February 27, 2007

• A Fantastic Weekend (Pics Added!)

  Johnny and I had a really great weekend!

  On Friday night, we did my favorite thing -- veg out! Johnny had been productive during the day and had done all our laundry, so it saved us the time of doing it in the evening. For dinner, I boiled up some whole wheat pasta and made cherry tomato pasta sauce (courtesy of a recipe from Shawn! I still love that one). While we ate, Johnny and I watched the reunion episode of Beauty and the Geek. After dinner, we watched Thank You For Smoking, which was a really funny movie, but unfortunately I fell asleep at the end!

  Saturday, we met up at Rose Hills Memorial Park with my mom, June and Charles to visit my grandmother. My mom goes often, and I try to go as much as I can, so we can "talk" to my grandmother. My mom brought flowers and we filled my grandmother in on all our recent activities, and then we talked about our most vivid memories of her. She is still very much a part of our lives.

  After that, we all had lunch together, then I got my haircut! It wasn't very drastic at all, as you'll see in the pictures tonight, but I got it cleaned up a bit -- it was getting too long and lifeless. After that, Johnny and I returned to our apartment to get ready for ... an evening with Jody and John, who were in town to visit their friends Ian and Melissa! Jody and I have been friends on Xanga for more than two years now, and we confide in each other a lot. I was so excited to meet her! We met up at an awesome Thai restaurant in Hollywood, and let me say, the moment Jody walked in the door, I recognized her, not only from all the pictures, but just from the feeling of knowing her. For those of you who are wondering, Jody is exactly the way she comes through from her blog -- generous, kind, funny and smart! There was no first-meeting awkwardness. We hugged and squealed like long-lost friends. I'm sure Ian and Melissa thought it was odd at first -- they were also really nice! We are going to try to set up some play dates for Atari and Melissa's adorable Shiba Inus. Like Jody and I predicted, Johnny and John got along well. Johnny reported that they did the "guy dance" of making comments about various comics, video games and movies that each one liked, to see if the other responded in kind. Once they realized they were kindred spirits, they began discussing those topics in detail. Johnny said, "We're on the same wavelength!" And that is how I felt about Jody!

  A picture of Jody and I

  

  The men -- Johnny, John and Ian -- at Palms Thai

  

  Jody and I in the lobby of the Arclight Theater, which was the coolest theater I've been to

  

  Melissa, Jody and I after the movie

  

  A bit dark, but one last picture of me and Jody from this trip (more to come in April!)

  

  The night flew by -- John and Jody treated all of us to dinner, then we went to see Norbit (it was just the only movie that we could all agree upon, or at least agree to see! It was funny, at least) at this amazingly classy theater where every seat is reserved. We had dessert in the ultra-swanky bar before the movie. We wanted to hang out with John, Jody, Melissa and Ian some more (they invited us to lunch on Sunday), but sadly we'd already made other plans. Luckily, John and Jody are back in April for another visit to LA, so we'll see them then! Now we just have to figure out how to meet our other good Xangan friends!

  Yesterday, we did some stuff with family and family friends, and Johnny and I stopped by Babies R Us, where we ordered a wide white dresser for the nursery. I'm not getting a separate changing table, but it so happens that the top of of this dresser can double as one. I have heard that you don't get much use out of a changing table, anyway, and that most parents use the floor or a big bed as a changing surface, but I registered for a changing pad anyway, to put on top of the dresser. The dresser will take 10-12 weeks to come in, can you believe it?! Luckily I have the time! It'll come fully assembled -- a nice plus! We also picked out the Froggy Tales nursery theme (click on the thumbnails for larger images) -- who can resist the frog prince?! We also figured that if the doctor was wrong, and a Baby Girl O'Neal pops out instead, at least it's kind of gender-neutral (but I don't know, the frog with the crown seems like a boy to me). I don't know about those of you with boys, but I feel like around the age of 3 or 4, they'll start wanting to have more definitely boy-like rooms: like with a Cars theme, or sports, or superheroes (and you know Johnny will be into that!). Before I'm faced with a lifetime of Spider-Man or baseball-themed rooms, I'd like to have a couple years of a sweet little prince's room. We're going to buy the bedding set ourselves. I am so tempted to get everything now and look at it every day, but Johnny urged me to put the rest of the items (besides the bedding set) up on our registry so that when it comes time, friends who come to our shower will have something more exciting than my breast pump and waterproof crib pads to buy!  

  Man, when we were planning our wedding, I marveled at how companies manage to suck money out of the vulnerable couple. Little did I realize that it's even worse when it comes to babies! Practically, I know that the baby needs very little -- does he need a frog-themed nursery set? Not at all! Will he need a quilt? Not for the first year or even more! But how do you resist? I should quit my day job and open up a baby products business.

  OK, back to work!

  • 2:17 am
  • 20 Comments