Weekend of August 18-19

This will go down as the weekend of jobs.

I swapped weekends with Anita for the boys as Kieran had been invited Whitewater rafting on Sunday and then out to the Hamptons starting Sunday.

Mary Ann was here for the week (going back tomorrow morning) so we took the opportunity to get a whole lot of jobs done that had been on my list for a while.

Friday was pretty quiet. MA picked me up from the train station and we came home and had a nice dinner (MA cooked - big surprise she just said to me).

Saturday morning we got up early and went to the gym and took an 1 1/4 hr boxing class. It was an old school workout. None of this fancy equipment stuff, guy just told us to lift our legs 6 inches off the ground and keep them there until every muscle in our stomachs was screaming at us to put our legs down. Apart from that it was a fun class (although I was too afraid to ask MA whose face she was envisioning as she punched the heavy bag).

After the gym and a stop at the bagel shop to undo all the good work we got home and made 3 trips to goodwill to drop off some old furniture I had in the garage that has been there since I moved.

After we had showers, etc we drove to look at cars for MA as her existing car is 11 yrs old and is not making the move with her when she moves from Chicago. She has always been a buy American girl but we test drove a Honda and I think I blew it as she really liked it. We are looking a little sporty 2 door coupe as we have the Explorer we just need something small and good on gas.

After we got home from car shopping we relaxed for a bit before going out for a very tasty meal at a local restaurant that got a great write up from the NY Times.

Sunday we got up around 8 and went for an 8 mile run down by the canal. Took about 90 minutes. When we got home we went and had some brunch and bought some stuff for the house (mainly organizing stuff for the garage). When we got home we attacked the garage and within a couple of hours had it all organized so hopefully we can fit two cars in there.

By this time we were both feeling the effects of the boxing class and 8 mile run and have pretty much been hobbling around like 90 year olds all afternoon.

Went to Mass at 5.30 and when we got back MA very kindly made pesto sauce and a tomato sauce from the tomatoes and basil we have been growing. Looking forward to having both of those for dinner on the camping trip next weekend. Am taking the boys for 4 days next weekend to the great outdoors in the Pocono Mountains.