Yeehaw! (Part 2)

First off, here are the rest of the videos documenting the weekend:
Pitching
John Thomas
Dennis Quaid
Pima Air Museum
Baseball

So let's start where we left off - the guys went to the Pima Air & Space Museum on Saturday whilst I stayed home with shin splints (cue Advil + magnesium regimen). Since we would be leaving early Sunday morning in order to get to the baseball game early, we decided to go to Mass on Saturday evening. I checked the diocese' website to see where the nearest church was, and we decided on St. Pius X as our Saturday Mass. Everything seemed normal at first, but as the Mass progressed, we started noticing little things that worried us. At first, I was okay with the fact that the priest had a mullet and a handlebar mustache. But I was not okay when we were saying the Our Father, that they left out a whole part, then went straight into saying Peace without any kind of a break. They replaced "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you ..." with "By the breaking of the bread, we will know."  Then as we were kneeling, as people were getting up to receive Communion, I realized that we hadn't said the Apostle's Creed. I didn't know what to do because our row was already getting up, so I just went with the flow and wondered what the boys were thinking, if they had realized it, too. I get to the front of the line to receive communion, and the person standing there hands me a square piece of bread. My heart stopped, but the pressure of holding up the line was overwhelming, and I took the bread that looked nothing like the communion I'm used to. I went back to my seat, and when the four of us began to kneel, we all saw that none of us were comfortable there anymore. I'm sure all of us were asking God to forgive us for what we just did, that we didn't know this was a liberal Catholic church. [H. had some coworkers warn him that some of the churches around here did things a little differently, and to watch out for the liberal churches.]

As the service ended (and I think the priest skipped another part of the traditional exit), the four of us got out of there as fast as possible, and we waited until we were in H.'s car to discuss what the heck just happened. It was like a rush of words and anxiety and what do we do now to counteract what just happened. Do we go to confession? We hadn't intended on going to a non-Mass. We collectively decided to talk to the priests at our home churches when this weekend was over. For me, that means finding a real priest and asking what it is I do now. I just don't want to have that gut-wrenching experience again.

For dinner Saturday night we had In-And-Out Burger, which is one thousand times better when you order your burger "Animal Style", because then they mix in onions and their special delicious sauce in with the burger as they grill it. Infinitely better than just their regular burger. We ate dinner right outside the restaurant on one of the tables, which was a good idea up until a bee wouldn't leave us alone.

After dinner, we went to one of the local bowling alleys to see what the prices were like. Turns out after 9:30pm, they have "Cosmic Bowling"! It involves blacklights and laser disco balls and fog machines and loud club music! I can't remember how many games we bowled, but I think after the first couple we decided to do one game left-handed. That lasted about five or six frames, and then H. wanted to do something different for each remaining frame. We did the granny bowl, standing with your toes on the line, through the legs bowling, backwards bowling, and some that I'm probably forgetting. It was so much fun! I really wish we had brought the camera along with us to take pictures of the hilarity of it all.

The next day we set out fairly early for Spring Training in Surprise, AZ. We packed water bottles and some beer and sandwiches in a cooler, some popcorn in a plastic bowl, and some chips and dip for our picnic on the lawn of the homerun deck in the stadium. We found a nice spot on the homerun lawn somewhere between first base and second, and got to enjoy the sights and sounds of a baseball game. If you watched the Baseball video, you can see kind of where we were and what all we could see. It was a lovely time up until about the fifth or sixth inning, when I was just beaten down by the sun. While there was a cool breeze going, sitting still in the sun made me feel like a piece of meat cooking. I could have sworn that I had a sunburn, but the next day it turned out to be a tan (even though I put on SPF 50 sunscreen). H. was so sweet and took me to get a Powerade and a pretzel - I must've eaten the pretzel too fast or something, because that coupled with the heat made me feel like I was going to throw up. I sat in the bathroom (the only shade) for what seemed like an hour, although it was probably only twenty minutes or so. The guys were nice enough to tell me that we were leaving (they said the Rangers were losing anyways), and we started heading back home. I was overcome with exhaustion, and fell swiftly asleep for quite a while on the trip back. One of the guys got a great picture of me sleeping with my mouth open.

Sunday night ... I forget what we had for dinner. I think it was lasagna, but I could be wrong. The guys wanted to stay up and watch a movie, and I wasn't quite tired yet, so I decided to watch some of it. They picked Paranormal Activity, and I watched about forty five minutes before I gave up on it. The next morning, the two brothers said it was a good thing I went to bed when I did - they thought I would've had nightmares if I stayed longer, so go me!

Monday Monday Monday. We (the two brothers and I) had a nice lazy day. Waffles in the morning as we saw H. off to work, then doing dishes and watching The Price Is Right, followed by Panda Express for lunch. We then headed to Mens Warehouse to get the two boys fitted for tuxes for the wedding. It was pretty funny watching them trying to figure out how tall they were and what their shoe size was. Now all I need to do is get H. in the shop to have him fitted as well.

After tuxes, we headed to DSW on a whim. Those boys thought it would be fun to stop in and look at their clearance shoes, but little did they know I was there on a mission to find athletic shoes! Much to my dismay, all of the shoes were at least sixty dollars (even with the clearance discount). The guys wanted to leave, so although I hadn't scouted out my entire section, I drove them over to Fry's (the food store) to pick up oats to make some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. The recipe I found online ended up making at least three dozen, so I sent the majority home with the boys. There was no way H. and I could have eaten all those cookies.

Driving to the airport was not as complicated as I thought it would be, thank goodness. I gave the guys each a hug and a farewell before leaving the airport. Such nice boys!

And that concludes our weekend! Today I am going to vacuum the apartment - I meant to do that before our guests arrived, so it's not like they tracked mud everywhere or anything. Also, lots of laundry, and I need to run to the store to grab some things for din dins tonight.

Wedding Countdown: 46 days to go!  (That's a pretty small number, right? It's a good thing I get an email every couple of days reminding me how many days I have left, otherwise that number might give me a heart attack. :3 )