Buy Me Some Peanuts and Crackerjack

They didn't win, and it was a shame. We took the girls to see a Blue Jays game in Toronto yesterday, and despite their defeat to the Phillys, it was a great day anyway.

I love going to baseball games. I hardly ever watch it on tv, although if the Mister is watching one, I'll sort of pay attention, but I adore going to a live game. It's probably the only sport I will pay to watch, in fact. (The NFL doesn't seem interested in coming up with the necessary incentive to get me to pay attention to them, which would be considerable, I can tell you.)

One of the things I love about baseball games is watching the crowd...there's no end of fascinating people at a big baseball park. Like the woman who sat in front of us who seemed to spend the entire game trying to get her boyfriend's attention. (Seriously, he's at a professional sports event, lady, if you showed up naked with tequila he wouldn't pay attention to you.) There were two twenty-something guys sitting beside me who giggled like 11 year-old girls the entire game, and a couple of Orthodox Jews with some little boys who yelled like banshees whenever the Jays got a hit. Everyone was having a ball. I also love that at baseball games, everyone talks to each other. One guy sitting in our row was a Philadelphia fan (in fact, from what I could hear, he drove from Philadelphia to see the game.) and he put up with some good-natured trash-talk until Toronto started trailing, wherein he gave as good as he got.

There is one thing I noticed at the ball park, and that is that there apparently was some sort of convention of People Who Walk Without Watching Where They Are Going meeting there, because no matter where you went, there was someone walking in one direction, and walking in another. They usually complicated matters by carrying vats of Diet Coke and trailing at least one small child with them while doing it.

One of the best things about going to a ball game is the food....for some reason the food at the ball park is unbelievably good. Don't ask me why. But it is heinously expensive. I'm sure the Rogers Centre is no better or worse than any other major league park, but you could easily run through your entire RRSP if you wanted to eat anything there. I bought 2 Coke Zeros and 2 soft pretzels for, get this, $17.00. Seventeen dollars. I saw a woman with a huge box full of hot dogs, at least two dozen, and I bet she had to have a talk with her bank manager this morning regarding that. We did stop off at the grocery store before we set out for the big city, and the Mister found some peanuts there that claimed to be the "official" peanuts of the Blue Jays, so he bought 4 bags for a dollar each. When we got there, the exact same bags were selling for $4.75. So, we felt like we got away with something. (The Mister is always happier when he feels like he's got the financial and moral high ground.)

So much to see and do and eat. You can't beat a ball game on a summer's day.

Is It Easter?

I think I know what it feels like to be resurrected. I had a wicked cold/flu sort of thing the past few days that cut me off at the knees, and I'm just now starting to feel anything resembling normal again.
Wednesday night had me feeling like I was getting a cold; hardly a surprise, several people at work had something, and Thing 2 had been snufflly and sneezy the past few days. I went to bed early that night with a few vitamin C tablets and figured I'd brazen it out.
I knew I had a full day on Thursday at work, and when you get paid on commission, you are loathe to cancel a whole day where people are willing to pay for your services. I also knew I would have to stay late, since my last client at 5:00 was booked a bit late for what she wanted done, but also, that lovely, kind, sweet woman has a shitload of hair that tends to require brute force and ignorance to wrestle into any sort of submission. It wouldn't be a particulary enjoyable day on my part, but I'd get through it.

By noon I was thinking that the floor behind the front desk looked like it would be an ideal place for a nap and why, in the 25 years I had worked at the salon, had I never noticed that before? People appeared to be talking to me from underwater, and I it seemed that I came with my my own weather system, as I alternated between cold and hot in a dizzying cycle. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to make it to 7 pm. And I now know that God in His Sweet Heaven DOES exist, because my last client cancelled. It was a Christmas miracle.

I went home, crawled straight into bed and didn't come out for 18 hours. At first I was afraid I was going to die, and then I was afraid I wasn't going to die. The whole H1N1 thing did cross my mind at one point, but since I didn't get any worse in the 24 hours, I figured I wasn't going to grow a curly tail and oink any time soon.

I took the next day off work, and I can't remember the last time I did that. It was wonderful...even if I did feel like shit, it was so great to just lay in bed, watch tv, nap and read my book with impunity. I'd have eaten chocolate the whole time, if there had been any in the house.

Saturday saw me back on my feet and mostly back to normal. As much as I enjoyed the respite from the rest of my life, it is much nicer to be healthy and whole once again. Next time, I will just fake it.

Just Do It.

At Thing 1 and my running class on Monday evenings, the usual format is to have a short talk for half an hour, and then we go out and run with the group. Last week we had a physiotherapist talk to us about how to exercise to avoid injuries and such. He was very good; informative, concise and very helpful. This week's talk was about motivation, which interested me very much. I am a classic case of unmitigated sloth, and I hate a challenge. I've spent my life getting beyond that, so the guy who came to talk to us on Monday had my undivided attention.

He spoke well enough about what motivated HIM, but that actually has little bearing on MY circumstances. (I guess the idea is that I hire him on a more formal level, and pay his fee, to figure that one out.) He talked about competition, and using your own need to win to make you work a little harder. That does nothing for me; I think I am the most uncompetitive person God ever made. You want to beat me at something? Go ahead, I couldn't care less. In fact, I'd probably not even notice.
At one point he said how important it was to give yourself a goal to work for. I asked how you managed to keep that goal as a goal, because I have no problem whatsoever in changing the goal according to my whim. I can say I want to run for 5 straight minutes, but I can just as easily decide that 4 is A-okay by me. (The Loudshoes family motto is "That'll do".) And his answer? "Well, you just have to." Really? THAT'S the big motivational talk? Are you kidding me?
(Maybe I should become a motivational speaker and spout words of wisdom like "Don't give up" and "You can do it!"I could branch out and write a best-selling diet book called "Maybe You Shouldn't Eat That", and a financial book called "Stop Buying Things You Can't Afford". I'd make millions!)

I went out and ran with the class, and it was really hard, but I paid good money for it, so I did it anyway. So, I guess I have figured out what motivates me: Money. And pride. And the thought of a nice cold glass of Riesling when I get home. I think those could motivate anyone.

There You Have It.

Inspired by this, my blog today is:

I Can't swim like you're supposed to, hit a moving target, do math in my head, sleep with noise going on around me, stand Jack Nicholson, eat undercooked eggs.

But I Can run for three minutes, rock a crossword puzzle, get up and speak in front of a crowd without a problem (and if I know what I'm talking about, so much the better), get us where we need to go, cook anything, calm a crying baby.

I Won't get offended, play sports, care of you don't make a fuss about my birthday, wear fur, vote strategically, suffer fools gladly, answer the phone if it's a 1-800 number, buy anything sold door to door, go along without asking questions.

But I Will show up, be in a good mood, do my bit, eat what's put in front of me, tell you you look nice, notice, fall asleep while watching a movie,

I Wouldn't get a tattoo, go cave diving, leave Chapters empty-handed, let the cat go without his rabies shot, wear shoes that hurt, drive like a maniac, oversleep.

But I Would bungee jump, wear sunscreen, let my kids learn that lesson no matter how hard it is to see them do it, laugh way longer than is necessary, travel if I had the money,

I Shouldn't procrastinate, check my e-mail as often as I do, be as mad at myself for crying easily, just drop my car key anywhere, overcommit, eat so much salt, waste so. much. time. on Bookworm.

But I Should drink more water, fold the laundry, clean the freezer room, get rid of some shoes, think before I eat, get the passport applications out, watch my mouth.

Girl Time

On Saturday I went away to a cottage on Lake Huron with some girl friends for a night. (Some of them were the same crowd who went to Quebec with me a few weeks ago.) You could be forgiven for thinking that some of us rarely sleep in our own beds, but that's because I don't tell you about the mundane, usual routine most of us carry out, which includes a book, a bath and lights out by 10. We're wild, we are.

The Great Lakes are huge...no wonder the first white people to see them thought they'd reached the Pacific. I remember a friend of mine who grew up in Calgary marvelling at seeing Lake Huron for the first time; she said she'd never seen a lake where you can't see the other side before. It's a wonder that they ever warm up enough to swim in at all, let alone for the better part of three months. (I've never been to Lake Superior, but I hear that is always cold enough to re-arrange your anatomy, should you be so foolish to venture in.) The lake wasn't quite warm enough to swim in just yet, and the weather outside didn't encourage it either, but we did dip our toes in and walk along the beach barefoot at around sunset.

The weather wasn't great while we were there, windy and cold, but we enjoyed the respite from motherhood and responibilities nonetheless. (I particularly enjoyed sleeping in without having a persistent, determined cat trying to get me out of bed to get him tuna.) There was lots of food (LOTS!) and drink and plenty of talk and laughter. I tell you, these women will talk about anything.

I came home full and sated and ready to face my family again. I just love my friends.

Nothing to Lose But My Dignity.

I've been running for 6 weeks now. (There's a sentence I never thought I'd say.) Six weeks of running every twenty to thirty minutes, six days a week. My knees don't hurt any more, and I can walk down the stairs without wincing, and even if I'm not running the whole time and I'm a wheezy, gasping mess most of the time, at least the little black dots have stopped swimming in front of my eyes after a few steps. I do seem to be slowly getting better at it.

One of the reasons I took up running is to lose some weight, just a few pounds would make me happy. (Mostly, I'd love to be able to eat the way I want to eat and not have to think about it too much.) And guess how much I've lost since I started running???

Nothing. Not one pound. I'm not exaggerating in a "I've lost a few pounds but I thought I'd lose more" kind of way. No, I am exactly the same weight as when I started 6 weeks ago. I haven't lost so much as a couple of ounces. This pisses me off like you wouldn't believe. When I have ranted about this to anyone who will listen, I inevitably hear the "but muscle weighs more than fat, so you must be building up muscle" song, but they can sing that to the wad of fat around my middle that gleefully yells "bullshit" every time it comes up. Perhaps it comes with being fair, female and over 40, but I'm pretty sure that wad of fat has taken up permanent residence, and has no intention of letting a little exercise persuade it to move along any time soon.

I'll keep running. (I still have 7 weeks left in my running class, after all.) But if I don't see some improvement in my body, I'm going to be really mad. And then I'm going to run while yelling and ranting full tilt the whole time. Maybe that will burn off a few more calories.

Berry Good

It must be Father's Day coming up, because the strawberries are in season. We are lucky enough to live in a time and place that we can get fresh strawberries almost all year round, a miracle in and of itself, but the ones we get from California in December have nothing on the ones we get from around here in June.

I went out on Sunday morning to the farm about 20 minutes from our house that grows acres of them, and scored a whole flat for us. That's 8 quarts for 4 people. And this is Tuesday and we're almost done. It's the "all strawberry, all the time" diet for a few weeks here at Chez Loudshoes, and the answer to every question about what we have to eat is "strawberries".

I have some very decided ideas about how to deal with strawberries; they should preferaby be served with something cold and white, like yogurt, ice cream or whipped cream, and strawberries should never be cooked. Cooking a strawberry is just criminal. I won't even make cooked strawberry jam, I'm so offended by cooking a fresh strawberry. In the unusual event that I do make jam, I'll freezer jam, which is much more like mushed up fresh strawberries. I hardly ever make jam, though, because the only way to make jam is to make vats of it, and I end up moving it all over the freezer for a couple of years before I throw it out, and then one day I get it into my head to make jam and I'm right back at it again.

I don't particularly like strawberries and chocolate together, so that doesn't happen very much around here. But strawberries with French Toast, or strawberries with cream cheese on bagels or strawberries on my spinach salad are all okay by me.

The season is short, only about 2 weeks, which is good, because by the end of the season, we've had our fill. Until next year.

Driving Miss Crazy

Dear Lady In The Car Ahead of Me This Morning.

Apparently it is "Drive Very Slowly In Front Of Mrs. Loudshoes" Day today, and I didn't get the memo. Everyone else, it would seem, has gotten it, and has joined into the spirit of the day with a collaborative effort that would be incredibly impressive if it wasn't so damn frustrating. But you? Your effort went way beyond what anyone could have ever expected. Especially me.

You are to be commended for your diligence in following the suggested speed limit. Because it is merely a suggestion, isn't it? No one could be expected to drive at the heady frontier of the speed limit, could they? You drove at a prudent 10 kilometers under the limit all the way along, preventing me from all sorts of incalculable dangers, and also, from getting where I wanted to go.

I have to appreciate your keen and prudent behavior at the four-way stops all along St. George street, of which there are many. Not only did you come to a full and complete stop at every single stop sign, as they no doubt taught you in driver's ed, but you also insured that there was no one else at the stop signs with impressive care. You looked to your right, and then to your left, and then to your right again. And then to the left again, and then to the right again, just in case a transport truck materialized out of nowhere in the nanosecond your head was turned.

There was no running yellow lights for you, no siree. In fact, you balked at running green lights, as well. Just as we came within a hundred feet of a green light, you sagely put your foot firmly on the brakes, just in case the light were to turn any time soon. And if you went slowly enough, they were all bound to turn sooner or later, weren't they?

If you wondered why I didn't pass you at any point, believe me, it was not for lack of trying. However, your habit of driving with your left tire on the middle line, or indeed, a foot into my lane, rendered that idea moot pretty quickly.

I realize that "Driving Slowly In Front Of Mrs. Loudshoes Day" is a treat for everyone, barring myself, so I hope that I get the memo when it's time for "Drive Slowly In Front Of The Annoying Lady" Day. Except, I don't think you would notice when that day came.

Another Crutch.

I found this on the web a little while ago, and it has added immeasurably to my life. The Drama Button lends far more gravity and substance to my every utterance than content alone could ever do.
For example "I have to clean out the cat litter", followed by pushing the drama button gives that mundane job a certain glamour and boldness that it has always lacked. Or try if I give it a go after "I'm sure I left my keys somewhere"....now I don't seem like such an empy-headed nitwit, I appear to be nervy and fearless.
It's heady stuff. You should try it.

My Glamourous Life.

What a fabulous week it's been, busy and fun and jam-packed with good stuff.

Sunday we met some friends visiting from Australia for a picnic in the park. Jennifer grew up here in Canada, met a very nice Aussie a few years back and decided he was worth a move to the other side of the world and did just that. She and her husband and delightful children come back every couple of years or so, and take the time to contact us and make arrangement to see us. I reward such enterprise by showing up with beer, pizza and popsicles. We had such a lovely evening talking about people we used to work with and catching up and remembering why we always liked each other in the first place.

Monday was errands and grocery shopping and cutting my friend Sue's hair, which is always way, way more fun than work. The Mister had a dentist's appointment, which meant that I was stranded without a car and forced to read my book and eat potato chips for the afternoon. Thing 1 and I went to our running class, which we really enjoy because it's only the second week and it's still pretty easy.

Then on Tuesday, I went to Toronto with Big Liver Girl to see the Dave Matthews Band, which is easily one of my very favorite things to do in the whole entire world. I love that band, I just love them. And they put on an entirely wonderful show, playing almost ALL of my favorites, and Big Liver Girl and I danced and clapped and sang until we were tired and hoarse. (They played a rocking cover of Burning Down The House, and I figure I was the only person in that audience that saw both Dave Matthews and Tom Jones perform that song in concert. I heard one of the hammered young women in front of us ask if it was off the new album. I didn't have the heart to tell her it was by the Talking Heads and it was released before she was born. She was too drunk to remember it anyway. ) We stayed overnight in a flat-out wonderful hotel, got up at 5 in the morning, and drove home in time to see the kids off to school. We both managed to get through our respective days without sleep-deprivation rearing it's ugly head, and then we plunked ourselves down at our youngest children's end-of-the-year concert at school. TWO concerts TWO nights in a row with Big Liver Girl! Another fun night...honestly, if you find yourself at a concert, any concert, Big Liver Girl is excellent company.
I went to bed last night before sundown, slept like the dead, and got up this morning all bright and shiny and new once again.

Today was uneventful, which was very welcome. I got my hair done and went for a run with Thing 1 and plan on watching 30 Rock.

It's not Ivana Trump's life, but it suits me entirely.

How To Make People Happy.

Today is Pizza Day at Thing 2's school, so it's the one day a month I go into her class and help give out pizza and drinks. Thing 2 is happy enough to have me there, and I'm happy to do it. I get to know the kids, ("Okay, THAT kid is going to set someone's couch on fire, don't let him in our house".) and they get to know me.
Most of the kids like me and I get along with just fine, but there are a few who don't like me, and believe me, the feeling is mutual. (Mrs. Loudshoes is a hard-ass, she makes you say please and thank you every stinking time; and when you give her the stink-eye because of it, she will give you your pizza last.)
Since this is June, and therefore the last pizza day of the school year, I thought I'd bring in a dessert for the kids, even the ones I don't particularly like. It's a bit of a minefield, bringing food into the school, because of peanut allergies, but I managed to find a brand of fudgesicles that were peanut-free, so I was good. (To bring homemade food in is a nightmare, better left alone. You have to submit a list of ingredients before you make the dish, and then sign an agreement that you won't substitute any of the ingredients for anything else. Then you have to make the dish and woe betide the person who runs out of yogurt and uses sour cream.)

The kids were thrilled with this unimagined booty, and most of them reacted like I said school was all overwith today when I pulled the fudgesicles out of the bag. It is seriously too easy to make some people happy.I started wondering if I walked around with a permanent supply of fudgesicles would I make other people happy all the time? Would the cashier at Sobey's, the Tim Horton's lady and our dry cleaner, Mr. Grumpy Korean, have an epiphany and be happy with their lot in life if only they had a sweet, creamy chocolate treat presented to them? (I really want to try this on Mr. Grumpy Korean, because he is one dour man...I've never seen him smile even once.)

I gave the fudgesicles out around the time most of the kids were finishing their pizza, because I know at least a couple of them would have eaten the fudgesicle first. As it was, some of them stopped eating the pizza and tucked into the fudgesicle immediately, like they couldn't possibly finish those three bites of savory before falling all over the sweet. Most of them managed to eat their fudgesicles without incident, but a couple of them dropped theirs and a few more completely bathed themselves in it, and one kid lost the stick entirely, and I cannot fathom how he did that.

And then I had a fudgesicle, and although it didn't put me in the blissful rapture of the Grade 6s, it did make me happy. So I'm going to have another one.

In The Running

I seem to have taken up running.
I know. Nobody's more surprised than me. I'm positively allergic to exercise and I hate sweating. I don't stand when I can sit, and I don't sit when I can lie down. I take naps for fun. The only part of my body that I voluntarily move is my eyeballs when I am reading, and my forearm to bring the beverage of choice up to my mouth.
So, believe me, this decision to run was not taken lightly.

I came to the conclusion that, if I want to eat the way I want to, I'm going to have to move around a little more, lest I become the size and shape of the couch I occupy. And if there's one lesson I've learned from my parents and the generation before me, it's that if you don't use it, you will lose it; sloth makes aging considerably more difficult. So, I did some research to find out what would give me the most bang for my exercising buck, and running came up trumps.

I used to go to a gym, I tried several gyms, in fact, and I hated them, loathed everything about them. I spent the entire time working out shreiking at myself in my head, "come on, ten more minutes on this freaking horrible treadmill, keep going, keep going, is that ten minutes, OH MY GOD, it's only been two minutes, stop being such a wuss, keep walking damn it, I want to stop NOW when will it end???" It was exhausting. And the people who worked at the gym, who were decidedly puzzled at my lack of enthusiasm, would inevitably suggest going to a class, like somehow organized, scheduled torture was more appealing. And for this I paid forty bucks a month. Finally, when the kids and I went to the beach one day and I had to scale a considerable sand hill and I was wheezing and gasping like a chain-smoking geriatric, I decided that the gym was doing me no good at all, and I quit.

After a little asking and thinking, I decided that running included putting on a pair of shoes and walking out my front door and just running until I wanted to come home. Even I can manage twenty minutes out my day for that. And so I have, for a month now. And although I can't say I love running, I certainly don't hate it, which is huge for me. At least the shreiking in my head is quiet enough.

Things About My Brother

It was my big brother's 50th birthday yesterday, so here are The Things You Ought To Know About My Brother:

• He's scary smart. I don't think there's a single thing he can't explain. Whether it's about finance or physics or filet mignon, he knows all about it.
• He's the best direction giver ever. Seriously, if you need to know how to get to a certain intersection in Ulaan Bator, I have no doubt he'd be able to give you detailed and accurate directions that would be invaluable.
• He's one of the funniest people I know. Few people on the planet can make me laugh so hard I feared for my health. You should hear him speak Russian with a Scottish accent.
• He drove a cab in Toronto for a year to finance a 3 month trip to Greece and Turkey. I'd be way too much of a wuss to have done either. He said he spoke to people in his cab like he never dreamt he'd ever speak to anyone in his life.
• He's a really, really good cook. Once he had the fire department come to his house when he was bar-b-queing some lamb because one of the neighbours was concerned about the smoke coming from the back yard. And when the firefighters found out it wasn't a fire, they asked for the recipe for the lamb.
• He introduced me to Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, Warren Zevon and the Talking Heads. I'm eternally grateful.
• When I was in hairdressing school he bravely let me learn how to trim beards on him.
• He was smart enough to marry his wife, who is awesome, and owns her own chocolate company.
• He still ties his shoes the way he did when he was 5, that is, by making two rabbit ears with the laces and looping them together. I guess it's been working all these years, why change now?
• He once convinced me when I was a kid that the two tiny moles on my neck were vampire bites, and that instead of dying I would walk the earth forever seeking the blood of others.
• He also told me that traffic lights make a clicking sound when they change because it allowed blind people to drive. I think I was about 13 before I thought "hey....".

Happy Birthday, John!

Good Things That Happened Today

I'm well aware that I lead a charmed life. (Especially when I spend the past weekend with my divorced friends who calmly relate tales of visits from the police due to psychotic ex-husbands, as if that is just part of normal living.) And then some days are better than others.

• The new Dave Matthews Band CD came out today, and I've listened to it endlessly in an attempt to know all the words by this time next week, when Big Liver Girl and I go to Toronto to see our Rock and Roll Boyfriends.


• The sun is shining and the air is clear, the birds are singing, Toby is dozing in the breezeway and I don't have to put on coats or boots or shovel anything.


• I started my "Learn to Run" class last night (I know, nobody is more surprised than me.) and I didn't embarrass myself at all. I was afraid I'd finish as a weepy, wheezy heap by the end of the class, but I managed to look presentable the whole time.


• Thing 2 had a track meet at Thing 1's high school today, and I had a chance to visit with Thing 1 during her lunch break. Not only did I get to put a face to the names of all the kids she's been talking about all year ("That's the Oompah-Loompah Kid") I met one of her teachers and a cafeteria lady. I'm pretty sure most of the kids in that school would not happily show their mothers around for the better part of an hour, and I'm pumped that mine did and we had such a good time together.


• Thing 2's track meet went well, and although she didn't place, it was fun nonetheless. She was happy enough to get a piece of pizza and call it a day.


• The jacket that I had my eye on in Eddie Bauer was sold out of my size, thereby saving me $99.

And the day's not even over yet!

Sharks In Quebec

I was away in Quebec with 6 of my favorite people on the planet for the weekend. The Mother Sharks went away for four days together, and my stomach muscles are just now recovering from the non-stop laughing.

We set off most efficiently on Thursday afternoon at around 3 and arrived in the Laurentians at midnight. You've got to love a bunch of mothers; everyone was waiting with their bags packed when the van arrived, and with kleenex and garbage bags, too.

Its usually an 8 hour trip, but with the rush-hour traffic in Toronto and 7 bladders of various capacities, we added an extra hour to the journey. I love a good road trip; one of the rules is that there are no calories in a moving car, so that means that copious amounts of potato chips and chocolate and coffee, as well as the occasional cheeseburger, are perfectly acceptable fare. (Also, in case you were wondering, there are no calories in other provinces or foreign countries. Those rules are important to know.)

We spent most of the ride and the weekend talking non-stop and making each other laugh so hard and so long that I'm pretty sure it qualifies as a cardio workout.

Big Liver Girl and I managed to get some fly fishing in, which was sort of the main goal of our trip. The rest of the ladies watched and took pictures, with very good humor. We made them walk in the woods, which was good for them...some of those princesses needed to get outside.

Here is a picture of me fishing; don't I look like I know what I'm doing? Here I am demonstrating that I have no idea what I'm doing, I've managed to hook my sleeve. It was the only thing I caught the whole time. Here is Big Liver Girl and I enjoying the day. I think we both just liked the outfits. During one harrowing rescue of a hook on a rock in the river, Big Liver Girl had to borrow my waders (hers were still in the car at the time) and we both discovered, when we got into the river, that the left foot leaked a LOT. I somehow managed to drop her right boot into the river while I was trying to put it on (long story, don't ask) and then we discovered that the entire bum seam of my waders was blown out, and we were lucky that they didn't fill up with water entirely and drown one of us. Near death experiences make for a most exciting fishing trip.

We came home last night around supper time, happy and tired and delightfully pleased with ourselves. It was a magical weekend.

Thanks Sharks.