The week just past has been the quietest week in the last four and although I’m trying to compile some kind of post summing up the last month of ‘wedding nutty’, it seems as though that will take some time.  You’ll have to settle for this week in the mean time!

Monday morning was a tough one, I had to say goodbye to my family.  It had been a bumpy three weeks, I grant you (not just with my family, overall), but one thing I hate seeing, are the backs of my family as they walk away from me toward the big metal bird taking them 5,000 miles away back to reality.  It was hard.  I kept my composure until my little brother hugged me and then my sellotape came loose.  I cried for a long time.  It hurts to say goodbye, even if we’ll be seeing them again in four weeks. 

After the airport run, we picked up the in-laws from their cruise at Galveston port, shopped the afternoon away (unsupervised yarn splurge at Michaels!) and enjoyed a delicious Mexican for dinner in Chuys – unfortunately I didn’t get to partake of the BEST margaritas you’ll ever try cause I was driving, but there’s always this week!

Tuesday, I finally got around to knitting with Nicky.  I’d envisaged knitting a lot more with her while she was in town – what I didn’t account for was the fact that I’d need to do so much driving, so, instead of being a knitting passenger, I was an unable to knit driver. 

Tuesday afternoon was knitting time and although it wasn’t as long as I’d have liked it to be, Nicky managed to figure out my purl-twisting issue, my bumpy sock toe issue and got a snoozing product back off the shelf and into my working WIP pile.  She’s most definitely a miracle worker!

More goodbyes and more tears while we dropped Angela and Nicky off at the airport before heading home to find a spotless kitchen, my dining room and living room both almost having returned to normal -which was followed by a delicious, long awaited steak at Outback.

Wednesday morning I was up early and instead of vegging out like my body wanted me to do, I knuckled down and got cleaning with my in-laws.  My father in law fixed the rails in our master closet and laid mulch in the garden, my mother in law blitzed the bathroom upstairs and I attacked the downstairs bathroom.  As exhausting as it was, I have to say that I’m glad the house was quickly returning to normal after a month of looking like a bomb had gone off in it!

We had lunch with the lovely Magz at BJ’s, before the in-laws and I did some more shopping (yes, I’ve turned in to quite the shopping monster this week!) before we joined our landlady and her friend for the most delicious ribs I’ve ever tasted in my life and some nice apple cider – hey, isn’t this blog sounding like all I’ve done lately is eat? If you’d been around for the previous fortnight you’d know that this is actually just a recovery from no eating or sleeping for two weeks! Lol!

Thursday, Col, the in-laws and I headed out to Pearland where we had a tasty lunch in Panera Bread before the in-laws and I went for a wander to do – yes, you guessed it, even more shopping, while Col worked in Panera Bread for a few hours.

With a full boot and a huge cheesecake selection we went on our merry way to Casa Stevenson where Amee wowed us all with her stuffed chicken with alfredo sauce and Colin (mine) won two straight games of Dominoes (I sucked and didn’t even have baby distraction as an excuse to defend the extent to which I sucked! Lol!), before we headed home exhausted and I passed yet another night of tossing and turning in bed (not that I’m complaining or anything!).

Friday was an unexpected day of serious fun! A friend of mine recommended the Nutcracker Market up at Reliant Stadium in Houston.  Col dropped the in-laws and I off at Reliant before going to work for the day and I can safely say I was pleasantly surprised.  It was HUGE, I spent way too much money and I will most definitely go back next year for more!

One of the things I picked up were some prints, Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, montages which we’re going to find frames for and hang, here, in Bay Road at home and any other country or house we’ll be moved to over the coming years and years.  These four cities represent a huge part of not only our time here in Houston, but a huge part of Colin and I.  These four cities are hockey cities, cities we drive to regularly – sometimes, only for the sole purpose of seeing a hockey game.  Cities that have a special place in our hearts and lives and will serve as a constant reminder of our time here in Houston and help us to remember the details when we’re old (no jokes please!) and a little grey on the finer points of our stay in this sunny land of Sugar.

Anyway, when we were done at the market we dropped the in-laws to the airport (on what will be our last airport run for four whole weeks!) before we hit up Best Buy to pick up our wedding present.  We didn’t put together a registry, we did however request that the people who wished to buy something for us, get us gift cards to Best Buy as we wanted to buy a Mac Mini. 

On the way home from our big purchase of Col’s new toy we picked up a Chinese as neither one of us were feeling inclined to cook and enjoyed a delicious dinner while catching up on Glee, NCIS:LA and Hell’s Kitchen with a wee glass of fruity wine and some crackers and cheese for snacks!

Yes, I did say that this was the quietest week I’ve had all month and no, I’m not lying! It’s been exhausting but I can’t way it’s not been fun.

Saturday, Murphy’s law meant that I was up at 8am and had a few hours of loading CD’s up onto the Mac before Col joined me, made a cuppa and we got stuck into our backlog of Grey Anatomy on our clogged up DVR drive. 

Saturday we watched TV all day in our PJ’s.

Saturday we were home alone for the first time in weeks.

Sunday morning the house was quiet, the kitchen was messy and my to-do list, if I had one written, would be pages long and I don’t give a crap. We had a lovely meal and great Grand Prix season finale with Magz, Sam and the pups and when they left we just vegged.

Last night, I got sofa cuddles from the man of my dreams who, 16 days ago, I walked down the aisle to (re)marry in the presence of our nearest and dearest and that memory I’ll carry with me forever…