This past weekend was full of many things. Starting with my dear man flying my sister, Carla, in from Ohio as a surprise. (At Kevin’s softball game last week, one of the wives of another player asked me which one was my husband. I said, “Oh, he’s not my husband; he’s my MAN.” Everyone started laughing and I had to finish by saying that he is going to be my husband, just not yet.) So Carla flew in Friday and left this afternoon (Monday). We had a great time stirring up trouble, starting with the cops.

Apparently, North Liberty police take everything pretty seriously except for my stalker of a landlord. Two police cars pulled me over Friday night because one of my headlights was out. Carla and I were secretly making a lot of fun of them because it was all so ridiculous, what with their back-up and all. I got a written warning, complete with a run down of why I have an Iowa driver’s license, but Ohio plates (the Iowa plates were in the backseat of my car; I had just gotten them that day). Also, I have to send in proof of inspection of my new headlights in 5 days (3 by now). I figured that the police had been so worked up the night before with Ragbrai in town that they were bored out of their minds the following night so they were just sitting around waiting for something out of place. Lucky me. Funny enough, being pulled over didn’t phase me one bit and I was more irritated at how serious they were about a headlight. Note to the police: I changed it today.

On Saturday, Kevin, Carla, and I drove to Ankeny/Des Moines for Kevin and my engagement party. We certainly had a wonderful time sitting around, drinking cocktails and enjoying the outdoors with his extended family. As a special note, there was a toast written by Kevin’s mom that was read to us by his aunt. It was beautiful. Our entertainment for the evening was naked children running through the sprinkler in the yard. 🙂 It was very funny. We also had to dodge golf balls that the children were practicing their swing with; again, very funny.

We came back on Sunday and spent the afternoon taking Kenni and Hogan to the pool. They, of course, loved it even after it got too cold to stay in the water. Mckenna’s teeth were chattering, but when I asked her about it, she clenched her teeth and said through pursed lips, “They are not.” Carla and I finally became too cold that we told the kids it was time to go. The big kids are definitely the biggest wimps.

Carla and I are big, huge, crazy fans of ABBA, so, of course, we’re both obsessed with the musical, Mamma Mia. When we heard that a movie of the musical was being made, we started planning our trip to the theater together. We know all of the songs and often sing along loudly with the ABBA: Greatest Hits CD on road trips. We got to the theater a little early and scouted out the best seats. We were severely annoyed by three, immature girls in front of us who were loud and obnoxious, but still had a great time. At the end, we stayed while the credits rolled and sang loudly along with the songs since we were the only ones left in the theater.

This morning, we went shopping at Barnes & Noble to scout out some books on Chicago so that we can be fully prepared for City Chase in August and then got pedicures. That was a huge adventure in and of itself. It was at this cheap place in the mall called Paris Nails. We decided that the only thing Parisian about the place was that they had several pictures of the Eiffel Tower on the walls. The funniest part of all was the little fans they put on our toes afterwards to dry the polish.

I took Carla back to the airport this afternoon and now it’s back to the real world for me. It was a great weekend though in every aspect!