So we had our first real eating out experience with Joshua last night, and it was QUITE the experience. But to understand this story we need to rewind a few days to FRIDAY....dun dun dun!

Friday I arrived at work at 11 o'clock. I was late. But I had a good reason - Joshua had his second check up that day and I want to make sure I attend as many of his appointments as I possibly can. He's very healthy, he's gained about a pound since his last appointment, about a pound and a half in two weeks, which is a good healthy weight. He sure eats enough. I thought - and so did my boss - that even arriving late on a Friday I would leaving work at the usual time. Yeah right.

As it turns out there is a Convention in Canada this week, so everyone I normally deal with to do my job (including my boss, and his boss) are in Canada this week showing off for each other like a bunch of peacocks strutting about with their feathers all poofed out. Normally this is not a problem, but my Boss wanted us to get some art finished and approved for this week last Friday. I ended up staying at the office until 7:30, not even half done with what I was working on.

I had grand plans for this weekend. My tires have been low on air for a while, I'm due for an oil change, my wife's car hasn't been looked at twice by anyone for more then a few weeks. Our bedroom needed to be vacumned. We had a stack of paper work that's been building since the baby was born we were planning to file. And some of that was supposed to get done Friday night, freeing up Saturday for work on a website contract I agreed to do, and then Sunday was going to be time for the family. Yeah Right.

The end result was that nothing got done on Friday, some of the website work (and the cars, because they're important) got done on Saturday (accompanied by the bad news that I now need new tires for my car - a lovely expense that goes along with the expenses of having a new born baby) and Sunday is when our adventure truly begins.

Saturday we got a call from my cousin Eric, who evidently got a job in Neveda and is moving up there at the end of next month. Yes, rather suddenly. Eric already has two little girls, Isabel and Erica. Normally, I don't post their names, but their names are part of the humor of the story. They're also pregnant with a third child - this one a boy, which will be named Daniel. Isabel Erica and Daniel. Look at the Initials: IED. Now go watch CNN's coverage of Iraq. Well, maybe Fox's coverage, since CNN seems more bent on blaming Bush and Fox seems more interested in covering the war itself. For those of you who haven't been following the news, IED stands for Improvised Explosive Device, a commonly used ambush weapon in Iraq, and believe me, these three kids will live up to their name.

At any rate, they wanted to come by on Tuesday to see us, which we said was great! We like spending time with them, Eric and his Wife are fun people who we can really engage with, and they've been the most supportive through the pregnancy and marriage, too. Well, second maybe to my Aunt Emmy, because she's my favorite (and always will be!) part of my family. We were delighted to have them...on Tuesday.

We were not prepare for the phone call on Sunday asking us if we'd be home, because they were coming to see my dad anyway (whom we live with) and it would be much faster to see us all ont he same day. Prior to this, we'd already made arrangements to have Jessica's Aunt visit us. Her Aunt and Uncle live up by San Francisco (They're the ones, incidentally enough, who came down and performed our Wedding for us) and so have not had a chance to see the new baby yet. For whatever reason (This time was transportation issues, I believe) Jessica's family has an aversion to visiting us at our house, however, so instead we had to pack up the baby and drive to Jessica's Grandparents house so her aunt could meet the baby. For anyone else...I might not have done it, but I really like her Aunt and Uncle, and wanted to make sure that at least her aunt got an opportunity to meet the baby. Naturally, both my cousin and her aunt wanted to see the baby at exactly the same time. Because anything else would have made my life easy and simple, and I wouldn't want that, would I?

As it turned out, we were just getting prepared to load the baby in the car (my wife's car, with new fluid levels! Because driving in my car risks blowing out a tire and killing us all, which naturally means that the carseat has to be moved) when my cousin pulled up. We had a nice visit for about a half an hour, then piled into the hot car and drove to her Grandparents house, where we had another nice visit.

At this point it should be noted that I asked to drive her Mother (my mother in law) back to her house. You see, they had been away on a Woman's Retreat all weekend together (Jessica's Mom, Her Grandmother, and her Aunt) and so only one of them had a car (Which as mentioned before, is where the aversion to visiting us at our house comes from). Her Mother lives about 10 minutes down the freeway from our house, and driving her home from the Grandparents was actually on the way. For some reason though, the Grandparents were disappointed about the fact that they didn't have to go way out of their way to take her home. I don't know why. Everyone thought it was some kind of burden on us.

So on our way to take her home and the phone rings. I'm naturally a distracted person - and this is doubly true when I'm driving. There's just so much to look at - I can't resist. So I try not to talk on the phone when I drive, because that's asking for trouble. Instead I give the phone to my wife. It's my cousin. They want to go out to dinner.

Now, let me say that this website contract I was working on was on a deadline, not only that but it was on a deadline in another time zone. I couldn't just work on it when I wanted and finish when I want. I had to work on it when they were awake and finish it when they were awake. Dinner at this point, was a very bad idea.

But when someone is leaving the state, what choice do you have? We agreed to rush back and go to dinner with them. This was to be our first trip out somewhere with Joshua. We'd gone to see family before, but only when we knew there was a spare room for feeding (my wife is shy, and has not yet perfected the art of using her wrap).

We got back to the house and fed the baby (we knew he was due to eat because he cried the whole way home - which is as much as he cried all together in the last two weeks, we're so blessed). And then sat around and waited. And waited. For dad. Because he was finishing up some business. And had to change his clothes. Then they had to decide where we were going to eat. Then we had to load Rebekah (my six month old sister) Isabel (my three year old cousin) and Erica (my one year old cousin) and Joshua (my two week old son) into the car. I'll let someone else explore the illogic of taking four under four children to the restaurant for dinner.

Then we had to juggle the car situation - Rachel's sister (who was originally coming to babysit) was going to come to dinner and watch Rebekah at the table instead, and she was the second to last person to arrive, so she was blocking Eric's car, which they had to take because it had carseats in it. And I was blocking her car, because the driveway was full at this point, but we had to take our car (my wife's car, anyway) because we needed it for Joshua's carseat and Dad had to take his car because it had Rebekah's carseat in it.

And let me say, for the record, I'm rethinking my agreement with my wife to have four kids at this point, because the carseat situation is a mess. Three is the perfect number of children, because if you have one car with five seats and you go to dinner with your wife and children then there are exactly enough seatbelts for everyone. You'd almost think they planned it that way. I really really really want that other tax deduction though, so four kids might be better.

So we get TO the restuarant and find parking (Seperatly) and get inside and inform that there will be seven adults (six couples plus Rachel's sister) two children with booster seats/high chairs and two babies. And I thought they were going to cry. Twenty minutes later...they somehow figured out how to sandwich the tables together and we finally got to sit down. Only to have to wait another 20 minutes to place our drink order, and another 10 for it to come. And that was just for it to START coming. By the time they'd gotten our drink order right and delivered it to the table another ten minutes had passed, and I'd finished my first (of many) root beers for the night and half of my wife's. In my defense, we don't buy soda at home (too expensive and bad for you) and it was Barq's, which is my favorite.

The two young girls at the other end of the table were, at this point, attempting to emulate my father (who was throwing wads of paper from straw wrappers, napkins, and napkin paper holders at people at the table), Rachel's Sister was discouraging him, most of us were looking at the menu, Rachel was trying to calm Rebekah who was upset for some odd reason...and Joshua was peacefully sleeping through it all. Which he did for the rest of the meal.

I'm not going to describe the rest of the meal except to say that Joshua was the most well behaved person at the table (he slept nearly the whole time). And I feel bad for Dad and Rachel, because Rebekah screams and cries so much it's impossible for them to enjoy going out with her. I could see it on Rachel's face all night. I'm so glad I don't have to worry about that.

It was also very COLD in the restaurant. I feel this is worth noting because Jessica gave me the baby to hold while she eat and then cruely took him back just when he was starting to keep me warm.

So that was my weekend - I finished most of the website contract sunday night after we got back (I worked on it for two hours straight and hammered out all the important parts) and even got to be around 12:30 (which is good since I got up for work at 8 this morning). Needlessly busy and chaotic, but at least half of what I WANTED to get done got done, and I can be satisfied with that.

And we got to go out with the Baby, which was quite a treat.