Sister's Weekend 2016
August was an insane month. It was super busy, but so much fun! The first few weeks were a little slow, and then a little thing called "Sisters Weekend" befell us, which got the ball rolling.We decided that once a year, the McDonald sisters would get together at a specific location for a kid-free weekend. This year was the first time doing this and all 72 hours were an absolute blast. Location: Texas. Kristina and Ronnie flew in to be "entertained" by myself and Tasha. Natalie was unable to make it this year.
The first night consisted of Tasha and I going to get Kristina & Ronnie from the airport where we surprised us by sharing their Cinnabon and we surprised each of them with a 1 pound gift certificate to Sees candies and revealed we too, had our own 1 pound ticket to deliciousness. And the reason we all gained 5 pounds over this trip begins to unravel. So we shared 2 forks and 2 Cinnabon rolls amongst the 4 of us on our way to Sees candies to redeem our certificate and pack our own boxes.
We were desperate to fill the remaining time that evening, so we decided to play Nertz with face cards...which has a challenge in-and-of-itself since we had been spoiled with actual Nertz cards growing up. It didn't help that we were all a little rusty, but it was a good warm-up for the other late night Nertz games.
The next morning, Tasha, Kristina, and Ronnie headed out to the famous Schlitterbahn water park while I stayed home to get homework done (being 37 weeks preggo, I would have been restricted to the lazy river and would have resembled something of a beached whale). The sisters returned and reported back that it was hot, the lines were long, and the slides didn't quite measure up to their grand descriptions and fell short of meeting the high set expectations.
That evening, the Nertz games and Sees gambling began. Ronnie had a grand idea that you would "wager" a piece of Sees when you had an inkling that you were going to win that round.Everyone else had to match that precious piece of divide candy with their own. Of course, when such a wager was made, the least desirable of the chocolates was sent as a strategic sacrifice. But as we all know, when McDonald's pack their box of Sees, there are no "bad" pieces. There was a mandatory 2 game participation per person. I think Ronnie deeply regretted this decision, as she lost 8 pieces of Sees and gained none (which we all knew was her sly intentions before hand, as she usually smokes us all at Nertz).
The next day proved to be a little more...interesting than the Schlittrebahn scandal. We all rolled out of bed, ate crepes and magic bars, put on bathing suits, threw up our hair, and headed out the door. The sky was full of threatening gray clouds. Of course. We live in San Antonio, it's the middle of August, and the looming clouds endangered our plans of spending the day in water (paddle boarding & river floating). But, we figured we would test our luck and hope it would clear up. We stopped at the furniture store for Kristina to look at some chairs she was considering purchasing online and walked in to find a fancy-smanchy, high-end furniture store with a man in a suit waiting to greet us. Oh I am sure there was utter dismay as he laid eyes upon our lot, the make-up less, flip flops and t-shirt bunch of women (of course I deemed myself the most "white trash" of them all with a big preggo belly and thundering thighs). He accompanied us to the second floor and show Kristina the chairs she was inquiring about. She sat in the chair, talk to the man a bit, and then wanted our opinion on if they were comfortable. Tasha was the only one semi-paying attention and plopped down in the chair. "They're nice," she commented. Kristina then replied, "Ok, now I want someone skinny to sit in it." Ronnie and I were rolling!!
We climbed back into the car and headed the direction of the paddle-board and river float, still grimacing at the gray clouds that were brewing above us. After much deliberation, we finally concluded to for-go the paddle boarding and take our chances with the river float. We drove to the shuttle bus location, spent forever securing the car and headed to get our passes, when we realized we didn't have a way to preventing the car key swab from getting wet. So we all piled back in and headed to Walmart to get a flotation device just in case the keys ended up on the bottom of the river. Tasha and Ronnie headed in while Kristina and I stayed in the car. They took forever. Long enough for Kristina to make herself a make-shift pillow in the backseat of fruit snacks and granola bars and take a nap, snoring included. After becoming impatient, I called Tasha and she reported they could not find a flotation device for the keys. Kristina and I went into Walmart to attempt to solve our key dilemma. We asked if we could make a copy of just the key and they couldn't. Ronnie wanted to put the keys in a few punch balloons, Tasha wanted to get some kind of container to put the keys in that would float--like a water bottle. After what seems like hours of searching random aisles we walked out with a bag of punch balloons. At this point, I was starving, so we decided to get some lunch. Again, no one would make a decision, Tasha was grumpy and driving around aimlessly, so we ended up at Firehouse Subs. I happy ate pickles (the man making the sandwich gave me an extra one without me asking) and stood by while Kristina poured salt into Ronnie's drink and Ronnie retaliated by pouring #9 hot sauce in Kristina's drink. I guess the number scale starts at 1 and end at 10, so this stuff was pretty stinking hot. She pretty much sat there in miserable silence, grimacing in pain while Ronnie wore her triumphant, sly grin.
We finally made our way back to the river-float shuttle, stuffed the keys into 2 punch balloons sealed off with a secure knot, and headed to pick up our tickets. When we got up to the boot, we noticed a peg board filled with people's car keys. You HAD to be kidding. We laughed at our stupidity and the confusion of the worker as he took our balloon bound keys. While we were loading on the bus, we were surprised how many people were bringing small coolers to accompany them down the river. This proved to be a small snippet into our float "adventure" which was really a big ol' drunk feast. We all felt dirty as we were floating a man-made river whose contents consisted of water, beer, sweat, and urine. We would try to paddle past groups smoking and as a whole just wanted to get off the river full of adults acting like they were at a frat party. Tasha commented, "I feel like we were in the great and spacious building." There were a few rapids which were fun, but as a whole, the river float was an utter failure--certainly not what we thought it would be. All we wanted to do was go home and shower. But lesson learned. And if Maverick ever tells me he wants to go float the river on a Saturday afternoon, I will know what his true intentions are.
We ended the evening with the ultimate round of Sees Candy gambling. One that may go down in the books as a new found, last-night-of-sister's-weekend tradition. Rather than selecting your own sacrificial chocolate, the winner was able to scower your box for the best and claim it as their own, leaving the brown paper wrapper as a reminent of what could have been. Before the round began, one would declare they would win the round and the wager began. Kristina became strategic and poked holes in all of her favorites (as if that was a deterrent from any of us eating them) but we laughed and applauded her vigor in protecting her precious chocolates. We also began pounding down our favorites left in the box along with another pan of pre-made magic bars. Again, Ronnie proved to be an utter failure and did not win any of her proclaimed victory rounds.
The final day sisters weekend consisted of sleeping in and going to church. It was the one day we all looked half way decent so a social acceptable picture was produced. We had a hour or two after church before heading to the airport which of course was filled with consuming more magic bars and Nertz. And then on the way to the airport, Tasha and I produced Haggen Daz ice cream bars to top us all off. Kristina said she was going to puke as she continued eating the exquisite bar. While the activities themselves may have fallen short of the expectations, sisters weekend, year 1 was one for the books! Can't wait to see ALL of the sisters in December and for next year's trip.
After Sister's Weekend concluded, Lehi's best friend (and someone who we consider family) came to visit for about a week. Naturally, most of their time was spent together, without my blessed presence, so I cannot account most of the tales and adventures. I know it consisted of Six Flags, Schlitterbahn, video gaming, Magnolia's Pancake House, movies, and Schmitty's BBQ in Lockhart. It was a pretty packed week! One of my favorite moments was when Tyler accompanies Lehi and I to my OB appointment. Sitting between two men who were sharing videos and music with each other and laughing endlessly with a 37 week belly made me wonder how many people in the waiting room thought I was a surrogate for this adorable gay couple! We sure missed "Uncle Tyler" and hope he brings the rest of the family on the next visit!
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