Weekend Update and Love Boat

Saturday was the best and the worst, depending on how you looked at things.

and me being the eternal optimist...

That morning, Robb and I left early, but not as early as Meri, to head to a town south of us to see her march in a parade.  

We got there too early and luckily it was overcast because Robb would have been pretty burned waiting for an hour for the thing to start.  We brought some lawn chairs and planted ourselves on a quiet street corner next to some lovely flowers... that hosted bees...  lots of them.  

I tried to get a pic of them landing on my leg, but the darn things were just too quick.  As soon as the parade started, my corner was mobbed and the bees had other targets. WHEW!  

Although I had to go into the street to get a picture of my girl as she marched past.  

Again luckily, her band was #37 in a 376 entry parade! WOOHOO!!!  We were OUTTATHERE by 11!  Too bad we didn't have Leon with us, because I only got 1 piece of candy that I had to wrestle a stranger's kid for and popcorn, which I had to pay for.  HE would have picked up candy for me...

After saying goodbye to Meri and telling her to keep the pizza off the ceiling, we headed north. FAR north to find my other daughter.  

As Murphy's law dictates, there were detours.  LOTS of them...

Also, as Murphy's law demands, Maddy's car broke down the day before so we had some work to do when we arrived into town.  The alternator had died.  Some friends had diagnosed the problem and we were there to implement the fix with some dollars...

We went to a car parts store and bought one.  Then bribed a car parts employee to come out to the parking lot and put it in for us.  Well, he did offer his services.  

He'd done tons of them and seemed confident.

$60, a bottle of lemonade and two hours later, he gave up.  Apparently one bolt in there required a special tool that he just didn't have and he couldn't get the old alternator to come out...  So, Maddy, Matthew, Robb and I had sat there watching him literally drip sweat over the engine for 2.5 hours for nothing...  BUT we did get a lot of visiting in and that was great!  He put it back together in the last half hour and there was enough charge in the battery to get it back to her dorm.  She took it to the guy he recommended on Monday and hopefully it's fixed by this time.

The next day, we all attended the 25th anniversary celebration of Matthew's dad being a minister.  What a great accomplishment!  Matthew and his sisters sang for him twice that day and Maddy accompanied.  

I did videotape the 2nd performance, but that will be just for his folks I think.  Matthew gave a speech at the luncheon and I finally got a pic of those two together!  

With a little Photoshopping, this will work.

See?  I'm good!

Then his family wanted to take family photos outside. 

Matthew and his sisters that he loves so much.

 Maddy with them.

We got in on the action too!

After visiting and sharing embarrassing stories of the kids, Robb and I headed home.  We were exhausted but glad to see everyone.  Due to the exhaustion, we forgot to stop and see my bestie on the way home.  She understood and still bought me lunch on Monday! WHEW!

Meri was waiting for us at home and she and I had some good visiting done before Robb came back with the boy grandchild.  

Well, that was the weekend update.  If you were hoping for a commentary on the debates, you'll be sorely disappointed.  I opted for a recording of the Love Boat instead.

I have found that it's easier to watch Gopher and Isaac's love lives get mangled, because they usually wrap it up in an hour and everything ends well.