Taking a long, slow breath.

I'm back. I think.

Immediately following a very successful surgery on Friday afternoon (hot, eh?) ...



... my husband packed me up into the car along with the other family members and drove us off to Salida so we could go to fibark.

The weekend started out great, not only because I had a total nerve block for my foot and had ~zero~ pain, but some of our best friends, Pete & Laurel, came up and stayed with us. (Laurel is a long time blog reader, of many blogs, not just mine, but she's a new blogger herself. I have plans to write a proper post about her blog, but this is obviously not it.)

We started the evening with a combined effort of all 4 of us putting together a ginormous smoker to cook the 25lb pork shoulder purchased for Pete to make for us all. I passed out around 1am and the fire on the smoker was started around 3am.

My day started at 6a with Pete surprised me only 30 minutes later when he showed up on the couch next to me to start his long day with his meat. (heh, I couldn't resist.) See, Pete isn't a morning person, but when he's got cooking duty, he's all about it. Our respective spouses were up soon later and we made it downtown for the big parade.

Saturday afternoon consisted of lunch and naps and everyone packed up, once again, to head downtown. This time for the hooligan race (see the fibark link above - it's a homemade boat "race" down the rapids on the arkansas river), which my father in law was in his 3rd year running. My nerve block had since worn off and I was in some pain, so I stayed home with the boy instead of scrambling up and down the side of the river. Pete had also stayed behind to keep watch on the pork shoulder (which, by the way, was looking and smelling fanfreakingtabulous at this point) and I had some cooking tasks to complete. My mother in law and hubby's aunt and uncle arrived home first, followed by my father in law, still quite blue from spending time in the river (he made it through the rapids though!).

My father in law is the administrator for the local hospital they are currently interviewing surgeons, one of which came over for dinner. The reason I mention this is because she provided quite a bit of entertainment for the evening. First of all, she was completely confused when she was first introduced to us. Pete and I were in the kitchen and I was holding the baby. My mother in law said "this is my son's wife" and she looked to Pete, assuming he was my husband. So when she said as much, my mother in law explained he wasn't home yet and Pete said "he's with my wife." Although all quite innocent and not at all funny in print as it was in person, the look on her face was priceless. It looked like she thought she was in a real life case of wife swapping right then and there.

The next piece of entertainment occurred once everyone was back and the kitchen was full of the hustle and bustle of the last 10 minutes of dinner preparations. I heard my mother in law ask her (referred to as Dr from now on) if she wanted a hamburger or a hot dog, which she replied she didn't eat red meat. Here is the rest of the conversation ...
Me: "That's good, since we're eating pork."
Dr: "I don't eat that."
Me: "But it's not read meat, it's white meat. Isn't it?" (as I look to Laurel)
Laurel: "Right. It's 'the other white meat'!"
Dr: "Well, most people think of pork as red meat."
Me and Laurel: "Um, okay."

Not that we needed her to each the pork, but calling pork red meat? Heh. So at dinner, Laurel (and apparently everyone else except me) witnessed the doctor really show her loving of bbq sauce. See, Pete had made the best homemade bbq sauce ~ever~ for the pork. The Dr, the one who doesn't eat red meat, including pork, was quite literally eating about 1/4 cup of sauce with each piece of broccoli. They said she was spooning it up on top (it was really thick) of each bite of veggies like it was soft serve ice cream. After the doc had left, Laurel reenacted the event because saying she was "eating sauce with her broccoli" would have never elicited the thought of how much she was really eating with each and every bite.

Argh. None of this is as funny as it was in person.

Okay, let me wrap this up. Sunday was spent eating a big breakfast, playing batchi ball, shooting guns (I shot a .40!), losing my inlaws dog and then later finding him (which pete and laurel went hiking all over the place to search. what great friends), packing up, driving home and then unpacking. By the end of the day my foot was throbbing in bolts of pain and I finally was able to pass out by 1am.

So that's my catching up from this weekend. I will get back into my regular blogging here very soon. I've got lots of fun topics on my mind!