Laughing, and Talbots, and Blogging OH MY!

For the past 2 weekends we have been lucky enough to have our fabulous families come and visit.

My mom came the weekend of August 7th and we had a great time laughing, talking, and most importantly hitting up the biggest sale of the year..... at Talbots!  Now, I normally am not a Talbots kind of gal, but since my mom is, I figured I would accompany her in to make sure she didn't buy something outrageous.  Well, we are in the store no longer than 5 minutes before I spot the words - TAKE AN ADDITIONAL 50% OFF ALREADY REDUCED PRICE.  Say no more, I'm there.  I soon found myself totally consumed with frantically rummaging through rack after rack of what I use to term as "business casual" wear (nowadays known as super cute, classy, everyday wear).  I was in the zone and had way to many clothes.  Thankfully the lovely Talbots associate noticed my redneck way of claiming clothes (a pile on the floor) and asked if she could put them in a dressing room for me.  I mean honestly, if you are going to mark down fantastically awesome clothes like that, don't expect your patrons to keep it classy Talbots.  Needless to say I bought things.  And I could've bought more and in retrospect I wish I did.  That is until my mom and I found the promised land of Talbots Shoes & Accessories.  My mom also got super cute clothes.  We are a deadly combination when it comes to shopping, thank goodness my sister was not in the same state.  What a great weekend.

This past weekend my in-laws came to visit, which was super fun!  So let me start off by saying that my mother-in-law is a really fabulous cook/baker.  So when she arrived with homemade Italian sauce, homemade lemon pound cake, french bread, homemade apple pie, salad, and a few other goodies, I was  a) so happy because I realized I would get to eat all of it    b) even more excited because that means I don't need to be all domestic and try to act like I'm a good cook and   c) well aware that all my hard work at the gym lately would be shot to hell oh and one more thing....d) am I really such a bad domestic goddess that family needs to bring premade food? (surely this is not the case for anyone who has ever had my pb&j).  So Thursday we had an awesome truly home cooked meal. 

On Friday, BK and I decided to truly give them a taste of where we live by treating them to nothing-short-of a famous Philadelphia Cheesesteak.  As a side note, back in October 2009 while babysitting (we will discuss this type of employment further in later posts) I read a book called Skinny Bitch.  For those of you who have not had the pleasure of reading this it's pretty much about eating right and ridding yourself from food that is grossly over-processed.  This period in my life is also known as the time of completely-insanely ORGANIC Jenn, hence my love for Whole Foods emerged.  Since Fall of '09, I have only bought organic milk and dairy, organic meat, organic produce and if the marketing department at a company does a really fantastical job I might be suckered into buying organic chips and non-perishables, I'm just saying.  So back to Friday, you can now understand my anxiousness about eating not only non organic meat, but "mystery meat" as we use to say back in middle and high school.  While I have eaten cheesesteaks before it was pre-organic era and I didn't care.  Well, I am happy to announce that the Cheesesteak I ate on Friday was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G and I could have cared less about where this mystery meat was coming from (correction:  I do care and I am grossed out a little by it, so I just don't think about it since surely it has already passed through my digestive tract).  Here are the in-laws loving life (aka loving their cheesesteaks)

On Saturday we decided we would take the drive out to Gettysburg as it has been on our list of "to-do" while we live here.  So, at 9am we dropped off our little Abby at her favorite place on Earth - doggie day care and began the 2.5 hour drive.  I actually love little day trips, I love the car and because I have a love relationship with talking it allows me to do it nonstop to others who are traveling with me.  Let me preface this whole day's experience with....I like history, I find it interesting, however, I'm probably not your top candidate to volunteer as a solider in a re-enactment of the Civil War.  BK and my father-in-law, on the other hand, desperately wish they could teletransport back to this time.  The Gettysburg Museum is really good and really long.  In fact, I took comfort when nearing the end of the museum I saw my mother-in-law sitting on one of the benches relaxing - thank god I wasn't the only one who was  a) starting to get tired and  b)maybe a little bored?  So having the wonderful social couth that I do, I didn't let anyone know my legs were tired, I didn't let anyone know I was bored and wanted nothing more than that damn museum to end and I absolutely didn't let anyone know that I was ready to call it a day. ( However, I somehow lost my gracious couth nearing the 6th hour of this tour).  So, after all four of us finished going through the museum, we decided we would buy the narrated car tour CD from the gift shop and take the tour of the battlefields.  HALLELUJAH!  I would be able to sit in a car, role down my window and maybe, just maybe, fall asleep.  The car tour was actually really great the first 30 minutes and after 30 minutes all the battlefields looked the same.  It was 1.5 hours into the car tour when my MIL said, "Do we really need to stop at this monument?"  GLORY TO MY EARS, I was not the only one bored to tears.  So, I felt this was my strike-when-the-iron-is-hot with my comment "I can't take it, I want to assassinate the woman narrating this damn CD."  And this friends is what I mean when I say I lost my wonderfully, gracious social couth.  With that the men in our lives knew we couldn't take it anymore.  We ended our driving tour at monument 27 (there were only 30 total, and my FIL still wants to kill me and his wife). 

While on the driving tour and still smiling, must be before me wanting to assassinate the narrator

Needless to say, it really was a fun day but the thought of taking my parents to Gettsyburg anytime in the near future sounds nauseating. 

Next time lets just watch the History Channel, shall we?