Weekend Re-cap

Mr. V has been home from Iraq for over 2 months now, but I feel like I haven't seen much of him. In fact, there have been a few days when I've thought "Wow I talked to him more when he was in Iraq than I have now that he's home." So this weekend was a nice change because aside from his Christmas leave, this was the first weekend where we actually spent the whole weekend together. He had no duty, no flights and no squadron related business and it was wonderful!

We managed to unintentionally get in a nice mix of girly stuff and manly stuff.

Friday night we stayed home and cooked dinner. I'd be tempted to say that this is one of the girly moments of the weekend, but its not. I'm a horrible cook, while Mr. V is a wonderful cook. I do however, have an enormous supply of cook books and recipes because in the back of my mind I like to think that one day I will use all of them and become a good cook. While Mr. V was deployed, a friend and I spent 2 or 3 nights going through cookbooks and creating new meals. I've been wanting to do this with Mr. V because I want him to teach me how to cook. This way, the next time he's deployed I won't have to live on TV dinners and spaghetti for half a year. We haven't been able to do this before because we never have the time to sit together, pick out meals that look appetizing and then cook them. So on Friday night, that's finally what we did. We picked out cranberry-orange pork chops, sweet potato fries and stuffed red potatoes (I know, I know, thats 2 side dishes of potatoes, but I happen to love all forms of potatoes.) It took a few hours, but we pulled off a very yummy meal. I can't say that I learned how to cook though. All I did was cut the sweet potatoes into strips, season them, and stick them in the oven. Not really very complicated. Mr. V took care of the pork chops and stuffed red potatoes. If I can find the recipes again (I probably should have taken note of what cookbook magazine, out of 200, they came from) I'll post them, because I promise, it was one of the best dinners I've had in a long time!

On Saturday I got my girly day, which was honestly completely unintentional. I love Nicholas Sparks books and one of the recent ones that I read was "Dear John". The movie version of this book just came out so I was excited to see it. We planned to go to the movie theatre in Burlington, and since that is 45 minutes away we armed ourselves with shopping lists and headed out there a few hours early. First stop was Petsmart to get some cat related items. The next stop was Michael's to get some cross stitch thread. I've been doing cross stitching since I was a little kid and I just got a new book of patterns. Since the only places that sell the thread are in Burlington, I had a list of the thread needed for 4 different projects, just so I wouldn't have to make frequent trips back to Burlington if I decided to finish off 4 large projects in the course of a few weeks (yeah thats probably not going to happen). Of course, out of the 40 different colors I needed, Michael's was out of stock in 3 of the colors so we meandered down to Joann's in Mt. Vernon to find the missing colors. I also picked up a bunch of new Easter stamps while in both places because I REALLY plan to make Easter cards for everyone this year (we'll see if that actually happens too). The 3rd stop was Target to buy some new bras. I also found some fun jewelry while I was there too. And finally we ended up at the Cascade Mall where I bought 2 new pairs of shoes and then went in to see Dear John (which was pretty good compared to the book). It wasn't until we were driving home that Mr. V pointed out that he just came along on a very girly day with me and didn't complain for even one second. The day wasn't intended on being a girly day, but it turned out that way, and he didn't complain...which is wonderful. However, this meant that the next day I had to keep my mouth shut and not complain about his manly day.

Sunday was Superbowl Sunday. Mr. V was born and raised in New Orleans, so of course, he was rooting for the Saints to win the game. Apparently, the fact that the Saints were in the Superbowl was a HUGE deal and people who aren't from New Orleans just don't get it. Mr. V has a high school friend who lives in Seattle who invited us down there to watch the game with him. His invitation consisted of basically stalking us until we agreed to go down there. I have met this guy once, and I was bombarded by him the moment I signed into my Facebook account a few nights before the game (i.e. "Hey!!! Are you guys coming down??? Are you??? Are you??? Are you???"). We didn't go to Seattle though because this high school friend had taken Monday off and planned on partying all night long. Since the Navy could really care less if your football team wins the Superbowl, Mr. V was not going to get Monday off, so he had to say no to his high school buddy. (high school buddy hasn't said anything to either of us since the moment that Mr. V declined the invite so hopefully he doesn't hate us now!). It turns out that there is another guy from New Orleans in Mr. V's squadron and they flew on the same crew in Iraq. This guy was having a Superbowl party at his house...well sort of. He only invited "real" New Orleans fans...which basically meant he only invited people from New Orleans. Mr. V barely knows this guy, but he jumped at the chance to watch the game with him. So thats what we did. We headed over there and I feigned interest in the game and tried to look happy when the 2 resident New Orleanians freaked out many, many times throughout the game. For my own sanity, I'm thrilled that the Saints won the game! My manly day wasn't as much fun as my girly day way, but I got a happy Mr. V for the evening and I guess I owed it to him for putting up with me and my girly day :-).