And so it goes....

Another weekend gone by and all I have to show for it is a sense of total exhaustion. Our Fridays have become very jam packed lately. It's crazy. This past weekend was a consignment sale that I have come to love. It is a bi-annual sale held in the spring and the fall where I get to shop for many additions to the girls' wardrobe. This past weekend was the sale. The pre-sale is Friday tonight and is for consignors and volunteers only. So I typically try to consign a few items to offset the dough I spend there. I also have started volunteering on Saturday evening to help cleanup and tend to get a few steals there since a lot of stuff is 1/2 off at that point. I have even been known to take some brand new things home with me. I love it. I got quite a few things for the girls. My favorite being a lavender colored jacket and snow pants for Nicole from LLBean for $18. Now you know that if I decide I don't like this outfit I can send it back to LLBean and get it replaced FOR FREE. Not that I will though because I love it, but LLBean has the best customer service on the planet. Everyone is so happy and friendly when you talk to them. They must be in cahoots with Trader Joe's.

So this past Friday, we started out early as I had a doctor appointment at 10:30 so we took our Papa with us and armed with snacks I left the girls and Papa in the car while I went into the DR. About 45 minutes later I emerged with a clean bill of health for another year. I also arrived to three people having a great time in the car listening to music and playing various games. The girls so love their Papa. We then headed grocery shopping for Papa to visit his favorite grocery store, a little place called Roxies. The man walks out of this little hole in the wall with the best of produce and meats for under $40 ready to feed a small army. They were celebrating their 50th anniversary (obviously they are doing something right) this week and they had some wonderful sales on local produce, seafood and dairy items. He had a blast; partially from the great deals he got but more so from his shopping partner, Nicole who whips things over her shoulder into his carriage whether he wants them or not. Suffice to say if he tries to stop her from taking certain items he may not want in his cart, a smallish tantrum comes about wherein her favorite doll is thrown to the floor. So it was his best judgement to keep her happy and unload unwanted items to the checkout lady.

We left Roxies and dropped Papa off to his DR appointment where Nana was going to pick him up. From there we headed home for quick naps (the girls, not me, unfortunately) and then Nana came from Papa's DR appointment and to our house so that she could stay with Nicole while I took Aimee to her first Ballet/tap lesson. I took these lessons when I was Aimee's age. In fact I can still remember being a munchkin in my first recital. I also remember one girl's mother watching us in a rehearsal and crying at the end of it. At the time it struck me as odd because in my short life at the time, crying for me was when I was unhappy and this mother was trying to tell her daughter how happy she was and that in fact was the reason behind her tears. I gave a big shrug and never thought of it again until this past Friday. The lessons started last week but we were not able to start with the rest of the class. So this week the teacher let me look on as Aimee did her thing with her classmates and one of her new friends took her hand to lead her across the floor, I had to wipe a tear away from my eye. It is amazing to me how life comes full circle and goes around. Aimee of course loved her lessons and even learned her right from her left or as the teacher told her (Lenny and Ralph...ingenious).

So after we left our ballet lessons for the day, we went home, changed her out of her leotard and tights and got Nicole, Nana and Papa together again and off we went to the consignment presale. Gary was at a networking event that he didn't want to miss, thus the 5 of us trotting around together in the Yukon. So, Nana (mom) and I went into the sale and were a bit overwhelmed by all of the people in there but were able to score some good fall clothes for the girls as well as aforementioned snow suit and some snow boots. For about $100 I easily picked up a load of clothes that would have cost 3 times that. When we came out of the sale, I saw that Papa, Aimee and Nicole were having a rousing game of wake up! go to sleep! Apparently for the uninformed such as myself, this game consisted of Aimee pushing the button to turn the light on and she would say "good morning!" and then after a few pleasantries were exchanged among them of previous night's slumber, etc. it would then be time for her to push the button again and make it dark thus, "good night" and they would all start to snore. Apparently this went on for some time, never boring the participants in the least.

Saturday was a low key day. We took the girls to a restaurant in Plymouth called Plane Janes which is at the municipal airport and they watched planes come and go as we ate breakfast. Then we headed to Toys R Us for a bit to pick up birthday presents for our nieces. We came home, played in the yard and then I went back to the consignment sale with my mom to help break down where we organize the unsold items back to the consigners and put together the items that people decided to donate. After almost 4 hours of this work, we decided we had put in our volunteer time and took off.

Today I washed and dried all the clothes I bought from the sale, went to the mall to pick up cards to go with above mentioned birthday presents and came home to finish putting it all away while the girls napped. Then we headed out to the birthday party where the girls had a fantastic time.

So now it is late on Sunday night, I have all of our lunches packed for tomorrow and a lot of work to do when I get into the office tomorrow. So I hope you all had great weekends and enjoyed this last day of summer. Here is the fall!