The weekend

I had a good weekend this past weekend. It started a little earlier than usual, and I gained an extra hour, so it was especially good.
Halloween was pretty crazy. We had 7 parties/options for the night:
1. Aaron and Jenny's party
2. Nathan and Emily's party
3. Chillaxing with Amandizzle and Duggle
4. Visiting Sandra and Roger's (to see all Trisha's nieces and nephews) (and take the little ones trick-or-treating)
5. Visiting my mom and dad's (to see all my nieces and nephews)
6. An ex-coworker at Mstar invited us to go to a party
7. Heather and Mike were throwing a halloween/Mike's birthday party

Because of the high number of options, and some recent anxiety I've been dealing with, I was extremely indecisive as to what we were going to do. I worked at home on Friday, and at mid-day, still hadn't come up with a plan for the evening.
At around 3:30 I came go a good stopping point with work, so decided to run with it. Trisha and I finally decided that we weren't going to do any parties or anything and that we would go see a movie, and then catch up with Amanda and Duggle after their party was over and play some rockband or something.
We decided to go see Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist which started at 5:05. We packed up all our rockband stuff and left the house. When we were driving, we got a call from Jenny and Aaron inviting us to go to their party. They had invited us earlier, and we really wanted to go, but with so many other parties, especially family parties, going to a drinking party where we didn't know very many people was less tempting.
Aaron and Jenny had shown some interest in purchasing Rockband 1 from us so we could buy the new rockband set with the wireless guitars. When Trisha originally went to the store to get rockband 2, we didn't have a buyer for rockband 1, so we just bought the game (not the entire set with the wireless instruments).
When I was talking to Aaron on the phone he mentioned that they would indeed purchase rockband 1 so we went back to the store and purchased the rockband 2 set. Trisha went in to Toys R' Us by herself to get it (my mistake), and was tempted to buy the extra wireless guitar (so we would have 2 wireless guitars). She gave into the temptation and now we have the entire set.
After the stop at Toys R' Us, we had to stop off at Duggle's house to pick up a piece of the rockband 1 equipment so we could deliver it to Aaron and Jenny's. By this time, we had missed our movie time (we would have missed it anyway because of the horrible traffic), so we decided to go to a 7:15 showing of the same movie. After we left Duggle's, we realized that we didn't have the microphone with us (another component of Rockband 1), so we had to call Jaren and Kellie to see if we had left it at their house. Luckily we had, but now we had to drive to their house to get the microphone before the stop at Aaron and Jenny's. When we got there, we saw Livie in her cute lady bug outfit and Kellie's cute haircut. (Trisha chopped it off last week).
So, finally, we had everything we needed and we headed to Aaron and Jenny's to give them the stuff. We got to their place at 7 or so, but their party had not yet started.
While we were at their house, I did a tiny dry ice bomb. I only put an average ice cube size amount of dry ice in the 2-liter bottle and water. Because of the small amount, the bottle expanded, but did not pop. It was fairly dark by this time, so it was a bit of a trick to get it to go off. If you unscrew the cap wrong, you could set it off, so the preferred method of detonating it is to hit it with something heavy enough or sharp enough to persuade the exposion. We initially tried hitting it with some long sticks. The sticks broke, and the bottle would not pop. So then we found a heavier board with some nails in it. With the weight of the falling board itself, the nails still didn't pop it; they just bounced off. I finally got it to go off with a heavy swing and a direct hit with the nails. Ahh.. The fun of dry ice bombs.
We left Aaron and Jenny's at around 7:30, so we missed our movie time again. We were both pretty hungry at this point, so we stopped for dinner at Chili's. I absolutely love their mushroom jack fajitas with steak. I order the same thing nearly every time. It was really salty this time, so it wasn't great, but good nonetheless. Trisha had some honey BBQ ribs. They looked really yummy.
After Chili's, we decided to make an appearance at Trisha's Mom and Dads house since it was so close and since Douglas and Amanda weren't done with their party yet. We went over there and got to see Madison, Leslie, and Gracie, in their costumes and see pictures from Sandra and Roger's recent trip to Cancun. Looks like somewhere I'd like to be.
Eventually, Duggle and Amandizzle made it to Sandra and Roger's as well. We hung out there for a little bit, then went to Duggle and Amanda's house to play our new Rockband 2. Taunie and Angela came over a little later. We got Rockband 2 all set up and played it until late into the night. We decided to sleep at Amanda and Duggle's and I eventually went to bed at close to 3.
The next morning (7:15 AM) we went to breakfast with Trisha's Grandpa. He goes to breakfast every Saturday and invites all his kids and grandkids to come eat with him. We try to make it, but don't make it often enough due to the whole "crack of dawn" thing.
After breakfast, we headed back to Duggle's house and some friends came over for some Magic. Drew, Mike, David, Douglas, and I played Magic from 10-2:30. Then we played rockband for a little bit and I took a nap. Gotta love naps.
After the nap, we cooked dinner, played a little more rockband, and then Trisha and I went home.
We stayed up a bit and watched TV and whatnot to try and take advantage of the extra hour we were getting. I slept in until 10 (the new 9) and watched some TV. Trisha woke up a bit later and had a sore throat and a stuffy nose. She's still having the same nausea that she's had for 3 weeks now. Ugh.. Wish there was something I could do.
Sunday night I went to our annual family feud. Since Trisha wasn't feeling well, she stayed home to rest. Each year we get together to talk about our plans for the holiday season. We generally set our yearly tradition "in stone," but I never remember what the schedule is for holidays, and there is generally some change in the schedule every year that was a deviation from the "set in stone" plan. All the noise and commotion of having the kids there, plus the confusion and misunderstandings results in a heavy dose of anxiety for me. No one wants to hurt anyone's feelings on purpose, and generally no one wants to back down either, so there's a hint of contention that I hate confronting. It's likely a normal thing that large families deal with as they grow, but I hate the anxiety it causes. I doubt I'm the only one that feels it.
In the end, this year for the holidays is going to be a bit different. We have the opportunity to visit Amie and Damon in Florida over Christmas break. I'm going to take full advantage of the opportunity to escape the hustle and bustle this year. We're going to try to catch a last-minute cruise and visit with Amie and Damon, who are going to be away from family too.
After the meeting, I went home and cooked an amazing (if I may so) alfredo to have with chicken. Trisha made some noodles for herself and some broccoli for both of us. We then watched some TV for a bit before we headed to bed.
And that concludes the recap of my last weekend.