T Minus 17 and 16 Days

T minus 17 and 16 Days, Saturday and Sunday, July 28^th- 30^th, 2012: “Weekend of Fun”

You’re probably thinking “Weekend of Fun” wasn’t really an option for one of my challenges but hear me out. I’m doing this weekend as one post because I spent the weekend basically acting like a kid. After seven night shifts, with very little sleep in between, I really wanted a weekend of not doing much. The reality is, I also had a lot of work to catch up on that hadn’t gotten done while I was supporting the HTV mission. I didn’t do any of it. I pretty much disconnected myself all weekend and just had fun. Not exactly how a responsible adult might act...

I started the weekend off Friday night watching the Olympic Opening Ceremonies with some good friends. It was fun to just hang out with them, have a few drinks (Pimm’s Cup in honor of them being in London), order some pizza and talk about the ceremony. 

Mmmm, Pimm's Cup! Thanks to the Brits (Adam and Claire) for introducing us to this deliciousness!

Seriously, the cauldron was pretty amazing. I honestly think that was the coolest Olympic torch I've ever seen.

Amazing view of the Olympic torch from inside and below. 

Saturday morning, I slept until 10 a.m. Even when I’m exhausted, I don’t generally sleep in very late. So, sleeping that late felt so luxurious and wonderful. I had a delicious breakfast and then napped for a while after breakfast… yep, I was a serious a slacker! Then, I went stand up paddle boarding with a friend. If you’ve never been, it’s pretty fun. Although, at one point, we were just sitting on our boards imagining that we were in clear blue turquoise water with clear skies as far as the eye could see. 

Let's just pretend this is what it looked like in Clear Lake...and that's what I look like in a bikini.

Not exactly the scene in “Clear” Lake. It’s a little browner…the water, not my skin. And I freaked out when a gator gar surfaced not far from me. I screamed like a little girl and asked, “What the F--- WAS THAT!?!?” I explained what I saw and he said it was probably a gator gar…don’t worry, he said…it probably won’t bite. So, for the rest of the time my main focus was to not fall off the damn board.

A gator gar...because who DOESN'T want to jump in the water and cuddle with that??

After narrowly escaping the jaws of death from a gator gar, I went to St. Arnold’s Brewery with a friend to listen to some live music and drink some beer. The music was good and the beer was tasty. We both, however, realized we hadn't really eaten dinner…rookie mistake (see, I WAS acting like a kid). So, we bailed out and went to get dinner. We went to The Flying Saucer and had more beer and food. And, enjoyed watching the Olympics with a bar full of people. It’s so much fun when everyone is cheering together, and “Oh shit”-ing together. I really love Olympic season! Then we went to the Chocolate Bar. No, not for more beer. For some of the most delicious chocolate cake I've ever had. The slice we got was $10, which seems expensive. But I swear to you, it was probably about 5 lbs of cake! And lasted three days! We got the Uncle Darryl cake, behold the wonderfulness below:

Yes, that's one slice. Yes, that's why we have an obesity problem in our country. Yes, it was delicious.

Sunday, I once again slept until almost 10 a.m. Then a friend and I went to get brunch…which turned into lunch because he got caught up watching the Olympics. I ended up ordering a meatloaf sandwich. It was not the best decision I've ever made. It looked pretty nasty and I didn’t eat it… I still blame him for missing out on breakfast but at least I was still able to get a mimosa. Then, we went to see The Dark Knight Rises. I've heard some people didn't like it but I honestly have no idea why! I loved it and I also thought the ending was great. I won’t say anything specific about it because I really think you should go see it!

After that, my friend and I went to another friend’s house where we grilled dinner and hung out and drank and played cards all night. Well, maybe not ALL night, but until about 11 p.m. which is pretty late on a night when you have to go to work. And, my friend has to wake-up for work at 5:45 a.m….that’s freaking early!

We ran out of beer around 11 p.m. Thankfully, we were smart enough to call it a night because otherwise the liquor was about to come out. And this picture clearly shows no good can come of that. Who posts these pictures on the internet for anyone to find??

So, how does this weekend of fun meet the challenge? Well, I slept in a lot, I napped a lot, I ignored the work that I should’ve done (both for my job and around the house…my laundry is still piled high) in lieu of play time with my friends and I basically was completely disconnected from my phone all weekend. That may not be like kids these days but when I was a kid we weren't all walking around with a cell phone. So, it was pretty nice to not be tied to one. I didn't check my work email, I wasn't checking Facebook, I wasn’t checking for texts constantly. I just disconnected and enjoyed the weekend like a kid would (with the addition of alcohol J). And man, it was probably one of the most perfect weekends I've had in a long time!