tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

It’s been a busy, awesome weekend. Today is a much needed day of rest and recovery.

Kim came down on Friday, proving once again what a wonderful, loyal friend she is.  Sitting in traffic for hours, paying out the nose for tanks of gas, and not even for me, but to celebrate Aaron’s graduation – good friends are rare indeed. Those who will drive over 4 hours to see you are even rarer.

We went to our now-traditional Kim’s Visit Dinner at Carraba’s on Friday, and rounded out the night by perusing knitting books at Borders.

Saturday was graduation day. It was actually really emotional for me. Pomp and Circumstance – it gets me every time. I was so proud of Aaron, and he looked so good in his regalia. He got a medal for graduating with honors and was announced as graduating Summa Cum Laude as he walked across the stage. He had the biggest grin as he flipped his tassel from the right side to the left.

His dad was very proud.

It was a really hot day so we headed home to get ready for the bbq.

We had a full house with about 21 people – including Aaron’s nephews, who enjoyed playing with my My Little Ponies.

I made three sets of burgers – Mega Spicy, Kinda Spicy, and Mostly Mild. I call it a success when people are wiping sweat from their brows and tears from their eyes, grinning all the while.

Everyone loved our Snuggler Recliner.

Austin’s margaritas were a hit, as were the shots of Patron.

This meant that, as per usual, we are left with two vegetable drawers filled to the brim with beer, three bottles of white in the fridge and 5 bottles of red – all waiting to be drunk. So, I guess we need to throw another bbq so we can kill some of the leftover libations!

Thanks to all who came and celebrated with us. We are lucky to have such great friends and family!

Full photo sets are on our Flickr page.

AaronGraduation 017, originally uploaded by MissRancher.

Aaron graduated Summa cum Laude with a 4.0 GPA – congratulations!

We had a really refreshing weekend in VA Beach. The weather was absolutely perfect, the tides were high, and the drinks were flowing.

We brought Austin and Kelli to my cousins’ house, which is on the bay. Austin made a fantastic margarita type concoction to start our weekend out right.

Aaron and I brought Illy to the beach to tag along with Dee and Archie’s traditional morning walk on the beach for an hour or so. She discovered that she likes chasing crabs.

She does not like to swim, but Archie can’t get enough of the water.

We couldn’t have had better weather.

Christopher recently bought a second wave runner, so they have a His and Hers. We all took turns – they topped out at 66mph, which is quite a rush.

We had many amazing meals, many bottles of fantastic wine, spent hours lounging in and around the pool, reading books, chasing squirrels (well at least one of us enjoyed that), and not worrying about anything at all.

It was heaven.

GiirlsBeach-2, originally uploaded by MissRancher.

We took Illy to VA Beach this weekend, and I’m pretty sure it was the first time she’s ever seen the ocean, or walked on sand. I think the waves sounded a bit too much like thunder for her liking, but she liked pouncing on the crabs!

Since I ended up inviting the world and his wife over for Aaron’s graduation bbq, I thought it might be time to clean the carpets.

We bought a Dyson right around the time we got Illy, because a black dog on beige carpets means daily vacuuming if I don’t want a black carpet.

The Dyson Animal kicks absolute ass. The first time I tried it on a 4 square foot area, it filled the canister up. Twice. It was ridiculous. So we’ve been using it religiously since we bought it.

However, our issues went a little deeper, so we bought a steam cleaner.

I cleaned the living room with it last night, and when we poured out the dirty water, it was absolutely filthy. And the carpet was so soft and fluffy afterwards! But it didn’t really get any stains out. So I bought a pre-treater for the stains and a stronger detergent, and gave it another pass today. It’s not a quick process, by any means. I still didn’t get the stains completely out, but they are a lot lighter, and the scary part is, the water was STILL filthy! I wonder if I can even do it enough times for clean water to come out…

And even after Dysoning, steam cleaning, Dysoning, and steam cleaning, we kept getting dog and cat hair clogging up the brush on the steam cleaner, and the Dyson still pulled out a bunch of crap after the last cleaning. Not as much, for sure, but it’s still in there.

But either way, it’s really nice walking on a fluffy carpet! If we do stay in this house another year, we definitely need to replace the carpets.

On Monday, I take on the stairs…

This was a weekend of good eating, for sure.

We had an awesome dinner at Thai Luang on Friday before heading out to Friday Night Live, where we met up with Kelly and Pat. The band was actually really good, and we managed to find a spot on the grass where it wasn’t too loud.

They were telling us all about their new house in Ashburn, making us jealous with talk of their two car garage, finished basement, extra bedrooms, and a quarter acre. Sigh. We have total house envy. If we do end up having to stay in this area for a few more years, it would make it so much easier if we had a bigger house. And a multi-car garage. Of course, we’d still have to sell our house first, which is the tough bit. So much is up in the air right now. Oy.

Anyway so Saturday I got a lot done cleaning the house and preparing for some out of town guests, and then Aaron took me out to a wonderful dinner at Bellissimo. We had gone there for my 30th birthday and declared it our favorite restaurant in DC. I’m happy to report that it lived up to its reputation. I actually ordered the same entree I had last time, the Agnolotti Amore, because it was so good I just couldn’t resist. And we had strawberries in cream for dessert which was heavenly. I think we might have to make it a monthly outing.

In other news, Aaron has one final left before he is DONE with school! Very exciting. Graduation is in two weeks – definitely an excuse for cake!