March 25th, 2017

Day 361: Visiting Friends in Sacramento, CA

It’s the freakin’ weekend! That means our working friends have time for visits, so we headed east to the Sacramento area to see Lindsay’s high school BFF, Susan, and her brood. Susan and her husband Rob have two young boys – both absolutely sweet and adorable! Like all young boys, they alternately run around, scream, cry, play nicely, rough-house, and watch TV very quietly. At one point Lindsay thought she caught Igor Googling the word, “vasectomy,” but he claimed it was just a typo.

In addition to making parenting look super easy, Susan and Rob are also grand masters of home improvement – we were in awe as we toured their lovely home (every room was repainted, the kitchen cabinets were refurbished, and Susan was halfway done staining her stairwell banister) and literally green with envy over their backyard (unlike us, they actually planned out where to plant trees and vegetables, instead of randomly sticking them in the middle of the lawn and letting them die). These guys are REAL grown-ups – hopefully we can be like them someday.

Mattie looking for wildlife with a new pair of binoculars (the best available in Laos!)

Nickie is a little overwhelmed to meet Lindsay & Igor for the first time right after his nap

The hat’s a bit big, but he’ll grow into it. Great visit with old friends!

Lindsay hugs the kids goodbye and Nickie stops crying. Trying not to take that one personally… j/k

Our new friends we met in New Zealand, Rachael & Michael, live conveniently halfway between Susan’ house and my dad’s house, so we met up for dinner, drinks and squealing over their teeny Pomeranian puppy (not in that order). Things were going just swimmingly until *someone* in the group made Rachael laugh so hard she fractured a rib. Since she’s recovering from bronchitis and 7mo. preggers, she’s a little too fragile for our knock-knock jokes. Thankfully, she and her baby are just fine – in the meantime, we’re gonna have to schedule another double date in NYC. We have a few months to come up with new material – make sure your insurance premiums are paid up, ’cause we’re gonna SLAY.