Loooong Weekend

Looooong weekend.  Good weekend.  Here are a few of the things accomplished this weekend:

• After months of deliberation, I finally used my spa gift card (gift from Hans for Christmas) on an hour-long Swedish massage and a facial.  The massage ended up being comped by the spa because I had to endure the torture of sitting in their sun-filled atrium sipping tea and reading This Old House magazine.  For 40 minutes past my appointment time.  I don't know...it didn't really seem like a big deal, but apparently I got mixed up with a bridal party and got forgotten...I was perfectly content, but hey--anything FREE is okay with me.  Now I can go back for another massage, which the masseuse says that I desperately need.
• We decided to do a little hike on Saturday afternoon, at a park out in the middle of nowhere.  I think it would have been a perfect hike if not for the enormous quagmires of mud every 10', the enormous mosquitoes and gnats, and the enormous ticks.  We had something like eight ticks among the five of us, two of which were on Josiah's left buttcheek.  He kept complaining about something itching on his bottom during the hike...sure enough.
• After our hike, we rented little pedal/paddle boats and pedaled around the little lake and down the river.  Saw a snake in the water.  Will probably never go back in the lakes/rivers of this area again.  I'll just stick to the ocean, thank you very much.  There's nothing scary in the ocean, right?
• Josiah and Hans saw "The Avengers" a few weeks ago, so we used the long weekend to bring Josiah up-to-date on Ironman, Ironman 2 and Captain America.  He loved the Ironman movies, but he wimped out on Captain America--too much talking, not enough action to hold his attention, in the beginning at least.  I'm kind of glad he wandered off before the creepy guy pulled his face off.  At least Ironman doesn't have a super-scary villian.
• So--we decided to sell our extra couches on Craigslist.  Sunday was the Great Craigslist Couch Deal of 2012.  After a lot of "I'm SO interested, can I please come right this minute and see these couches??!!!!" and getting a subsequent sound of crickets chirping when I e-mailed back and said "Sure!!", I finally found a live buyer who agreed to come and look at the couches on Sunday at 10:00.  She finally made it out here at 11:30, sigh.  She and her mother decided they liked the couches, but oh--they had driven up in a sedan.  Um?  They were going to have to rent a truck to move the couches up to her place.  Would I come down in price since they had to rent a truck?  (Grrr, not really my problem, but fine, a little--just wanting to get rid of her and the couches).  They proceeded to drive to the nearest Home Depot (3.5 miles away), getting lost in the process.  Then they had to sit there waiting for a truck to become available, then they got lost coming BACK to our house.  Finally at about 4:15, the couches were loaded, the money handed over and the deal was done.  Sheesh! 
• Yesterday we went to a Memorial Day parade in Portsmouth.  It was...okay.  I made the mistake of getting the kids all excited about the throwing of candy, which apparently is either NOT the norm anymore or is only a Midwestern thing.  Possibly a small town Midwestern thing, even.  When we used to go to parades 30 years ago, the best part was the cheap Tootsie Rolls that every float, old car, horse rider and Shriner threw out of a bucket at the hordes of kids.
• There were a lot of random civic groups in the parade, the Shriners, cops on motorcycles doing tricks, ROTC groups from various high schools and a few high school marching bands and drum corps.  A couple of floats.  A few princesses and a state legislator, a bunch of Boy Scouts. 
• But no candy.

Pictures:

Annika on the paddleboat

Not quite big enough to reach the pedals

A blurry view of the river/snake habitat