A Productive Weekend

Wow, that was some weekend! We had friends over Friday night for some Popeye's fried chicken and video games. I can't believe the only place that sells that stuff is in Boston. Oh why did you ever have to leave Nashua, NH?!

Saturday was even more eventful and just as tiring. My brother-in-law B.K. came by with his van and helped us pick up the new crib and dresser from Babies"R"Us. He helped me bring everything into the house which included carrying the 100+ lbs box for the crib up the stairs to what would be the baby's nursery.

Tary and I were excited to start putting things together so we started cutting open the boxes. Just as disappointing as this year's football season was, our hearts sank when we saw that the crib pieces were white and not chocolate like the dresser and changing table. This is insanity to OCD people like us.

We were really upset so Tary called Babies"R"Us to straighten them out things out. They refused to admit that they made a mistake so I had to step in. We had ordered the crib about 2 weeks ago and the correct model was in stock at the time. Supposedly they reserved it for us while we waited for the dresser to arrive.

So I was talking to the person on the phone and she was not apologetic at all. She didn't care that we had to ask my brother-in-law to take time off of work just to come and help us. She didn't care that we drove all the way to Salem, NH to pick up the wrong colored crib. She didn't care that we lugged that incredibly heavy box up the stairs, or that we cut it open to find the wrong color, or that we had to repack everything to exchange it.

After all of that, she still didn't want to take any accountability for their mistake. First she tried to say that we ordered the wrong model or something but we ordered the model that was already in stock. Next she tried to blame it on the manufacturer and claim that they may have mislabeled the outside of the box. I quickly dismissed that notion by pointing out that the model number on the box was xxxxxx-21 which corresponds to "white" and that was what was inside of it. We had ordered model xxxxxx-81. Sigh.

After speaking to a manager, he agreed to refund 20% for our troubles and that seemed like a fair compromise. My brother-in-law was gracious enough to come back the next day to help us bring back the wrong crib to the store to exchange it for the correct one.

So anyways, back to Saturday night. Tary and I put together the dresser and changing table. The dresser had a lot of pieces so it took us a while to put together. The changing table was much easier. Ah, the fruits of our labor. :)

After all of our hard work on Saturday, we had our friends over again that night for more food and games. One of my best friends A.D. bought most of the food so he put us to work in the kitchen preparing the meats, vegetables, and sauces.  He clearly had a game plan for the kind of meal he wanted us to have so we didn't dare venture too far from his vision. We ended up having an awesome family-style meal with thinly sliced beef and assorted vegetables cooked in butter over an electric skillet and dipped in a delicious but very spicy "prahok" sauce.

As I mentioned earlier, we exchanged the crib on Sunday. After B.K. helped me get the new box upstairs, Tary and I started getting to work. The crib was by far the easiest to put together of the 3 pieces of baby's furniture. After some reshuffling, the nursery was pretty much ready to be decorated. Tary quickly went to work and threw on a sheet over the baby's bed, a turtle bed skirt, baby bumpers with turtles on the side, and a turtle mobile. Do you sense a common theme? Tary knows how much I love turtles and now our little man will be able to match his Daddy. The final touches were some aquatic themed decals which went on the walls.

After all of that, since we had so much leftover meat from the night before, we had our friends over yet again for some homemade steak and cheese subs. Of course we had to make it buff-er so our friends brought various sliced meats (e.g., prosciutto, pepperoni, etc) and cheeses to add to the steak bombs. Mmm. I think I need to use the next notch on my belt. After dinner, we watched the end of the Saints/Vikings game and then played some Worms on the Xbox 360. That was a fun night.

So I guess some football was played this weekend. Meh. The Saints go marching on while Favre cost his team again (and again). Let's see how long Favre strings us along this off season before he tells his team family us his plans for next season. Manning and the Colts sent Cryin' Ryan and the J-E-S-T-S (not a typo) back home. Meh. Well, I'm glad the Jets are finally eliminated.

Whew. What a weekend. Tary and I are exhausted. I'm glad the nursery is starting to take shape and it's even more enjoyable seeing how excited Tary is getting. As always, it was great spending time with our friends too. Too bad I can't have another weekend to recover from this one.