Outlet Shopping and Major Life Events

Last weekend Mo and I drove up to Hagerstown, MD to meet Jenna. Hagerstown, I have discovered, is the perfect halfway point to catch up with friends from Pittsburgh. Since Jenna would be driving from Pittsburgh, this made sense! So we put May 2nd on the calendar for some outlet shopping and gossip ... and not necessarily in that order.

Jenna at the Lucky outlet

Mission I: Get Mo into a reasonable, gorgeous pair of Lucky Brand jeans. I am a huge Lucky Brand jeans evangelist. The best thing that could possibly happen to me is if they start making Lucky Brand jeans in organic cotton. Then I will know I have died and gone to heaven.

After Jenna wore a pair of mine in Charleston last year, she too saw the light and started buying them for herself and her husband. Still, she swears the pair of mine that she tried on were the best.

After trying on no less than 30 pairs of jeans, Mo bought a pair ... which we promptly returned the next morning. What happened was that she ALSO tried on my jeans and decided that out of all the jeans in the store, the ones I had worn (same pair that Jenna tried in Charleston) were the best! Therefore she would not settle for the pair she had purchased; she decided to keep trying Lucky stores throughout the land until she found THE PAIR OF JEANS that fit her like these. *Any self-respecting woman from a first world country reading this is nodding her head in agreement right now. This IS a noble quest.*

I always thought the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants was fiction ... until now. Mo went home with my jeans. When something remarkable happens to her in them or when someone else needs them, she has vowed to put them in the mail and send them to us.

Mo picking the onions off of her quesadilla at Barefoot Bernies

The server offered to take it back, but she promised him she'd let him know if she could still taste them when she was done. Jenna got to eat her guacamole and sour cream, so it wasn't a total loss.

A few days later in Cary, NC, in the middle of tornado warnings, my gorgeous little niece decided to crash into some molding between the laundry room and the kitchen, producing a gash in her forehead.

Things are done slightly differently than they were done when I was a kid. For example, there is now such a thing as a Pediatric Urgent Care. What happened to those incompetent doc-in-a-boxes that we had when we were children? Also you don't HAVE to get a shot of novacaine to prepare you for stitches nowadays. Apparently they can just apply a little numbing gel to your forehead while you play in the kid-friendly waiting room for 30 minutes!

Lauren, pre-stitches... post-anaesthesia.

When she was fully numb, they took her back to the room where she received one stitch on the inside and 5 on the outside. In order to do that, the doctor used "stitch scissors" to sew her up. As Lauren was leaving the room (and entering the waiting room with children who had yet to have their treatments!), she turned to the doctor and said "It didn't even hurt when you cut my head open with the scissors." WHAT???

Lauren post-stitches

It just goes to show you: kids are RESILIENT. Parents and Aunts Crazy, not so much.

That same night - oblivious to the happenings in North Carolina - Nicole and I went to our friend Bill's web site launch. He's put together a handy-dandy little site for things to do in and around Richmond. I put a link to this on the right. Personally, I really love the format! Very simple.

Bill and his web designer at Easy Street

More happy news! The Hendersons have officially adopted Baby Anna!! This is the best development of the week by far. I am so happy for Jen, Dave, Anna ... even Nomini the dog! They are a wonderful family. Here's a picture of the OFFICIAL Henderson family with the judge - YEAH!!!!

And since we're on the topic of outlet shopping and Anna, here is another picture of the little sweetie in the sunflower outfit I sent her after outlet shopping with my Mom in Florida in April. Could this be a disease??