An Evening Out

News Alert: The Pannings were social not just once this week (which would have been a feat in and of itself, given our recent social calendar), but THREE times.

Thanks to Jodi, who put us in touch with some friends who recently moved here from her neck of the woods, we spent Wednesday night getting to know Lacy and Mark, and their kids. I am so thankful that we are getting to spend time not only with other adults, but with little kids, too. It should help to make the transition a little bit easier for us when the time comes. Unfortunately, baby Julian is such a sweet and quiet baby (at 8 weeks old) that Matt seemed to think that's how all baby (boys, at least) behaved. Haha.

Friday night, we drove out to Maryland to visit an old friend, Mark Giszczak, who is working on his PhD at Catholic University. He was having a party/barbecue with a nice mix of old and new friends, including his fiancee. It was nice to chat with Mark and catch up a bit, as well as to meet Colleen. Hopefully we'll get to see more of them in the coming months/years.

Saturday, our societal forays continued as we met up with Lacy & Co. at the home of another Steubenville connection. Thanks this time to the wonders of Facebook, which alerted Theresa to the presence of people in the area who were friends with her buddy Laura back in Steubenville. Truthfully, I only really knew Laura for about a week as we served in Young Apostles together (when I was 17), but she is now friends with Jodi also, so we still have some connection. Anyway, Theresa and her family have been in Ashburn for a couple of years, making them the most established among us. Lacy and Theresa both have a 2 year-old and a <6 month-old, so their mommy-hood is a bit more established than mine, but it was great to connect with some other young Catholic moms. Both of their littlest ones are boys, so Elmo will have some playmates for sure as they get a bit bigger. :-)

Whew! After all that social interaction (funny.... because Matt and I are definitely not the talkers of the bunch in any of these settings, but it was social, nonetheless), we've spent the rest of the weekend hiding from the "extreme heat warnings" that have been in effect for a few days. We did finally break down and turn on the A/C, though, which has made life more bearable.

We also made some "major" progress in readying our home for the baby this week. We bought a mattress for the crib, Matt fixed the crib (again... the first attempt at fixing it turned out to not support the weight of the mattress...small problem?), and I sold my old desk so that we now have more space in the second bedroom. Which is good, because we are rapidly accumulating more and more baby stuff. Whee!!! I should start washing and organizing the clothes so that they're usable when needed. Add it to the list...