Long Weekend

I was excited to have Sunday off for a visit from my friend, and rock and roll drummer, Scott along with his wife Vanessa and daugter Samara. They had yet to make the Wombats' acquaintance.


For breakfast we made them their first ever waffles which they seemed to like quite a bit.


After breakfast they took a quick nap where Elliott did what he normally does and kicked a foot free of the blankets. Apparently my grandfather also liked to sleep with his feet out of the blankets. Perhaps this is hereditary. This wouldn't be so bad except that he so often wants to sleep in bed with us which means we can't sleep with the blankets any higher than our waists.


They woke up before lunch and soon after Uncle Scott and Aunt Vanessa arrived with Samara. The guys take a minute to warm up to new people, that is unless the new people have tons of bracelets and anklets on in which case they immediately form a bond.


They also get extra points if they feed them.


Also popular: reading a book to them. Even if it's the world's most poorly written book about baby panda bears.


We started off the afternoon with a refreshing Strawberry Lager from Abita Brewing Company. While I generally avoid afternoon beers this was so light and refreshing it was like drinking a lemonade. No afternoon nap was required.


After lunch we went for a walk to the park and enjoyed the Wombats' favorite pastime: swinging.


And more swinging.


Then Elliott dressed up like a super hero with a little help from Samara.


For dinner we made a mini-barbecue for the Wombats with chopped up vegetables, cheese, and shrimp.


For the 12 month and over crowd we had some slow-cooked St. Louis Ribs . . .


. . . grilled grass-fed sliders and wings . . .


. . . and a creamy mustard and scallion potato salad. Out of laziness I made this by boiling some potatoes, chopping them, adding mayo, hot sauce, whole grain mustard, and chopped scallions with a dash of cider vinegar with salt and pepper. I didn't add celery or onion and it ended up turning out a little better than I'd thought it would.


Like any great guests our barbecue invitees brought us great beers that we'd never had before including this Sixty-One from Dogfish Head, a beer I'd been looking for but hadn't had luck finding yet. This is basically their Sixty Minute IPA brewed with grape must giving it the purple color and a nice tartness to it.


After eating their dinner Vanessa was nice enough to lend about half of her bracelets to Elliott. This may have been the happiest moment of his life.


After dinner we all took a walk to the ice cream shop which was inundated with locals. Jen and Samara waited outside with the babies and some woman's dog. We totally could have stolen that dog but, once again, our pesky morals stood in the way of getting a free pet.

How boring of us.


Memorial Day was largely spent in a continued effort to figure out this whole crawling thing. Elliott remains extremely irritable that he is not able to completely figure it out.


While I was at work Jen took them to the park and put them in hats with straps. This completely foils their continual attempts to remove them and satisfies Jen's urge to keep the sun away from their precious baby skin.


When I got home from work I gave both of the guys a free flight in my customer jet fighter simulation. They like landings the best.


Lately Martin has been extremely needy to be held by me specifically. To make things simpler I strapped him to me while we went outside and grilled. Let it be noted that this may have been simpler for him. For me it made grilling sort of a nightmare. Martin came out of it without any burns on his face or arms so I guess it was a success.


For their dinner we made them a deconstructed barbecue of burgers, cheese, corn on the cob, and tomatoes. Jen postulated that this was how the whole deconstructed meal craze was born. It makes perfect sense. We just chopped up all the things we were having for dinner (or had previously made) and served it to them like this. I guess the real genius of this craze was in figuring out how to then charge huge prices to adults who bought into the trend.


For dinner we had grilled Chilean Sea Bass, shrimp, sea scallops, arugula salad with avocado and Campari tomato, buttered pee wee potatoes with dill, and more grilled corn.

The babies did not want to go to sleep after dinner. Elliott eventually fell asleep but Martin demanded to stay up. We eventually gave in and set him up in his Rock and Play in front of the TV to watch hockey. He watched for about an hour, mostly quiet, until he drifted off to sleep. Then, at 10:00 PM, the real work began. Dishes, sweeping, wiping down high chairs, taking our showers, getting their food ready for day care, and in bed by midnight.

Sadly, this felt like a very relaxing long weekend. All the twin parents we meet in town keep telling us that it gets easier. I think they are liars.

Dirty, dirty liars.