Weekend Wrap-Up & May Goals

Am I the only one who feels like the weekend was a whirlwind?!

I took the day off Friday so Stephen and I could spend the majority of the day together in Chattanooga before Ann Marie’s graduation the next morning. We couldn’t check into our hotel until later in the afternoon, so we decided to visit the Tennessee Aquarium. He hadn’t been there in a long time and wanted to check it out again.

Supposedly, it’s one of the best as far as aquariums go. Here’s my opinion, after you see about 20 fish, eel, turtle, butterflies, crocs, or whatever….you’ve seen them all. It is a very nice aquarium as far as the set-up, location, cleanliness…it really it just a nice facility. BUT, it’s not something that would be on “must do” list every time I visited Chattanooga. If you’ve never been, you must go, but repeat visits probably aren’t necessary. However, I can’t wait to take kids there one day. Kids are just fascinated by the whole experience.

The river otters exhibit and penguins exhibit are by far my favorites stops. I could watch those little critters forever!

All of that being said, we still had a great time together. There were no crowds at all, the weather was perfect, and we just enjoyed taking our time.

Later that night we met up with my sister, BIL and nephews at a local Mexican restaurant because chips and salsa are a food group section on the pyramid, right?! After dinner S  & I went to Toys-R-Us. Yes, you read that correctly. We went to Toys-R-Us. By ourselves. We have no children. I won a gift card back several months ago at a conference I attended, and the nearest Toys-R-Us is over an hour away from our hometown, so I stuck it in my purse before we left for the weekend thinking that surely Chattanooga had a store. We had SO much fun wandering the empty aisles and swapping stories that started with, “OH! I used to have one of these…” S maaaaay have squealed a little bit when he saw that Star Wars Lego sets had made a comeback. We didn’t buy this though. We were very practical and bought gifts for future use.

Saturday morning we were up bright and early for my cousin’s graduation. We were at the arena at 8am…which was 7am our time…which meant we woke up at 5:30 our time….ON A SATURDAY. We love her.

Saturday night was uneventful as I was passed out on the couch before 9pm…we were watching Taken 3 and I swear to you I couldn’t even tell you how that thing ended. No clue. Slept right through it. He thought I was awake for it all though. We’ll just keep it that way. Yeah, honey it was a great movie…..best one they’ve made so far……

Then out of NOWHERE at 10:30, Stephen decided to start cleaning his side of the closet. I walked back to our room to go to bed finally and walked into this.

It was a disaster and part of me wanted to cry a little bit. 10:30, really? NOW you want to purge your closet? Oh well. At least it got done….it needed it. He just kept saying to himself, “I have too much stuff….I have too much stuff...” ha.

Yesterday our nephews came home with us for the afternoon after church. While Stephen ran into a sporting goods store to pick up a net, these two went after each other with numchucks. I mean, really? Numchucks?! Approximately 34 seconds after I took this picture, I heard a thud, looked around and Riley was holding his head. I confiscated them at that point.

We were walking by Stephen’s grandparents’ garden before lunch and Colin saw a couple pinecones laying in the dirt. To which he sincerely asked, “Are they planting pinecones??!” 

A few minutes later after he changed clothes he asked if he could keep his church shoes on because, “They’re Sketchers….they have memory foam. They’re really very soft…feel them!” Oh the innocence of a child. It’s things like this that I hope I can remember about him always.

Stephen and Riley spent most of the afternoon outside playing. We have a great backyard for play!  I can’t wait to see him playing with our own kids out there someday.

This one asked if he could stay inside and play Skylanders on the PlayStation. His allergies were acting up pretty bad so I didn’t think much of it and let him stay inside. He’s always been really good at playing by himself anyway whereas Riley would rather have someone to play with. 

I was washing dishes in the kitchen and I heard him say, “I can’t play Xbox at home right now.” Red Flag. I said, “Colin, are you grounded from the Xbox right now?” “Yes. Just Xbox, not PlayStation.” That 6 year old played me liked a fiddle yesterday. They don’t have a PlayStation…..but we do.

We had a busy weekend, but a great weekend! I love days and moments like these!!

I’ve been making monthly and even weekly goals for some time now, and thought I’d share now that I’m blogging again. Accountability helps, right 

This month, I hope to purge more of our closets and drawers as we were sparked to do so at 10:30 on Saturday night. We’re not hoarders, but our space is limited and I HATE clutter. A good purge does the heart and soul good!

I’m currently reading two books and hope to finish both up this month between all that’s scheduled on our calendar.

We’ve promised Colin to go to the movies, order pizza and a sleepover for his belated birthday gift. We knew we had a few busy weekends ahead last week on his birthday so hopefully, we’ll squeeze it in before the month’s over.

We have several friends and family members celebrating their college or high school graduations this month. Graduation is such a proud and long-awaited moment in the lives of students. I remember how excited I was for both of mine and what an encouragement it was to celebrate with friends and family. I love being able to celebrate such milestones with others!

Last year, I didn’t stay on top of receipt organization like I should have and come December it was a MESS and took a whole weekend to go through. This year, it’s my goal to stay on top of this! I’ve got everything for January – April ready to record and file. I WILL get this done this month!!

Happy Monday friends!! Make it a great week!!