A relaxing weekend at home

Remind us not to overschedule next weekend.  This one looked like this:

Friday: Mom plays hockey while dad makes rilletes for Sunday's sausage-making event and starts a pulled pork for Saturday's hoedown.

Saturday: After tending to the pork shoulder on the Big Green Egg, the whole family heads to Zingerman's for breakfast. We run into Luke's friend Jack & family, who tell us about a ballet performance in the afternoon that sounds perfect for Lucas.  We head to the farmer's market to buy pork for Sunday's event, then drive down to the river to go kayaking (we saw a heron eat some fish!). We go home for lunch, tend to the pork shoulder, and then dad gives mom and Lucas a ride to the ballet (which turned out to be a very cool modern dance production that Lucas just loved). Dad then makes coleslaw for the hoedown and hacks up the new pork shoulder for tomorrow, then we go to the hoedown.  Hoedown?! Yes, Luke's friend Adeline hosted a hoedown. The invitation promised llamas and ponies for the kids and a live band for the grownups.  We thought it must be a joke -- maybe stuffed farm animals and music played by the mom and dad? -- but no, there really were farm animals and a live Irish session band, all about a half block from daycare.  Luke did great despite the long day and Joshie enjoyed dancing to the Irish music in the Ergo baby carrier.  Then we all went home, and our poker friends showed up 5 minutes later to play poker till midnight.

Sunday: Mom took the boys to breakfast to let dad sleep in a little, then she dropped Joshie off at home and took Lucas to watch live figure skating competitions with Kristin. Joshie helped dad prep pork, chard, and polenta for the afternoon event. Luke came home for naptime, then mom dropped Josh off at Laura's for babysitting and took Lucas to Cyrus's to watch the Little Mermaid -- big fun for both boys!  This cleared out the house for the arrival of 7 students who had won a sausage-making lesson that Dad had contributed to his school's annual charity auction.  For four hours we seasoned, ground, stuffed, and cooked roasted poblano and sweet italian sausages, finishing with a yummy dinner. Luke came home and melted down at bedtime -- I wonder why? Joshie had already performed his meltdown at Laura's house (luckily after a couple of hours of typical charming Joshie fun that hopefully made it all worthwhile for Laura) and just crashed when he got home.

Like we said, remind us not to overschedule next weekend!