It just isn’t right.

Twins sisters just shouldn’t live 2000 miles apart. It’s cruel. At least we get to see each other a couple times a year. Melody always tries to make a Maryland trip near our birthday, and we always look forward to it.

This year did not disappoint. She left both of her kids at home with their dad. As sad as I was to not get my Juju/Gabe fix, I knew the traveling would be far easier for Melody if she was flying solo, and I knew we could party like grown-ups with less kids to manage (so much different from last year, which was still fun in it’s own way). So we crammed as much partying as we could in the four days she was here. And with Elise here too, it was sister-fun heaven. (We missed Cami and Amber desperately. A complete sisters trip is definitely in order). Here’s what went down:

• Games playing. Scatergories, Wakee Six, and Farkle, etc. Melody is a competitive game player, making it all the more fun.
• Shopping. Sometime with the babies, and sometimes without. We all mostly bought stuff for our kids. Times have changed.
• Pedicures. I think this is accidentally my 3rd year running of getting pedis near my birthday. A new tradition, I guess. I like it.
• Watkins Park. We LOVED this place. I was trying to think of something festive to do with our Saturday, and I finally settled on this park I’d heard about. With it being only 15 minutes from home, it was a prefect way to spend the morning. I can’t believe we hadn’t been there before. It was a beautiful day. The leaves were amazing. The kids loved the animals at the farm, but the highlight was the little pile of pumpkins we happened upon. I have been meaning to find a pumpkin patch, and this was the prefect substitute for my little ones. They loved rolling around in the straw, and trying to eat it too, of course. We headed home, but not without three little pumpkins of our own to put on our porch. We’ll be going back there very soon.
• Lounging/Watching Random Shows/Resting. Project Runway, SVU, Auto-Tune the News, it didn’t really matter what we were watching, it is just fun to be together.
• Hiding random rubber mice. Melody hates mice with a passion. I’m not one to play practical jokes, but she has played her fair share on me, so I thought it was time she had a taste of her own medicine. She found them in her shoes, wallet, bed, on her tooth brush, and she may have even found a cluster of them in her suitcase.
• Eating delicious food. We arranged for a babysitter on Saturday night so we could all go out. We settled on Macaroni Grill, always delicious, even if we only went for the bread. Of course we didn’t miss out on complimentary birthday cake/serenade. On Sunday Jeff, our resident Chef, made an amazing Mediterranean Chicken. So juicy and flavorful. What a sweet bro-in-law we have. I can’t wait to try more of his delicious discoveries. Melody and I usually make our own cake, but being a bit busy this year, we decided to just pick something out at Costco. We almost settled on a classic Carrot Cake, when we thought we ought to give the Red Velvet a try (I’m not usually a red velvet cake fan, or consumeing obscene amounts of food coloring, rather, but hearing good things about it, we gave it a shot). It was alright, but we decided it would be better as a trifle, so we made it into one. So we kind of made our own cake after all.

I think that sums up the Melody fun pretty well. I also have to mention that she was a huge help with the babies. And with Elise always being willing to lend a hand as well, my load was definitely lightened as a special birthday treat. And as much as I miss that extra help with all the lifting, entertaining, etc. I’ll really miss the great time we are able to have together, even when we’re just sitting around. We know someday we’ll live by each other and be together more than a couple times a year. We can’t wait. Usually I’m so depressed when visitors leave, so I’m VERY glad Lili is here so we can continue to have fun together, sister style. We miss you bad, Mel!

My real birthday was the day after she left, on Tuesday. I let the babies watch a lot a Baby Einstein as a gift to me, but they didn’t even need it. They were sweethearts anyway. They played with their toys like little angels, didn’t make each other cry at all. I was able to cuddle them just because I wanted to, not because they demanded it from me. It’s like they knew I wanted to have a great day. It was wonderful. Lili said they didn’t mind being home with the kids that night (which were all asleep , of course), so KC and I enjoyed a leisurely dinner in Annapolis, at P.F. Chang’s, mostly because I wanted the Banana Spring Rolls with Coconut Pineapple ice cream. It’s as good as it sounds.

And the icing on the birthday cake was that Penny (though I think she had a little help) left me this surprise when we got home, not to mention the place looked a lot cleaner than when we left (I hope I am not the only one that leaves the house in a huge disaster when I’m in a hurry.) What a sweet sister I have. I’m a lucky girl.

Oh, and I’m 26 years old. Yikes.