This week has been a bit of a party-planning spree, though I have taken some down-time to do some socialising (I’m sure you’re all shocked!) with the Sing Star night and Magz and Sam’s baby shower quickly approaching, I’ve had a lot of little things to do.
Last Sunday was the Budapest Grand Prix, which meant only one thing – Magz and Sam came out to play! As soon as the GP was over, (I didn’t even wait for the driver interviews), I hauled ass up to the Clay Rd YMCA for Body Attack (I’d already missed CX30) before we all went over to Theresa’s house, she was out of town on vacation and we told her we’d keep an eye on it…(and use her pool! LOL!)
We abandoned the idea of a slow-cooked chicken, in favour of some deep fried chicken wings at Magz and Sam’s Buffalo Wild Wings (which, returned a little hope in me that they’ve all not gone to hell in a hand basket!)
Monday was a busy day! I started with a trip to Joanns, for some things I needed for baby shower crafting, before I picked up Chick fil A for lunch (for 7 adults) and headed up into the Village area of the city to visit our friends Adrian and Soo. They’ve just bought a new house and currently have Adrian’s two nephews over visiting, so we had a nice lunch and I spent the afternoon getting cuddles and cooing at little Sebastian (who’s getting sooooooooo big, really fast!)
Around 3pm, I headed to Heather’s apartment to meet up with her, Magz, Ana Maria and her two little boys for a swim in the pool. I was only an hour and a half late (my bad, I can’t walk away from a gorgeous little baby!) but the pool was lovely (in spite of my screaming-in-pain calf!) and it was nice to see Heather’s apartment for the first time.
As it turns out, her apartment is roughly 3 minutes away from Col’s office, so, next time I go up to visit her, I’ll drop him off to the office first! We ended up eating a late dinner in Carinos (yum!), which we used our pasta points card to pay for, so it was free!
The majority of the rest of the week was filled with baby shower crafts and baby shower shopping, dying burp cloths, making non-diaper cakes, making baskets, wrapping presents, cutting, sticking, map-drawing, planning etc etc etc. I’m at a place now, where the guest list is coming along nicely, I’ve tried out most of the recipes I wanted to try out before hand, I’ve assigned ‘helpers’, I’ve bought in most of the stuff I’ll need and have a list of everything else still to buy.
It’s on course to be a fab party for Magz and Sam – and with only three weeks to go, my early organisation really is paying dividends as the date is coming up pretty quickly!
Friday I had lunch with the lovely Sharon and Julie, Sharon is leaving for Norway soon (very soon!) and since, our lunch ‘haunt’ used to be Quiznos when she first arrived in Texas, it’s where we had lunch.
It was great! we had a nice catch-up and some good food, before I headed down to H.E.B to pick up some Sing Star night groceries, some baby shower items and some stuff for the house. When I got home I made a slow cooker coconut chicken curry (at first I wasn’t sure I liked it, but day two, after a night in the fridge was delicious!), a huge lasagne, a Chocolate Guinness cake before we headed out to the gym.
Yes, the gym, on a Friday night, aren’t I so committed? Well, we were late, very late, for the Body Attack class in the Trotter YMCA. I missed half of it and joined the class JUST as they were hitting their peak cardio – it just about killed me. KILLED!!
I finished out the class and did 15 minutes of the Zumba class, held in the same room, straight after Body Attack. UGH. I hate joining a class where the instructor doesn’t instruct. She just DID and people were expected to just follow her – hey lady, tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do, so I don’t get in anyone’s way, eh?
Grrrr!!
Anyways, after my traumatising experience with Zumba, we had dinner in Fu’s Garden, which, as it happens, is only a block away from the Y!!! It was the best Chinese we’ve had since being here – it was lovely! We each got something different and shared, sweet and sour chicken, General Tso’s chicken, Cashew chicken and Moo-shu chicken – yes, I’ve also noticed the distinct poultry theme!
When we got home, I baked some Lemon and raspberry cupcakes and started some Pineapple Strawberry Cooler, before I cleaned the kitchen from top to bottom and Col did the floors!
Saturday morning, I got up pretty early, considering we went to bed so late. We cleaned, cooked and frosted my baked goods, getting ready for the Sing Star night.
We had a lot of ‘yes’ RSVP’s, in fact, I think it was the biggest social gathering we’ve had so far – in either country! We had Mariano and Kat, Sharon and Chris, Heather and Jeff, Cindy and Tim (none of which I got couple-shots of, bad Las! – well, I tried to get one of Heather and Jeff but she refused cause she feels ‘fat and unattractive’ with her baby-bump!)
made the grand ole total of 20 (plus 2 kids!) Party!!
It was great fun!
Normally people start to leave pretty early, but even by 10.30pm, people were still arriving! I guess Missouri City was the place to be! Everyone seemed to have fun, enjoy the food and had fun singing at the top of their lungs. Some people surprised me, I didn’t think they’d sing, but they all had game! (Frances even wants me to Tweet her the next time I’m home alone, so she can come by and sing with me! LOL!!!)
We had lots of fun and said ‘bye to the last of our guests around 1am, had a quick clean-up and an episode of Hell’s Kitchen before we headed to bed.
Sunday, I ‘let’ Col sleep in pretty late (he’d earned it!), I pottered around the house for a while, before he got outta bed and I dropped him at the Maddens while I headed to the gym. After Body Attack, it was back to the Maddens for a ‘left overs’ bbq (mostly the food left from the party the night before) and a game of ligretto, before heading home to hang picture frames (progress!!)
Phew! It’s non-stop here in Casa McMaster! But we’re having a fun summer (in spite of the fact it’s not dropped below 100 degrees in FOREVER here in Texas) and the busy-busy doesn’t seem to be stopping any time soon – and we’re enjoying every minute of it!