Wow! This blog covers pretty much the last ten days before I went on my trip to Iowa, but, it feels like a lot more time has gone by…

Let’s start two Thursdays ago (now three I guess!), with one of my little get-together lunches!

Today’s group gathered together in BJ’s, Julie (+2), Crystal (+1), Frances, Annette (+1), Helen (+1), Cindy and I all enjoyed a yummy (albeit slow) lunch – where I saw our friend Theresa there for a work lunch as well!

I’ve started to order the grilled ham and cheese here – it’s pretty yummy and comes with THE most delicious tomato soup (and I normally HATE tomato soup!)

I love our little lunch-get-together’s, it’s good to catch up with the ladies, especially during the summer months with so many people coming and going…vacations…transfers…SLB summers are busy summers!

Later that night, hubby wanted to take me out to the movies, cause I wanted to see Cars II.  If you haven’t seen Cars (and now, Cars II) then do it NOW! Ok, I know we don’t have kids and I know it’s most definitely a kids film, but it’s excellent – especially the sequel.  Yes, if you didn’t know by now that I’m a big kid – there ya go!

Friday night, Col and I went out to Buca di Peppo to have dinner with Heather, Ana Maria (and their respective husbands) and Ana Maria’s two gorgeous little boys.  It was fun, the food (Italian, not Mexican as I’d originally thought – dang! No Margaritas!!) was good, not great, not terrible, but good and the company, as always – was even better!

Saturday, we decided to splurge a little and head up into the Village.  The Village is one of the few places that is home to a British shop, and, since we’ve not been home in a long time, we’ve long-since run out of home-type provisions…we came out of there with all kinds of fun stuff, which definitely helped curb our home-cravings!

We also hit-up Bath and Body Works (they had a KILLER sale going on – though, as you can see, Col wasn’t as convinced as I was!), Le Creuset (where I got their new spoon/spatula thingamajigger – which I’ve since fallen in love with!), Half Price Books and, discovered that the joy that once was Fu’s Garden (Chinese) is no more (which left Col a little melancholy since it was a big part of his life the last time he lived here in Houston!)  We also hit up Target (again to Col’s dismay) and Fiesta to pick up some British bacon for breakfast!

Sunday, we decided to be good friends and head up to the Maddens house and tidy up a little before they arrived home.  We brought bread, milk and a swiffer – Sam had been living as a bachelor for a few weeks and I was pretty sure he didn’t do much cleaning before he headed home to the UK so we swept in and swiffered!

Yes, swiffer is now a verb – I swiffer, you swiffer…he/she swiffers…lol!

When we were done, I spent some time baking for our 4th July BBQ…aren’t they pretty?