Addicted to adrenaline

After the flurry of activity of this weekend, it is sort of a weird feeling to have things back to normal; it's the sort of sensation you get when you are mulling around with a million things to do, but nothing pressing, so you feel like there is nothing to do. After the late night my mom and I had Friday night, we dragged ourselves down to my friend's jewelry store so as not to waste the $20 coupon we plucked out of the mailbox as we left the driveway. When we returned home we flopped on the couches in the living room while we considered what to do for dinner. Since everybody was pooped, we ordered Pizza Hut in and went to bed early.

Since my mom's flight returned home today, we left the house for the Syracuse airport around 10am. We had an uneventful trip up, but we were puzzled when the gate attendant could not find my mom's reservation. You can imagine our delight when we realized that my mom was actually staying until NEXT Sunday, February 12! After an additional $100 to change the reservation to February 5 (after all, we didn't want to spend another $20 in gas to bring her back next week), she was off and the kids and I stopped at the Carousel Mall in Syracuse for lunch in the food court and a spin on the huge carousel they have in the mall. Now that we've arrived home, running around grabbing the chips and salsa just isn't keeping my blood pressure up enough to seem like I'm doing anything.

Activities I didn't mention for the weekend:
1) Eric had his first successful sleepover since a long time ago. His friend, Isaac, who turned 10 over the weekend, was able to coach Eric through a night away from home. It was a close call, but morning came without a midnight run to pick him up.
2) John was inconvenienced with 2 large structure fires (i.e., houses burning down) on Friday night. This caused him to keep Caroline at the fire station with 2 old ladies, she watching TV and him trying his best to get in front of the TV station cameras as he waltzed into the fire with a huge hose. The one particular fire kept reigniting (darn-it-all) and he left the house several times with a huge grin on his face as he raced back out to demonstrate his bravery. The first time they got home Friday night was a mere 1 hour before my mom and I arrived from touring upstate NY.
3) John was a "rescuer and a victim" in an ice water rescue exercise with several fire departments this weekend. After getting little sleep because of the 2 fires and a myriad of squad calls on Saturday, he was up and at 'em Sunday to hop in the water in a dry suit and pretend to drown while his cohorts pretended to save him in the icy waters. Then they switched roles.

Now that the thrills have died down, if my mom were here, I'd be saying "Mom, I'm bored. I have absolutely nothing to do."