It might have been the best day ever

I might be exaggerating. But really, I might not be. January 1, 2012 just might go down as Best Day Ever. This is funny, because if you had told me this at 6:07 A.M. (when I heard Truck's wake-up call), I would not have believed it.

Let me back up. Last night was New Year's Eve. Most years (including this) we go to a party that our friends host in which the kids go to one house with sitters, and the grown-ups go to another. The (big) kids look forward to this party ALL YEAR LONG because they get to stay up until midnight. Truck stayed with the grown-ups again this year, in a pack-n-play upstairs, while the grown-ups raged downstairs ate sinfully decadent Chex Mix and watched a guy jump snowmobiles on ESPN downstairs.

Fast-forward to this morning. For Truck, a regular morning (see, 6:07). For the rest of us, a morning we might have liked to sleep in. I took the 6:07 to 6:27 shift, but when I realized my eyelids WOULD. NOT. REMAIN. OPEN., I handed him off to Daddy and slept another hour. Needless to say that when all were fed (pancakes) and showered, there was not a ton of energy among the group.

So, I appointed Noodle to be the Snack Manager and Squash to be the Entertainment Manager, threw our coats in the trunk, and loaded everyone into my car (I drove; Daddy gets to be the passenger when I get this sort of bee in my bonnet). We drove through McDonalds for LARGE Cokes, and then headed south to see what we could see. We ended up, after some HILARIOUS driving by moi over bumps (Truck Quote: MORE BUMPS! MORE BUMPS!), at what we referred to as The Park That Time Forgot. It had this little death trap:

And this:

A merry-go-round, remember these!?

We had a blast playing until it was time to head home for lunch. We grilled hot dogs for lunch, everyone went down for naps, and then, let me tell you what I did that made it the Best Day Ever. A nap? No. Shopping by myself? Nope.



I cleaned my dishwasher. (Thanks for the suggestion, Pinterest!)



Just STOP if you are laughing and saying, that is not the best day ever, you crazy woman. Because it was! It was AWESOME to spend New Year's Day cleaning out all the gunky gunk that had built up over the past seven years. My most awesome and wonderful husband even took time away from the Eagles/Redskins game to remove all the screens so I could scrub them like crazy. And the anticipation of running the dishwasher once with cleaning stuff, another time to rinse it, and then opening it and the wonderful, amazing, CLEAN smell? Fabulous.

[We went hiking on New Year's Eve too.]

Also, I made this amazing soup for dinner AND everyone ate and enjoyed it. AND Dad took the two big kids to the movies tonight, and Truck was delightful and went to bed at 6:45 P.M. So, yeah, just about a perfect start to 2012.