Until last Tuesday we had absolutely nothing planned for this past weekend. On that day I received two phone calls--one from my father-in-law inviting us to his sister's wedding Saturday afternoon in Boston, and the other from my cousin inviting us to a
strong ale festival in Brooklyn and then to his father's birthday brunch the following morning a little north of NYC.
A NORMAL person would consider the Boston and New York plans to be conflicting, insane people like my husband and myself would think nothing of trying to cram all of this into one weekend while toting around a cranky 18 month old.
Here's how it all went down:Friday: Lots of ironing and prep work to get clothes ready for wedding, evening out and brunch party.
Friday Evening: Frantic trip to several stores to find a pair of shoes to wear to wedding.
Saturday, 8 am: Jo Jo's swim class at the Y.
Saturday, 9 am: Dunkin Donuts
Saturday, 10 am: Husband to the car wash, Jo Jo nap, Me in the shower and then packing.
Saturday, 12 pm: Drive to Boston, stuck in traffic getting to the church.
Saturday, 1:15 pm: Arrive at the church 15 minutes late, wrangle angry toddler into froo-froo cotton candy dress. Pacifier is not cutting it, even though we only break it out for "special occasions" (i.e., when I need Jo Jo to shut the hell up)
Saturday, 1:30 pm: Wedding actually begins, lateness forgiven.
Saturday, 1:35 pm: Husband and I have to remove Jo Jo from the scene as she is disrupting the ceremony by talking. Take her outside for a walk.
Saturday, 2:15 pm: Ceremony is over. We do a meet and greet with various family members, then forego the reception to start our trip to NY.
Saturday, 2:30 pm: We're stuck in city traffic trying to get to husband's mom's house to change our clothes (her place is on the way).
Saturday, 3:00 pm: Finally arrive at mother-in-law's house, change rapidly, split the scene as quickly as possible.
Saturday, 6:30 pm: Arrive at the hotel in NY and meet my parents who take Jo Jo for the night.
Saturday, 8:00 pm: Arrive at my cousin's apartment in Brooklyn.
Wow, this is getting long, I think I'll stop here with the blow-by-blow. Anyways, once we arrived, we found that my cousin was not ready to go... yadda yadda yadda... we didn't get to the bar for another two hours. Fortuntately when we arrived, they still had a lot of good beers on tap (at a beer festival, they offer "special" beers in small quantities. The good beers usually run out before the night is through). I was driving though, so the beer issue was only relevant to the husband and cousin.
Sunday was much more relaxed even though we lost an hour in there somewhere. The brunch was awesome with some really great food. Lots of laughs. Nice to see family, etc. I think we finally got on the road around 3:00, had a few stops along the way and got back around 7:00. And through all of this mayhem, Jo Jo was a champion traveller.
This particular item helped just a little bit too... hehe. A friend lent it to us and it was a Godsend! I didn't even care that we had to hear the same Elmo video six times over the course of the trip because she was not crying.
So anyways, I'm glad to be back home blogging in my pajamas. I always love these impulsive kind of trips, but getting back to normal when we get home is a welcome relief.
A side note: Over the next week or two I'm going to be working on redesigning the site (this one was kindof thrown together randomly one day). I'm actually moving away from Blogger and will be attempting to set up with Movable Type. I hope this won't turn all 4 of my readers away (you know who you are!) Please stay with me!
