Good weekend. Whoo!

Friday I went down to Chesapeake and hung out with K.T. and Karen and we ate out (Don Pablo's sopapillas with brandy butter sauce, mmm...) and talked and had a nice relaxing day.

I did get into some frustrating traffic on the way back to Williamsburg, but what's new about that?

Saturday was the Pirates of the Caribbean gathering. Matt and I took Penny to my parents' before lunch, sat around and talked with my folks while she ate, and put her down for her nap. When we were pretty sure she was asleep (or very near it), we slipped out.

We picked up Alexis and had lunch at Cheeseburger in Paradise (little mini hamburgers! so cute!) and then headed down to Portsmouth. Since the online map-providing services wanted us to take the most torturous route possible, Matt had researched the better, shorter, faster route that took us via I-664. Except that he hadn't counted on me doing the driving, and the online maps hadn't been entirely accurate, and we wound up getting lost at the Portsmouth Marine Terminal and Port Authority. Excellent LARP fodder, not so much for the watching of movies.

Once we got turned around, we found the street we were supposed to be on, and after driving down it for a while, we spotted the landmarks that told us we were even driving in the right direction. So it was a little adventure. Whoo, us! And I didn't even get panicky!

So we got to Greg's house and we sat around and watched the first movie and talked and eventually walked over to the theater and paid way too much for mediocre food that most of us weren't really hungry for anyway, and watched the movie.

I have two complaints about the movie: First, I'd have been much happier if I'd known in advance that it ended on a cliffhanger to be resolved in the third movie. So much so that I don't consider it a spoiler to say so here. I'm not saying what the cliffhanger is. I just think you should know that it's only half a movie.

As for the second... There's a blurry line between a scoundrel and a villain. In the first movie, the protagonists were firmly in "scoundrel" territory. In this one, they'd slipped a little bit closer to villainous behavior. Not quite over the line... mostly. But awfully close. I really hope they redeem themselves in the third. But on the plus side, it did mean that the characters were much more complex, which was kind of nice to see in a popcorn-muncher.

Aside from that, though, it was a fun movie. Awesome special effects, and funny, and great action sequences.

Penny stayed overnight with my parents Saturday night, so Matt and I both got to sleep in until 7:30 on Sunday. When we called, we found out that Penny had taken a nice long nap, and slept straight through the night to 6:30 Sunday morning, so that's a big plus in the possibility that they'll take her again.

Sunday afternoon we had the Hickseses and Karen over. Mostly we sat around talking. The kids played in the pool for a bit, and then we had homemade quesadillas for dinner. Mmm. I like quesadillas.

And then yesterday I went down to Chesapeake again. Mostly a repeat of Friday's sitting around and talking, except Kevin was home. Karen and I left at 3:30 to try to get back to Williamsburg at a reasonable hour, but there was an accident in the tunnel, so we wound up sitting in traffic some more. Ironically, we sat in traffic together -- I was right behind her. Since we spent a good 45 minutes literally inching along (I think we went a whole 100 yards in that 45 minutes) before things finally started moving at a whole 6mph, we did a lot of text-messaging.

But once we got home, I made meatloaf and Penny was excited to see Karen and we had a nice evening, and then after Penny went to bed, we watched Sports Night.

Tonight, Matt has a company function to go to (spouses are invited, but kids aren't, so I'll be staying home with Penny) and then tomorrow is his company picnic that we'll all go to. And then Thursday will be the Summer Bash cookout at our house that I think about everyone is coming to, so that'll be fun.

Gonna be a busybusy week. And I haven't even looked at my actual workload yet.

--Liz