weekend notes: old friends and swimming dogs

This weekend was one last-minute good idea after another. It started with my favorite part - Jim pulling in the driveway. We had a late dinner at a lousy Mexican restaurant which made me (perhaps for the first time) look forward to Texas.

As usual, we slept in on Saturday. But we woke to a pleasant surprise. An old friend of Jim's was home from Iraq and friends were throwing him a party. So to the edge of VA Beach we drove - but not the beach part, the swamp(?!) part. Jim got to catch up with Oliver, a.k.a. smoking cigars, and I hung out with a good friend and her cute little son Ronan.

On our way back we realized we were near my childhood home. A quick call to my dad and a handy GPS landed us in front of the house that I a) discovered my early fear of spiders, b) tried many times to unsuccessfully dress my little brother up in girl clothes, c) swam in our hurricane-flooded street, d) lost many teeth, e) started biting my nails (stupid habit!), f) had the coolest babysitter ever, g) made my first best friend.... it goes on. The street wasn't as long as I remember it, though. Why is that always the case? I promise the houses used to be much farther apart.

A quick trip to Walmart for an awkward passport picture (see above) and some cheap frozen pizzas. (What can I say? Sometimes I'm just in the mood.) Then we rounded out the evening with the movie The Spiderwick Chronicles. I cringed through the first half, but it turned around on the end. I'm just not into creepy things, I guess.

Ah, Sunday. Sunday was the best day. We met up with a friend for church and some lunch at Baker's Crust. In an effort to be healthy I opted for a salad but sometimes I just feel like I'm eating leaves. Not very satisfying. But as I was not getting full, I had this great idea - to take Roxy to a local dog park.

It was awesome. We waited out the heat and headed to the most amazing dog park I've ever been to. It's tucked away behind Norfolk's PETA with two sides fenced and two sides water. So the dogs can all swim together. I'm not kidding! There were many butts to sniff and Roxy was happy. She seemed to really like Nina, the overactive super-skinny Lab. But she didn't care for Dover the Bulldog who needed a lifejacket so he wouldn't sink. I took lots of pictures of her with her friends, but I'll only torture you with a few of the good ones.

At about six we realized we were hungry so we rediscovered Jim's favorite restaurant from his college days, the Tap House Grill, complete with an outdoor patio so Roxy could join us. This time I opted for a bacon burger. Oh, and dessert at Dairy Queen. Salad, schmalad.

Other things I don't have time to mention: my new obsession with hemming jeans and two nearly finished quilts. More to come!