weekend update, or "this one goes out to the tailgaters"

and she's back! keep your pants on.... this might be a long one.
here goes the weekend recap:
on thursday night, i got to enjoy two of my favorite things: coldplay and jonathan ryskamp. coldplay was in town playing at the post-gazette pavilion. they are one of my favorite bands, and one i'd never seen before. we headed down early to stake out good seats on the lawn and had a tailgate picnic in the parking lot. we ran into some fellow calvin people who were in town for various reasons and played a bit of the dutch bingo (one of my favorite games). then we went in and spread out our blankets on the muddy lawn. not to worry... our luck improved. the concert was fantastic for a few reasons: a) though we paid for lawn seats, someone came around passing out extra tickets for under the pavilion. therefore, i enjoyed the band from my very own non-mud-puddle seat in the shade, at no extra cost. 2) as aforementioned, one jonathan ryskamp was in town for the day, picking up young heffner to go to maine. i was very excited to see him, and he is one of my favorite people to go to concerts with. d) they played all my favorites, with the exception of "trouble." it was a great show, and a very entertaining performance. 4) chris martin, lead singer, guitarist, and piano player, rocks back and forth on his stool while playing the piano. i loved it. and he dedicated "everything's not lost" to the tailgaters... and ben roethlisberger.
after the show there was an ill-advised trip to eat'n park that lasted into the not-so-wee hours of the morning. since the ryskake was leaving the next day, i had to go. it was fun, but that jerk sprayed water all over my shirt. (you're lucky i love you, jacksma.) plus we think the waiter may have been high. i crawled into my bed at 3:15, a mere three hours before i had to get up. unfortunately, due to the two cups of coffee i drank at the eat'n park, i couldn't sleep. so after tossing and turning for three hours, i got up again and went to work.
why did i get up so early, you might ask? i know, it goes against my very nature. but alas, there was work to be done. i took my middle schoolers across the bridge to sewickley on friday morning to volunteer at worldvision for the day. i can't begin to count how many t-shirts from various catholic schools i sorted, folded, and packed in boxes. at one point, i got a little jealous of the next table over, who were sorting plaid school girl uniforms, kilts, and jaunty vests, until i realized they had to figure out some special codes for packing their out-of-the-ordinary clothing. so i went back to work. it was a little difficult keeping a bunch of middle schoolers motivated to keep working after three hours of folding sweatpants from our lady of fatima, but all in all, we had a good day. i was very proud of them.
after that was over, i went home and crashed. i previewed the incredibles for our lock-in this weekend, and incredible it was. then i went to bed at 10 o'clock, which i haven't done since the seventh grade.
mary kay and pad thai:
saturday i slept in (fantastic) and then cleaned my house and went to a mary kay party. three hours later, lo and behold, my skin was soft and exfoliated. so kristi, porterhouse, full-time, megan piersma, eric and sarah plantinga, and sarah's family went out for dinner at the spice island tea house, or the spice island of pleasure café, as we sometimes like to call it. almost all of us got the pad thai and loved it. yum.
a-picnicing we go:
today we had an outdoor service at church which was lovely but hot, and a picnic afterward. i have to go shopping after i leave here to buy avocados to make guacamole for the other picnic i'm going to tonight. it's for the cco staff in pittsburgh, and i think it will be fun-filled and fraught with laughter and merry-making. and lots of guacamole.
and finally, crappy cell phone update:
I HAVE ACTIVATED MY NEW PHONE! YAY! i'm finally done with the crappy old phone. the number is the same, so call me so i have your number in the pretty new shiny one.
if you're still reading, wow. okay. time to let you get back to your regularly scheduled life.