Company Picnics, Blind (Play)Dates and More

In spite of the rather odd start to the weekend (my previous post), we had a fun-filled weekend with a lot of activity.

Company Picnic:

Well, I have to say that my company does not skimp on employee activities. Our picnic was held on Saturday in a very posh part of the bay area. Complete with an actual invitation that boasted pony rides, a petting zoo, carnival games, face painting, and many other fun activities for kids. There was no real way to state to Bea that we were going to mommy's work picnic because that wouldn't sound like fun, so we pumped her up with the promise of pony rides and sort of told her we were going to the zoo to pet the animals. I was fearful that there would be no animals there, but no joke, there were ponies AND animals.

Instead of giving the play by play, the main highlights included:

Bea held a parrot on her arm. NO JOKE! The woman came by with two huge parrots and asked her if she wanted to hold one. She shyed away at first and then the woman volunteered her mother (yes, me) to hold one in hopes the shy child would want to do it as well. It worked. Though it was maybe ten seconds or so, she did it, and it was amazing.

Meanwhile, I was letting Livey run wild in the grass area while she was attempting to perfect her walking abilities. Bea and Josh headed over to the ponies and as I made my way over there with Livey, Bea was riding one. Josh was holding her and walking next to her, but she was doing it, and she had such a huge smile on her face. Then Livey claimed she also wanted to ride, but when putting her on the saddle she started screaming "NO!"

Then it was off to the petting zoo, where there was a donkey, sheep, a pig and piglets, geese, turkey, you get the idea. Craziness. We had a good time there petting all the animals, and both girls participated.

After that, it was off to the carnival games where the kids were actually given tickets when playing the games to trade in for prizes at the prize booth (sound like Chuck E. Cheese?).

The whole time there were photographers everywhere - The parrot on the arm picture was taken, as well as the pony rides and the petting zoo with both girls. As soon as I see the proofs, you can bet I will be posting those pictures here and ordering them.

I missed some of the other highlights, but Josh might fill in on some of the other stuff in the comments...you never know.

Blind (Play)Date:

So, I met this other mom online and we have been chatting for quite sometime. We live in the same area and she is around my age with a son a few months younger than Bea. We had been trying to coordinate a time to meet for a while, and it actually worked out for us this weekend.

When Sunday rolled around, I actually got kind of nervous. You know, that feeling you get when you're set up with someone (though, it has been quite some time for me), but seriously, that was the feeling. Will she like me? Will Bea and her son get along? Will we really have anything in common? It made me nervous.

We got there first. I totally thought we might get stood up. But, we didn't. When I saw her and her son, I immediately knew it was them. The kids got along well. We got along well. We didn't get to spend a lot of time together because the kids were off and running in different directions a lot of the time. Oh, and Bea decided to poop while we were there, too, so I was like "I'll be right back" hoping that she didn't think I was just going to take off on her. So, an hour went by and Bea got cranky and was ready for her nap. We left it as "this was fun, we'll have to do it again..."

So, now of course I'm thinking: Will she contact me? Did she like me? We'll see, but it was nice to meet someone new and hopefully there will be more playdates in the future.

Additional meanderings:

We celebrated the Josh family birthdays on Saturday evening for Josh, his mom and his dad. His sister and her daughters were also in town so we made a big dinner of it all. Josh's birthday was the 27th, and I still need to give an update on his birthday weekend.

Though we did a lot of hanging around the house this weekend, there was definitely a lot of activity and a lot of laughter. The perfect ending to a somewhat perfect weekend:


Oh yeah, we jump on the bed ALL THE TIME around these parts!