A Relaxing Weekend

Friday evening - as soon as my hubby got home from work - I headed out to New Hampshire with my SIL & family friend to stay with my SIL for the weekend. We went the scenic route through the White Mountains. It took about an extra hour but there was very little traffic & the views were great. We had fun chatting on the drive & it went by fairly quickly.

Saturday am came & we finally headed out around 9:30. We stopped by the local elementary school to watch my SIL's niece play soccer. There is nothing more enjoyable I think than watching a bunch of little kids play soccer on a cool fall Saturday morning. ESPECIALLY when I know I don't have to stay & I don't have an obligation. :-) Sad isn't it, but hey, I was on vacation with NO KIDS!!!!!

We hit the road about 10am & went shopping. The whole purpose of our trip. Our first stop was a neat - very neat - old fashioned country store. They had a bunch of neat things in there. I didn't end up buying a ton of stuff, but I did pick up two lighting sets. They are all wired & screw in to the top of a mason jar. I wasn't shopping just to shop - oh no - I was doing CHRISTMAS SHOPPING! :-) These will most likely go to the sibling's family that I get assigned. I am one of five kids & we all have kids of our own. Christmas is nuts trying to buy for everyone (I have 14 nieces & nephews!!!) so we draw names & only buy for that family. SO...hmmm...maybe I shouldn't have posted that here??? Well, we haven't drawn names yet... LOL

The only other thing I bought was a donut maker - well - huh - what is it called? Donut cutter! That's it! :-) I want to make my own donuts & this makes them. They had a bunch of neat kitchen gadgets there. It was a lot of fun browsing. We then walked over to their actual store - they had a brisk lunch business going. We all bought some yummy treats to tide us over on the long ride to the mall (1-1/2 hours).

We decided that we had to eat first so had a VERY yummy lunch at Applebee's. My poor MIL though had the wrong thing brought to her - she wanted shrimp skewers & had steak brought instead. It was a very long wait for her shrimp to arrive so they didn't charge her for those. We then ordered two desserts & all split them. I was WAY too full after all that!

From there we headed to Target & I got a really nice jump start on the kids Christmas shopping. We don't have many of them around here so it was a nice change to shop at one. We really liked their dollar bins! I found some really neat scrapbooking things there. From there we headed to Michael's. Again, more stuff for the boys & more dollar bins! :-) Got to love that. We finally made it in to the mall. The friend with us wanted to pick up Hallmark 2006 ornaments for all of her children & her married grandson. We headed there while my MIL & SIL shopped for clothes at JC Penny. We met up at the Hallmark store. I spied another kitchen gadget store & headed in there. I decided to finally buy myself a large cutting/bread board. I've wanted one for a long time & various male members of my family have promised to make me one - over the past five years. I got a great one for $30 there! It's large enough to fit over one side of my sink. The nice part - the back of it has markings on it for pies - 8", 9" & 10" as well as tarts. My hubby is really hoping I decide to make him one very soon! I also picked up some "math dice" for the boys. They weren't all that thrilled though....

One other mall stop was at Olympia Sports. I ended up getting the two older boys Red Sox hats. There were two reasons - actually three I think...

1. They could never find a hat this summer...
2. They need to wear something to Awana on Thursday night for baseball - it's World Series Night - we have nothing with anything they can wear on it. I was going to make them Red Sox T-shirts - I bought them hats instead.
3. They were on sale. :-)

From there we finally headed home. It was about 6:30-7:00 & it was a 1-1/2 hour drive home. Again much chatting happened on the ride & we all had a great time. On the way home we discussed which "chick flick" we would watch once we arrived. My SIL has a ton of movies & my MIL & B hadn't seen "Ever After" with Drew Barrymore. My SIL & I had (she can quote it!!) so we watched that. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It's a retelling of the Cinderella story that is very well done - IMHO. We all went to bed late - again.

Sunday AM we again were up & on the road by about 10am. We hit a lot of smaller shops that were closer to home this time. We went to a few more country stores & that was fun. We went to one that was close to where my SIL lives. It's looks really small on the outside, but instead it just went on and on and on and on. Every time you would turn a corner there would be another huge section to go through. The best part - at least for me - was the old fashioned cash register they were still using - hand crank & all!!!

From there we went to some more craft/gift stores. Nothing really hit my fancy but it was all nice to look at. One of our last stops before lunch was a Celtic store. My heritage is Scottish so I love all things Celtic. I really have to shake my head over this encounter. We walked in to blaring highland music playing on the store CD player. This little old lady comes bustling over talking non-stop. We wandered around a bit. She changed the music & it caught my attention so I started asking her about the CD's they sell. I found one wanted. All the singing was in Gaelic. They were $19 each. I had a single $20 on me for cash so I knew I would need that for lunch. I asked her if they took credit cards. I kid you not - here is what she told me....
" You should be able to make $19 in cash. You know we loose a lot of money on credit cards these days. The banks keep so much."

Okay, so reading between the lines...yes, they do, but she won't for $19.... Fine. I told her I could do it but then I wouldn't be able to eat lunch. I told her I would "think about it" & we all left. My gosh! LOL Guess I didn't need that CD after all. :-)

We did head directly to lunch & ate at this really neat Pizza/Italian Bistro. It was three levels - we ate on the bottom floor. We had a nice view. There were only three tables down there & - get this - they had THREE waiters! One for each table. They had to go up & down two flights of stairs. You would think one person could do it - nope - we had a waitress & then each of the other tables had a different waiter. I did have a very yummy pizza though. Can you see that food played a significant role in our weekend? Again, we had dessert - a chocolate chocolate chip cookie (two actually) with vanilla ice-cream in the middle. To top off the afternoon, B (who has been a friend of the family for a long time) bought lunch for all of us. My MIL had teased her about this earlier (saying she was the only one who still had any money left from the weekend) & she ended up doing it. Thanks!!!! Of course, my MIL did ask me on the way back if I wanted to stop & pick up that CD after all - um, nope! LOL

After this we headed straight back, packed up & headed home. It was a really great weekend away. I just wish it had lasted longer............