Weekend in Review: Is it finally spring??

One thing I've read a lot of places is people just being all up in arms about the 'crazy' winter we had this year.  And yes, it has been quite the winter(!) but I feel like this is more normal of a winter compared to what we've had in years past.  I think people especially round these parts tend to have weather amnesia year-to-year.  I especially hear that in the summer where people say it's never been this hot, this summer is the hottest ever, and that humidity - terrible.  Um, it's normally that hot round here and that humid... actually for the most part summers have been fairly mild as of recently, which is very nice.  While we got a TON of snow this winter, which hasn't happened recently, and the temperatures were lower than recent years, I'm not sure it's that crazy of a winter?  I'm not sure... either way, I'm happy for the warmer weather, but I didn't absolutely hate the winter we had... and I don't think I've uttered the phrase 'will this winter get over with already' or anything similar to that.

Wow... that was quite the rambly paragraph... but I am looking forward to hanging out on my awesome deck come warmer weather.  And I do hope that spring in the weather sense lasts awhile... better than going straight to hot and humid like we do some years.

Anyway... off the random soapbox and back to the weekend.

On Friday I had a relaxing day... the last few Fridays I've had plans... but this one I didn't and I was so happy.  I got some breakfast and watched recorded TV from the week and lounged around.  I also did laundry.  When Dan got home we hung out and then went over to Fairview Heights because he just had to have some of this limited edition beer... and that's where he knew it was in stock.  We headed over to the Randall's.  He got his beer (along with another bottle of something he wanted to try) and I got a (big) bottle of cherry cider.

Then we went to dinner at Show-Mes.  I let Dan pick and since the one close to us closed it's where he really wanted to go.  According to him they have better wings than Hooters.  We each had a Blue Moon and enjoyed the ambiance (that's a joke).  When we got back home we watched Anchorman 2 (ok well I did Dan went to bed at like 8:30... in his defense he had to work the next morning at 6am)

On Saturday Dan was at work in the morning.  I made myself breakfast and lounged around.  I really wanted to get a couple of things done during the weekend because we are having a party in a couple of weeks and I've got plans for both Saturday and Sunday next weekend and I'll be out of town the following weekend so needed to get some of the major things done this weekend. 

I decided to clean out the storage closet (which is also where the cat's stuff is.  That closet had just kind of ended up as a catch all for boxes of stuff we didn't know what to do with - which is what I storage closet should be... however we had just thrown things in there without any real order or identification of what was in the boxes.  Worse, I hadn't been able to move the Christmas items back into that closet - so they were just sitting out in the open of the main downstairs part.

So I began to pull out all the boxes and see what the heck was in all of them... that part wasn't the most fun - especially when I encountered a spider that was frighteningly close to my hand... but since I hadn't let the close get too out of control, it wasn't that bad either.

The boxes all pulled out - not even all of them as they stretch to the left too - including all that Christmas stuff I referenced earlier... And Stitch in the foreground... if I'm down there she HAS to be on my lap...

Some of them were mine and others were Dan's.  While Dan refused to get rid of anything... I was able to get rid of some random stuff.  And at the very least was able to condense Dan's boxes down and label them better.

The really fun part was I went through some of my childhood boxes... so it was fun to have a short walk down memory lane.
 

The Beanie Baby collection - weren't these supposed to make me money someday?

The kinda funny thing is the dogs (mostly Bella) use Beanie Babies as toys.  We had a few accidents with them getting holes (at Dan's apartment) but mostly they hold up well and Bella likes carrying them around.  Although I don't think I'll let her have my random stash... a lot of these were given to me by my Uncle Steve, so they have a special place in my heart.

I have the regular and teenie beanie baby - that's gotta be worth something right?

I also found where I kept all my baby teeth (in this creepy cat dish no less)... I ended up finding quite a few more at the bottom of the bin where they had fallen out of creepy cat dish.

Wasn't the tooth fairy suppose to keep these?

Either way I got all the boxes condensed, organized and put back into the storage closet in a way that made sense.  Now here's where I show you the after picture!  But I totally forgot to take one, so you'll just have to believe me.  It felt really good to get that done! 

While I was finishing that up - Dan came back home and had brought BBQ supplies with him.  Caleb also came over and we spent a lot of time outside.  It was so nice to sit in the sun and just relax.  It was one of those days where sitting in the sun feels good but the shade is too cold... we won't have very many of those left, but it was nice to enjoy while we could.

Dan made chicken and shrimp kabobs.  He marinated the meat in a jerk seasoning first and then added them to sticks with pineapple.  It was SO DELICIOUS!  The grilled pineapple was so yummy.  I'm really lucky to have a boyfriend who can grill well!

Dan and Caleb also made some veggies in a pan on the grill (with olive oil and seasoning), jalapeno dogs (I bought some earlier in the week and since the grill was going might as well throw them on there) and the boys also made some steaks.

After we ate we went over to Lou and Amanda's house to hang out with them for awhile.  I'm really liking how often we see them - it's really nice living so close.  They had a fire going so we sat around the fire and chatted for a bit.  The best part of this time of year is the lack of bugs - I know they will be out soon and I'll not like outside as much, so enjoying it while I can.

We hung out there for a few hours and then went over to Dave's place.  He had recently bought a fire pit, so we hung out outside there for a couple of hours too.  I liked hanging out with some of them, but there were some girls there that were pretty annoying... but what can you do?  Once Dave ran out of wood to burn we headed back to our house and called it a night.

On Sunday we considered going to the Queeny Park Art Fair, but then decided not to.  I did what I had already planned on doing on Sunday - which was raking the leaves.  Before I started I thought it wouldn't be that big of a job... and I was wrong, there were WAY more leaves in the yard than I realized... and more dog poop because someone hadn't been cleaning up after them...

Either way, I got all the leaves raked up into piles and Dan headed to the hardware store to get yard waste bags and some over random stuff... It felt good to get all the leaves into piles and hopefully Daniel will pick them all up sometime the week.

The rest of the day was fairly leisurely... I made chili...

Overall I had a good weekend and thought it was productive which is good.  How was yours?