As I Wish... and other weekend activities

On Friday night, as soon as I got off work, Meri picked me up with a few empty suitcases and we drove to one of her friend's house out in the county.  Meri is an awesome photographer and had been asked to take LinZ's senior pics.  The suitcases were for one of the poses.  We weren't running away.

LinZ sounds like a rapper...  But that's just her nickname.  Meri was studying Alliteration in middle school and Robb came up with this example.

A Little LinZ goes a Long way.

and she really, really does...

I took a few shots of the photography session in progress and hope I can get copies of the rest to show you when Meri is done editing them.

My favorite though, so far, is the one we took on a deserted gravel road.  I peeled out up and down the road, kicking up as much dust as possible while Meri hustled Linz into the dust and took pics before the dust settled or blew away.  In black and while, it's going to look fantastic!

I hope.

We spent two hours in several different locations, taking pics of Linz.   Those two girls know each other so well, that all Meri had to do to get her to smile and laugh was to yell SMILE!!!!  

and she'd crack up.

Sorry it's so dark!  Meri climbed up on the tall monkey bars and Linz was on the lower one.  

It made a great shot!

Meri appreciated my help and suggestions on photo scenarios, so I've been asked to join her on her next senior pic session for Perla this coming week.

We got home around 8 and Meri got ready to take off for a late movie with a friend.  Robb asked if I'd made pizza before I left and I hadn't...  So I said I'd open a can of soup.  As soon as I opened it, I noticed a Papa John's pizza box on the table.  Hey - who bought pizza??  He had.  

The can of soup got stuck in the fridge and I had pizza instead.

Saturday - Robb and I attended Meri's (LAST in that particular town's) marching band performance in their parade.  It was almost an hour away and as we were walking from our car, a woman came up behind us and I jumped to the side and said excuse me.  It was a lady from my sewing group!  

Well, what are YOU doing here?!  We told her why we were there and she just lives a couple blocks away so she goes to the parade every year after a pancake breakfast.  YUM!  We'd already eaten or we'd have joined her.  She knows Meri well and we found out later that some strang woman waved and yelled to Meri as the band passed by her.  Um yeah,  it was probably Joanne.

Anyway, we sat on our usual street corner to watch.  Kids swooped in all around us collecting candy.  Parades are great if you have a small child to take candy from, but it's frowned on if that kid isn't your own.  Words to live by...  

So I tried to track down kettle korn with NO success!  Just bought some old regular popcorn and some Mexican chips and we settled in to sunburn with lots of snacks.  My toes look really dirty now, but they're actually just really tan... in stripes...

Meri's band sounded great and I really don't even know if they won the competition.  I'm going to assume so.  They're good.

That's Meri in the front on the clarinet.

Afterwards, we did a little grocery shopping, had a date lunch at Ryan's pub but he wasn't working.  

We didn't order this, but I asked if I could take a pic of the cheese platter that a neighboring table was enjoying to make Maddy jealous.  They were only too helpful and wanted to know her reaction.  All she replied was YUM...   

Then we came home and I found an ad on the local swap page that someone wanted scrap metal as well as anything wood or electrical.  And boy of boy, have I got some of that!!!  I spent two hours in the hot garage, moving things this way and that pulling things out into the driveway for this group to take.  A couple file cabinets, a couple sewing cabinets, numerous bed frames, a lawn mower, boards, two large printers, a dryer and several other things too many to mention.  The driveway was cluttered. 

We had agreed for a 6pm pickup time.  When I went inside to clean up my filthy filthy self, I let her know that the stuff was in the drive way at 5 and they could come at any time to pick it up but I'd like it to be gone by 6:30.  That appeared to tick her off.  It sounded like I was being pushy I guess...  So suddenly they could ONLY take scrap metal. ...  Then at 6pm asked if they could come Sunday night instead. ...  Really?  Robb and I had to move everything back into the garage.  SIGH...  JUST when I thought there was hope for getting one car into the garage before winter hits...   

The next night they didn't come either.  So I guess I'll post all this stuff on freecycle and see if anyone else wants it.  OR we'll have a bonfire.

So on Saturday night, we knew Meri was coming straight home after work and we hadn't had her all to ourselves forEVER!!!  She's always rushing off to do things with friends.  We figured we needed to get penciled into her friend list too...  So we had a super secret steak night in HER honor.  Out came the china, good glasses and cloth napkins from the wedding, folded JUST so...  

Actually just like this but without the ribbon.

We even used the blue/white table runner and a vase with her bridesmaid bouquet in it.

She felt so loved.  But she was exhausted and couldn't even stay up long enough for dessert!  Well, we didn't tell her about it, she'd already gone to bed.  Robb and I just drove up to Casey's on our own and got some soft serve ice cream.  BUT she'd felt honored and that's what mattered.

Well, that was Friday and Saturday.   And the weekend just kept going!!!!

I wish...