Pins and Needles

I know all my blog stalkers are on pins and needles wondering how my weekend went. Well, you will all be relieved that Darcy is not an ax murderer or crazy person. And she is not some fat hairy guy on the other end of the internet. Darcy is a living, breathing, awesome, sweet, funny and beautiful person! We had such a fun time hanging out this weekend and getting to know each other. She was very patient with Abby who seemed to forget our rules the second Darcy showed up. What are our rules? Well, here they are:

1. Don't jump on her
2. Don't hug or kiss her unless you ask first
3. Be polite
4. Keep your voice volume DOWN!

Well, what can I say, it was worth a shot. But Abby, Iris and even Nate took to Darcy instantly, and I think she felt as comfortable with us, as we did with her. She was so sweet and brought our girls books. They totally love them! But let me start from the beginning! (Don't roll your eyes, you know you love my long posts!)

We left to pick Darcy up from the airport. I had good intentions of having Abby design a super cute sign for her so she knew it was us when she got off the plane. But, alas, I am lazy and a very accomplished procrastinator, so I got our last piece of construction paper and a Sharpie and made a sign:

DARCY PLUS TWILIGHT EQUALS SUPER FUN!!


Abby proudly held that in front of her waiving it to everyone who walked by us. Finally I saw Darcy coming around the corner. She smiled, we hugged, Abby introduced herself and immediately demanded all of Darcy's attention! Darcy got her suitcase and we started the trek to the car! We talked about her flight, a little about our day and we had a pretty good conversation on the way home even if you count Abby's numerous interruptions.

Once we got to the house, Abby insisted on showing Darcy her room. Then she demanded her present (I kind of let it slip to Abby that Darcy got her a present... I still feel bad about that) and Darcy delivered! Then the girls followed her around laughing. Darcy read her book to Abby and when it was time for family scripture study, Abby climbed on Darcy's lap. Iris was NOT going to let that go and Iris waited patiently at Darcy's feet until Darcy pulled her up on her lap also! What a nice lady! Just so you know, Iris rarely EVER sits on anyone else's lap but mommy's during scriptures.



We stayed up a bit talking about the hot guys in Darcy's People Magazine and then it was bedtime. In the morning, the girls woke me up bright and early asking about Darcy and breakfast. Darcy slept in, and I'm glad she did! When she woke up and got cleaned up we headed downtown for some shopping. I feel kind of bad exposing Darcy to shopping with my two girls. It is stressful. And it was MY idea to go to a cute little shop which sells ornaments. I was pretty much a nervous wreck wondering what broken item I would be paying for before we left. But thankfully, nothing got broken. We left our little ornaments shop and headed to the mall for lunch and more shopping.



For those of you who have never shopped with me, let me clue you in. I am very frustrating to shop with. It is okay to agree with this, it comes straight out of my mother's mouth. I love to look at things, I HATE spending money on anything. So we walked around looking at things, but all we bought at the mall was lunch!

We headed back to our house so Iris could take a nap and then we decided to visit Duke Gardens. Darcy wanted a place to take pictures. So Darcy, Abby and I headed out again. It was pretty chilly on Saturday, but we braved the weather and enjoyed the outdoors. The beautiful colored leaves are almost all off the trees now, but we found some big, pretty magnolia trees, a few streams and bridges. We talked about our adoption experiences (Darcy is a fellow adoptive mom to adorable Porter) while Abby ran around and played with some dogs that were there.



Darcy and I didn't want to miss our movie so we went back home to change into our SAWEET Twilight shirts. Then my whole family and Darcy went for some NC BBQ! MMMMMM Hushpuppies. I really enjoyed dinner, but I ate too much. Which is sad because I was really looking forward to a BIG BUCKET of POPCORN. Oh well, I had to settle for some candy and a big Cherry Coke!

The movie! Darcy wouldn't let me take her picture in front of the Twilight poster (nerd)! So we hung out in the lobby. We got to the theater 1 hour early! Apparently, that was not at all necessary, but we weren't taking any chances. We finally, couldn't stand it anymore and DEMANDED that they let us in the theater. Well, actually, we asked nicely, dodged the lame attempts at humor that were thrown at us from the prepubescent boys taking our tickets, and finally made it into the theater. We were the first ones in! Followed shortly by two teenage girls (one 11 and one 13). Let me tell you, we felt SO COOL then! LOL

It wasn't until 15 minutes before the movie was supposed to start that the theater started filling up. It never filled completely up, and if I'd known that obnoxious teenage boys were going to sit right behind us, I would have sat somewhere else.

After sitting through 20 minutes of previews (which seemed like a lifetime), we finally settled in for the event we had been planning, waiting, dreaming about for weeks! Then, I had to pee. But I didn't dare move. Nope I held it the entire movie, even forgetting about it for a while. HOW STRONG ARE MY BLADDER MUSCLES?!?

Anyway, after the movie we headed to the bathrooms and then to Starbucks for some hot, non-coffee drinks to discuss what we liked or disliked. I will not spoil anything for those who haven't happened to have read the books yet. But lets just say, the movie was different than the book in some nonessential ways, and very different in some very essential ways. Our first reaction was of disappointment and disbelief with what they did with key scenes from the book and some characters too. We liked the actors, especially the vampires and Jacob. And there was good chemistry between Bella and Edward. We decided that we must see it again to be able to determine if we liked it or not. Don't worry, we didn't watch it again that night. But we both have future plans to do so.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that I judged the movie not only on all the great things in Twilight itself, but also what I know of the entire story over the four books and all the outtakes and "Midnight Sun" that I read online. And I just don't think that is fair. The more I think about the movie the more I like it. So I would encourage everyone to see it, but I would encourage them to read the book FIRST. And definitely don't use the movie as a substitute for the book.

Sunday morning, we had a nice leisurely morning until it was time to take Darcy to the airport. It was nice to take her myself and have some more one on one time to get to know her. She really is a remarkable person. I am so glad she came out and I had such a great time! I can't wait for New Moon to come out... it's my turn to fly out to AZ!

Darcy, it was as if we have been friends for years and I really loved spending time with you. Thanks for taking this Twilight journey with me. The best part of the whole weekend was meeting you! And you should know how outstanding that is considering how much I love Twlight! So here's to my friend Darcy! You ROCK!