Nails, chili, and birthdays

Our weekend was really busy and really fun, but now that Monday is here our whole family is pretty tired. I did make it out Friday night after working over all week to get off early. It ended up being even more fun as we had dinner with friends in celebration of a birthday, too. After the dinner, the guys and girls split. The girls did pedicures and watched a chick flick while the guys went out to see a movie at the theater. It was really relaxing. I have never had a full pedicure done before, and even though I didn't have it done at a nail salon (my friend Rebecca did it), it was great! I still can't believe she touched my feet—they are pretty beat up and nasty; what a servant. Before and after pics of my feet would totally have been blog-worthy. Lucky for you, I didn't have the foresight to take my camera along. =)

AWANA Chili Cook Off
On Saturday, I had the privilege of being a judge at the annual AWANA chili cook off at our church. AWANA (Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed) is a club that E. is in. They meet once a week and memorize Scripture, learn about the Bible, play games, sing, and eat treats. He loves it. One of these days I will post a picture of him in the "Cubbies uniform" that he wears there every week.

The chili cook off is a fundraiser they have every year to support the AWANA program. From what I hear, normally they have 30+ pots of chili entered into the contest. Since I was a judge and a lactating mother, I was thankful that this year there were only 22 pots to taste. The five judges had to try each chili and score it. The top six chilis were served to us again for the final winners to be determined. The winning chili was really, really good. It actually had steak in it and was sort of barbeque-ish. Sounds odd, but it was good. (There were actually 2-3 chilis with steak—which surprised me —and even one made with deer meat. The deer meat chili got 5th place this year and won the contest last year. There you go, Uncle Ron; you need to start cooking up that deer you recently got!)

After the chili contest, we hung out at our friends' photography studio for a January birthday party. They had a Wii set up, games, and lots of food. We hung out there until S. had a meltdown. It was bound to happen. She had her first ever tootsie roll at the cook off and was really hyped up. At one point she was even doing a rendition of "The Worm" on the floor. (Does anyone remember that breakdancing move? I wish I could have gotten a video of it!) Well, when the tootsie wore off, it was a definite crash landing for my little tootsie. She won't be having candy again any time soon.

Sunday was just as busy with a ton of face time with more friends. We have been getting to know two couples really well here and it has been nice to get to hang out with them both so much this weekend. I am even contemplating doing a blog post on each of them—a sort of "meet the friends" type of post. So stay tuned for more on them!