the way. But the exciting news is that we have a plan, you may be able to see from one of these photos that demo might have actually started.

And then there was the tornado warning. Great. Nothing hinders your ability to get out the door like creepy dark clouds (see photo #5), swirling wind, and and EAS on the TV. Just as everything was starting to clear up, Callum and I stepped outside and saw huge bolts of lightning pierce the blue, blue sky. Crazytown. It was like that all weekend. The sun would be shining and you'd look out and suddenly it was pouring. None of us slept well last night (first day jitters, I suppose), and I'd wake up one time to lightning, one time to the moon shining in, and then to lightning again. Cities north of us had rain up to 6-8 inches in an hour. And of course as I was leaving the grocery store Sunday, it was pouring. Of course.

We dropped Callum at baseball and I got to sneak over to the lab with Neel for a bit. I never get to do this anymore. He never gets to do this anymore! Neel's rarely sitting at a lab bench these days, and weekend visits like this used to be our bread and butter. It was nice. He has a new lab space that I hadn't seen yet, and the medical school has been completely revamped and is gorgeous. I had fun going over there.

After the lab, Neel and Callum got cracking on dinner while I went to a baby shower for my dear friend Rebecca. What fun! It was at an adorable shop here in Norfolk that I hadn't tried yet. Sassi Cakes and Sweets offers amazing desserts and a full bar. Hello? A dessert bar? Can't go wrong with that. I've gone past it a gazillion times and never gone in, and on Saturday we were there late afternoon which was perfect for a baby shower. We had such fun, and the desserts are amazing. I'd love to take some photos of their stuff sometime. What do you think, should I drop by one of my business cards?

On Sunday we got Callum's room school-ready and settled in for just the best fun ever: seeing my old high school football team take the field in what has always been traditionally the biggest game of the season on ESPN2! How cool is that! My school was about four-five blocks from my house, and it was so fun to see the field and stadium where I spent so many happy Friday nights. On national TV! We had such fun watching the game, and of course our boys (they look so. young. was I ever that young?) pulled it out in the end. 42-24. Great victory for my alma mater and for high school foot ball every where.

I made two dishes from Dinner: A Love Story this weekend. Her Campfire Potatoes to go with Neel and Callum's steak, and last night, her Thai-ish Salmon. So far, can't recommend this book highly enough.

And finally, one last bike ride. Callum has decided to run cross country, so he's been getting up to run in the mornings. We mapped out a route for him to run this morning and ended up at the river. One of my favorite spots. Not a bad way to wrap things up, I'd say. Nothing but blue skies ahead.

monday mash up, labor day 2012 edition

monday mash up, august 27 edition