A House Guest, Painting Guitars, and Bad Shrimp

As soon as I walked in the door on Friday, my spirited, sweet girl nearly tackled me before I could get my wet shoes off. "Mommy, I got to bring home Mr. Bear. Mrs. Norris choosed me, Cate, to bring Mr. Bear home."

Mr. Bear is Cate's class' bear. The kids all get to take a turn bringing him home and then writing about their adventures with him in his book. Cate felt extra special since she got him for the weekend. And not just any weekend, but a weekend in which she was spending the night with Grandma and Poppy (Eric's parents). My mother-in-law arrived about 15 minutes later to pick up the kids, and Cate tackled her to tell her the news as well. We got the kids packed and loaded and enjoyed a quiet house before date night.

Date night was fabulous. We had a Groupon for a favorite local eatery and then we were meeting up with some friends at Cheers to Art, a local paint studio. If you've ever done pain-your-own-pottery, this is like that, only better. They had a date night special where the guys got to paint free. The painting of the evening was a guitar, which fit both us and our friends well as both guys LOVE to play guitar. We donned our aprons and sat before blank canvases.
They guided us every step of the way, playing awesome music while we painted (my favorite was when the whole room busted out to the chorus of "Sweet Caroline"), and slowly, our paintings took shape.
We made ours mirror images to hang together. We'll most likely put them above our bed (we even painted the side of the guitar that matched the side of the bed we sleep on-- and no, that wasn't planned) since the colors in the paintings match some of the colors in our bedroom.
Afterward, we had appetizers with our friends at a local pizza place. The ice storm that was predicted for the night was just starting as we said our goodbyes. Unfortunately, when we got home, Eric and I both had horrible stomachaches and nausea. While neither of us got sick, we felt pretty crappy the rest of the night and attributed to bad shrimp at the restaurant where we ate dinner (either that or bad ranch dressing since those were the only things we had that were the same). Needless to say, we took yesterday morning easy, waited for the ice from the storm to melt a little, and then headed to pick up the kids. Clearly they had fun.
Eric's step-dad is just really getting into digital photography. I'm envious of his awesome dSLR (not that I'm complaining about mine though). He used to do a lot of regular film photography-- weddings, senior pictures, etc. In fact, he took our engagement shots and wedding pictures. They turned out wonderfully. He had some fun with Cate, one of his backgrounds, and his new flash.
By last night, Eric and I were feeling pretty much 100% better. Cate worked on her Mr. Bear page for her class book.
We snuggled and watched a movie.
My boys read books-- Brennan has a few he is starting to prefer now.
Today has been pretty quiet since we got home from church. My sweet girl and handsome hubby are at the Children's Museum on a daddy-daughter date. Brennan is sound asleep and will hopefully stay that way for a bit so I can do a little knitting and reading in this quiet house. Once Cate and Eric return, I'm off to my typical Sunday early evening restorative yoga class-- a class that helps me feel so clear and focused and ready to start the work week.

I hope you all have had lovely weekends, too.

~Melody :-)