Weekend Report

I think this last weekend was a good balance of time spent with family and friends and time spent doing nothing.

We had H's friends over for a sleepover. Generally, I find sleepovers overwhelming and try to avoid them. However, they are all 14 and require minimal supervision (and they are all really good easy-going kids). Besides providing the food, I pretty much did nothing and went to sleep while they stayed up until 3 am watching movies and chatting. The next morning, my son had to get up super early for his XC practice and I had a very nice time hanging out with him and making waffles while the girls slept. After they all woke up, ate, and got ready (and this took a while), I drove them to the nearby mall and left them there. I then spent a very nice couple of hours relaxing at home, doing a couple of chores, and chatting with my husband. I went to pick up the very happy girls, brought them back to our place, and then they got picked up. 

After the girls left, I went on a sort of archeological dig - we have numerous drawers (and shelves, and cabinets) that we just sort of shove stuff into and then forget all about it. So, somewhat randomly, I decided to take a look at 3 drawers in our dining room.

I found: kids old artwork, old baseball photos from 2015, old photos from day camp from around the same time (the kids loved the photos and seeing familiar faces), old irrelevant bills and statements that we can get rid of, paperwork from when we bought our house in 2014 (keeping that), piles of Hannukah and Shabbat candles, piles of hair pieces, Halloween decoration, command hooks that I forgot we had. 

On Sunday, I went on a bike ride with my husband and our youngest daughter. I meant to do a short and easy ride (instead of an entire loop around the park that would force me to do go down hills I am really uncomfortable with), so was going to stop after about 30 min and turn back. My husband wanted to go all the way around,  and C decided that she wanted to go with him. So we separated - I turned back and they went around the loop - they go much faster than me (is it kind of pathetic that I can't keep up with the 10 year-old? Probably, but ah well...) and we planned to meet up again at the park entrance. I got there first (not surprising because I turned back at approximately 1/3 mark along the loop) and had a very nice time hanging out by the stream and people-watching for about 10 minutes. 

Later on Sunday, I drove the girls to visit their friends (who used to be our next-door neighbors but had to move) for a couple of hours. We also had friends over for dinner - so that was a pretty full day. 

I think those short stretches of alone time spent letting my mind wonder while watching hummingbirds, or looking at the stream, or just sitting outside, helped with making the weekend feel calm and relaxed. Spending time with friends was fun and energizing. And biking was a decent exercise (even though I went easy on myself) - so there, I even got some exercise in!

Do you host sleepovers? Do you let your kids go to sleepovers?