Much Sims playing was done and the people did rejoice.
Actually, Saturday was spend watching Jake and Bobby. Claudine went out with her mom, her Aunt Carol and sister-in-law Pam to a spa for a day of beauty. Not that they needed it, of course. A day of facials and massages for her and a day of chasing kids for me. Fair is fair because I went to play golf last weekend. The kids were both very good and it wasn't too much of a pain in the ass. Jake went over to play with the neighbors for awhile and Bobby took a 2 hour nap so it wasn't nearly as bad as I had feared.
Sunday, we went to the christening of Audra, my 2nd cousin. I think she is my 2nd cousin. I really get screwed up by all those wacky familial relations. I grew up in an isolated, nuclear family. My mom and dad are from Texas and New Mexico, respectively. Living in St. Louis, MO allowed us to see their families once a year until I was 12. Then we moved to New Jersey which cut our familiy visits even more. But I digress. Audra is the daughter of Karl and Kim. Karl is Claudine's cousin. Figure it out yourself.
The baptism was held at St. Paul's church on Nassau Street in beautiful Princeton, NJ. For some reason, I have a real problem with Princeton - the city and the school. I'm sure the first part of it is the natural inferiority complex stemming from me attending Rutgers University. Rutgers and Princeton are both located in Central New Jersey (about 30 minutes apart) but that is where the similarities end. Rutgers is a state school and Princeton is an expensive, private institution. Rutgers is kind of a party school and Princeton is a fine, prestigious institution. Rutgers is not Princeton and Princeton is not Rutgers. The second thing is that Princeton (the city) is just easy to get to. Route 206 in New Jersey is the my personal driving hell. From Netcong to Princeton it is just 2 lanes of traffic lights and circles (rotaries to our New England friends). I'm sure that its relative isoloation has kept Princeton charming rather than... not charming. Thirdly, my first trip into Princeton left a bad taste in my mouth. My roommate Peter and I found out that there was a specialty ice cream store opening up in New Brunswick (where Rutgers is). The store was called Thomas Sweet's and it was the first store to do those "blend-in" things. Ground up M&Ms, Heath bars, Reese's cups, any kind of candy stirred into what ever flavor ice cream you wanted. It sounded like heaven. We told someone about it and they told us there was one already open in Princeton. Boom! into the car we went. It was Sunday afternoon around 5:30. We sped down to Princeton to get in on ice cream perfection. We got down to the main drag (Nassau Street) and it was closed. I don't mean just Thomas Sweet's, I mean the town was closed! Everything was dark and there was no one on the streets. Apparently Princeton the city that contains Princeton the university rolls up the sidewalks at 6:00 PM. A town filled with college kids that had no night life at all. Not even ice cream! We jumped back in the car and got back to New Brunswick as fast as we could.
As for the christening itself, it was pretty uneventful. Claudine and her brother Bill we the godparents. That meant Bobby would see his mom up at the fount and keep trying to get down to be with her. But I am a master at the art of distracting a 2 year old, so it went pretty smoothly. Then we went to Kim's parents house about 10 minutes away for lunch and cake. And drinks. Jake and Bobby were well behaved throughout. It was nice not having to chase them around every second. They are getting to the point where we don't have to completely hover over them all the time. It makes me wonder sometimes why we're having another one. This is definitely the last time.
