Tacos and catching up

Leon and I attended the Iowa Cubs game against the Louisville Bats on Friday night!  It was a lot of fun catching up with some college friends.  I hope more are able to attend next year!

My sister-in-law dropped us off with the intent of eventually finding a parking spot nearby and joining us but no luck.  Every single lot was full and she wasn't in a state to walk several blocks.  At least I got to visit with her for the drive from our parking ramp over! 

Leon didn't understand the game but was totally in it for the food.  Thankfully his dad gave me some money to keep the kid happy and boy did I!

He got a big slice of pizza right at the beginning and then ate half my peanuts.  Then we climbed over a fence barrier to our left, three more times to either find a restroom or more food and drinks.  He had seen a sign for Raising Cain's chicken fingers but apparently it was just an ad because there was NO booth for it.  He settled for a generic BBQ booth and only ate a teeny bit of the $14 plate of chicken strips and fries.  I ate the rest, not wanting anything to go to waste...  And since I'm counting carbs and blood sugar these days, I'm still working it off.

sigh.  The things I do for these kids!

It was delicious.

Ok - since a month ago, when I last blogged.

1) I did NO sewing.  I hope to remedy that this week.  I need SOMETHING to send to the fair.  I should actually sign up for some tickets today.

update: DID!  Signed up for 6 entries. Not sure if I'll have that many but we'll see.

2) Meri has a new boyfriend and I finally got to meet him a couple weeks ago. He's coming for taco night tonight too.  We like him. and she really likes him.  So things are good.

3) Leon and I visited with Maddy and Matthew and went on adventures in paint 

and boating!

4) Leon is out of school!!  and as far as we know, is now in the 8th grade.  You can't tell ANYTHING by those new fangled report cards. M=met expectations, N=nearing expectiations, S=sweet but trying, etc.  He is sleeping/gaming away his summer.  It's a challenge to get him out into the sun much less bed but we're doing our best! Thus the bribery with ball game food.

Come outside little boy!!...

5) staying as positive as I can about certain situations in my life right now.  

Robb would have said, "yep - told you."

6) possibly buying another car later this summer!  The current cars are nickel and diming us to death. One car will only drive smoothly if you put in a bottle of fuel injector cleaner and only if you put it in and fill it when it's around 1/4 of a tank.  Then you're good (maybe) until it's back down to a 1/4 tank.  weird.  Another needs new tires.  Another rattles when you start it and needs new tires too.

never ending.

7) I did something stupid (and almost died) with my riding lawn mower and that story is for another day.  Now the front tires look a wee bit bowlegged.  With any luck, Meri's new BF will help me bend it back into place today. I hope.

8) Leon and his middle school band played during Memorial Day out at the cemetery.

9) same day I realized that my blood sugar was way too high. That darn drunken peach cobbler.  

It's SO sweet!

and delish.

eh - I needed a wake up call.

10) Aggie's other grandparents came for a day and helped us all tear down the Eagle's nest from in front of our house and put up portions of it for a deck for Aggie's little house back in the yard. It's adorable!

pay no attention to the wheelbarrow!  it's not still there. This is an older picture.

and she is adorable too.

Just Grandma and Aggie

She is a stitch and a half!

Anyway, back to work and other things!  I hope you're having a beautiful week!

Eat a taco tonight!

Weekend Thriving

I had such a good time on Friday night with my college friends.  They were all, at some point, either roommates or housemates with Robb. Well, except for the girl on the far end, but she did attend our college at the same time as we did and since then has married the guy next to me, Robb's old dorm roommate.

Things got a little emotional and it was awkward but helpful to have a group hug in our row.  It's impossible to wrap our heads around what has happened and so many people are hurting.

But anyway...

The game was a lot of fun and I ate my weight in popcorn that progressively got chewier and chewier.  It was pretty humid... I didn't realize how that affected the popcorn until it did.

I was still flossing it out of my teeth the next day. :)

The balls kept getting hit foul into our area and at one time, Joel was able to protect his wife from a stray one that ricocheted off a seat in front of us.  WOOHOO!  A souvenir!!!  He gave it to a daughter who attended with us.

And instead of the kiss cam, I think they need to implement a "Cringe Cam" because we were doing LOTS of cringes from rogue balls...  And they were hilarious...  

I left as soon as the teams shook hands because I still had a drive home that night.  They were all either at a hotel or one of their daughter's for the night.

I met up with them again the next morning and we attended the farmer's market.  And I JUST remembered the cheese that I bought!!!  I know what my morning snack will be!!

When I got back into town, I immediately changed and went over to Meri's to mow her yard.  It was completed finally and I turned off the mower to go get a refill on the gas.  And then it wouldn't start...  That's always just the way, isn't it?  So I sat in my car and watched the Abyss on my cell phone, waiting for the mower to cool.

In the meanwhile, Meri got home from work and invited me in.  We spent the afternoon together working on projects around her house and enjoying some lunch.  I'd forgotten to eat.

Then when she had to head off to an engagement party, I headed out of town as well on the mower.  Since the bridge is out and the alfalfa field that I'd been using as an alternative way to get across the creek that splits our town in half, had grown taller than the mower since I'd cut through it,  I had to drive the 4 miles around on the detour...  REALLY?!!!!  

Yes. really...  

I pulled my t-shirt sleeves up over my shoulders so I wouldn't get the farmer's tan thing going and headed out of town.  SO.MANY.CARS.PASSING...  I lied to Meri and told her that I only got flipped off and honked at twice.  She felt bad so I had to tell her those were lies.  Everyone was super patient to drive around me.  Found out last night that a friend from our Grief Share group saw me and wondered if she needed to turn around and follow me in case I ran out of gas. hmmm..

I'm glad she didn't!

In the course of a solid hour to drive the detour, I got some color in my cheeks and rest of me.  Robb would have gotten sunburned completely in the first mile.  But my melanin is a bit different than his was so it's just a light tan.  Also got covered in sweat and dust from the gravel road part of the detour.

I quickly mowed the front yard as soon as I got back to my house and before turning off the mower, because you know... it overheats...

Then I walked back to Meri's for my car.  This is what I COULD have driven the mower down and back up if I'd opted to go this route.  I still think I could have done it, but Meri says no.  It's pretty steep...

And THIS bridge is supposed to be done a week from Wednesday.  I'm taking bets on the actual date...  Because I don't think they're going to make it.  There's still a pretty big gap to fill in on both sides of the bridge.

I had a good soak in the tub when I finally got home and don't think I even ate supper.  My lunch was at 3:30 anyway, so not a big deal...  Leon calls that "lupper".

Then lots of stuff happened on Sunday and it was all a blur.  Just normal, rushing here or there, church, the last Sunday School til fall, getting my students in trouble by giving them whistles, picking up the boy, dropping off stuff at MIL's, Grief Share, DUO call with Maddy, etc.

Meri and I will finally be going to that Godzilla movie tonight.  I hope.  And maybe Leon will go with us.  That remains to be seen...

Already plotting out next weekend!

Living for that weekend baby!!!

It's a Miracle!

A true blue spectacle!

Who can resist a little Barry Manilow in the morning??

  I got my miracle yesterday and the problem is solved!!  It's amazing what a little space next to an equal sign can do...  It can roach the whole thing and stump me for two weeks!  Got rid of the little thing and suddenly everything started to work. WHEW!  Got it wrapped up and into production yesterday afternoon.  YAY!  AND I learned a lot about a new to me programming language.

and all I can say now is BRING IT...

But wait until after the holidays, because too much time was used up on trying to solve this.  I worked hard yesterday to get a lot of loose strings tied up and caught up with.  Got my email inbox down to 21 from over 70.  I needed to either file things or just do them.  yuck.

Oh well, enOUGH work stuff!

Our college friend, Dave, made it here yesterday afternoon after his interview. If he gets the job here, I'm sure we'll see more of him.  After a quick doctor appt, he and Robb went on a drive and discovered that his great grandfather grew up near here and actually owned a general store in the next town back in the early 1900s!  Wow!  And a lot of his ancestors were buried in the cemetery there.  Not all at the same time.

So Robb googled the name of the general store and our town and the name popped up with the name of the owner and tons of information that Sluggy would be proud that we were able to dig up!  

Then last night, Robb, Dave and I hit HuHot for supper before our advent service.  Meri was sick but wanting solid food, so we dropped off her request of a Jimmy John sandwich at her place.  I stuck it in her fridge and ran.  Robb texted her it was there.  I hope she's feeling better by now!  Flu is not fun.

Ryan and Leon were still up when we got home so after tucking Leon into bed, we sat up and went through the college yearbooks, reminscing.  Remember this guy?  Yeah, he's DR XXX now and helping inner city youth.  Wow.  It's amazing how far some of our friends went.  A few actually live in the nearby bigger town but we never see them.  

After breakfast this morning, Robb and Dave went to see if they could find where the general store actually was.  

What it looks like these days.

Robb just sent me a note and said that the original address of 604 Main is missing but the addresses are now 602 and 606.  Robb said it's probably a Harry Potter kind of thing and you have to run at the wall in between.  No wonder it went broke!

So, back to work and getting things figured out for Christmas presents.    I hope it's a quiet day!

Banner Liars

Only because of the banners that I'd ordered for Meri's party...  Aren't these cool?  

Sorry I only have the pic so far with all the wrinkles...

We'll have them hanging around during the party in various places.  The one on the

right says, And The Adventure Begins.  

SOO cool and only $11 or so each at www.bestofsigns.com.

I'm going to take Flat Stanley to lunch with Leon and myself.  

He's helping me pack the boys lunch here.

AND Meri and I did a quick design on her little invites to give to 300 of her closest friends and she'll start handing them out today.  Super easy just uploading a labels document full of the image we made in Picasa.  Then Staples even cut them for me for free!  LOVE those guys!

The continents for Meri's dress got cut out and edged yesterday but that's just about all that got done so far on the sewing aspect.  

I purchased some thread to match the suit yesterday and will make the buttonhole today.  It's ALMOST done.

The dress still has more work to go, so that might be my break this afternoon or this evening.

The campus visit yesterday went REALLY well and almost convinced me to quit my job and go back to school.  Probably for the Culinary department.  Maybe I was just hungry...  Meri wants to own, run her own restaurant some day so she's doing the culinary program at a nearby community college and there is a business end of it too, so she'll get the whole gamut.  The students run a restaurant on campus and it's beautiful.  I might drive the 45 minutes just for lunch some days...  When there is a special person working, I mean...

Anyway, back to work.  I hope you're having a wonderful day!  And hang on!!!!  It's warming up!!!!  And no more snow in our neck of Iowa!!!  YAY!!!  60s and 70s by next week.  FINALLY!

Stupid groundhog.  He's such a liar.

 In his defense.

The Bachelorette Trip

Guess where I was on Saturday??  MINNESOTA!!!  I had spent Thursday and Friday nights sewing my little heart out and then spent the road trip there hand sewing so we'd have some sample dresses for Maddy to try on.

Robb didn't want me to go alone on Sunday due to a potential ice storm that we eventually got later than they predicted last night, but it's always great to have someone along anyway.  And on Saturday we got to stay a little longer. 

We rolled into town an hour earlier than we told her, but she was awake so all was good.  Headed to the store with her to purchase an old fashioned alarm clock with a backup battery and then took her out to lunch.

Plaza G!!!!  Robb took our picture and I thought it was just going to be sent to Matthew to make him jealous, but he posted it to 85% of the world on Facebook.  So I'm posting it to the rest of the world here.  It's not the most flattering photo of me...  dang.  But oh well.  That's us!  

Went back to the dorm and she tried on the sample dresses and newsflash, we're starting over with a different design.  This one should be more successful I think.  She's used this style before and loved it, so yay!  I couldn't find the original pattern and didn't want to try and adjust a larger size to hers, so I ordered a used one in her size from Amazon for cheap.  And since it was so cheap, I paid a little extra to have it expedited.  

For surprise sake and a genuine first look on the wedding day, I'm not going to be showing you any of the process except perhaps some tiny details that don't give her away.

That's Robb's job.

Saturday afternoon, we decided to take a road trip with Maddy to a town about thirty minutes away to some shopping.  We stopped at Sam's Club so Maddy could see the plate & silverware options and think we've found the one.  FYI Maddy, the square is MUCH more sturdy than the round...  

AND smaller!  The guests will eat a little less now! yay!

We had to get more envelopes for the invites at Hobby Lobby and while there, Maddy fell in love with some silk flower bunches.  So we took a pic and sent it to Meri for the maid of honor's approval.  She said BEAUTIFUL so we did it.  Then spent the next hour or so in the car and her dorm making the bridesmaid bouquets.  They're sitting on our dining room table now waiting for me to get them packed up safe.  

Meri is working on a college friend's bridal shower for her and I've just been invited to another one up north for February.  Meri is even planning the bachelorette party already!  

Things are heating up!!!

I spent the afternoon yesterday getting caught up on other sewing happenings.  Got the zipper into Meri's Sweetheart dress and she tried it on.  LOVED it.  We marked the hem and I'll get that out of my hair this evening.  Then probably tomorrow night working on the prom dress.  

I also redid the sizing on the tank top that I'm working on for the mother-of-the-bride dress.  Yikes.  I think did something wrong...  Will revisit that at a later date.  

I'm losing confidence in my sizing abilities...

As soon as those Meri's dresses are done, Maddy's new dress pattern should be here, and yay!!  I can dig back into plastic boning!  Haven't sewn with that in a while...  But looking forward to it.

Things are heating up!!!!

but not if you look outside. The ice storm finally hit...

Westminster and other best friends.

Feels like Christmas!  Or at least it's getting there.  I still have to put some lights up outside...

We only have the tree and Ye Ol' Leg Lamp up so far.

On Friday night, Robb and I attended his (my old) company party.  The very zany receptionist randomly called up 8-10 people for a game called, "Will I be employed on Monday?"  Robb was one of them.  It was basically a trivia game where if you grabbed the candy cane first, you got to answer the question.  They even mixed in a Pictionary All-Play.  Loads of fun!  And loads of shrimp and other food!  Yummo.  A photographer had been hired to take groups shots and candids.  Robb and I even got a photo with just us!  I hope it turns out nice...  

And yep!  His team won so he's still employed!

On Saturday morning, Robb took off to get Leon while I baked cookies and packed.  I also made Cheese Advent Calendars. 

And yes,  someone looked at these labels and asked just WHO is Westminster Cheddar?! and why are we mailing so many things to him?

The three of us headed to a Christmas party at my bestie, Ada's, nursing home.  A large group from our church showed up with tons of treats and started singing carols in the chapel.  Several residents joined in and pretty soon it was time for Robb and I to leave.  Darn!!!  We hadn't even gotten to the goodies yet!  And my voice box was getting sore from singing all those high notes.  I had to switch to Alto at times but when I realized I didn't know the Alto part very well, so I started fake singing...  

But then the three of us left there and headed north to see Maddy and Matthew.  Leon's Hot Wheels Advent calendar was a hit with him and he played cars or the Grossery gang on the way up if he wasn't sleeping.  

We got there just before supper and joined the kids in the campus caf for supper.  

Leon told them about his Hot Wheels Advent calendar and that THEY have CHEESE Advent Calendars! huh?? narc.  they're in the car...  It was a surprise and Leon went and told them.  Oh well.

These were a total hit too!

Then we played Tenzi's and pool until time for the Christmas concert.

In case you're wondering if the Grossery Gang is a good church toy, It's NOT!!!  

Even though we were in the WAY back of chapel, the seats all around us were completely full a few minutes after this pic.

Leon was zinging those little guys all over the place and asking pretty girls to hand them back.  

His toys kept scooting out in the path of people trying to get past.

And he did NOT listen...

I ended up taking him into the chapel lobby for almost the entire concert where we practiced obeying. 

He had found a dead lady bug under the pew. 

It distracted him and made him quiet for a few moments.

How to practice obeying.

Ok.  I want you to go to that couch, tap it three times and come right back here next to me.

After reminding him that he was supposed to come back to me, he finally mastered that task after about 6 tries.  Then we broke out Maddy's Tenzi game and played that until some other kids got banished to the lobby.  It was a long concert...  

Leon made a friend out of a 7 year old girl and he made a fool in front of her to get her attention. His dad used to do that too at that age. Apparently that act didn't work so well on the girl's mother...  The girl wasn't allowed to leave her side.  So Leon went to the girl and she taught him rock, paper, scissors.  He got a little crazy with the actions and I brought him back into the chapel for the last two songs.  

We got back to the hotel after 10pm.  Like I said, a long concert!  But beautiful!!!   We stayed up talking, watching Home Alone 2 and laughing until someone (me) noticed that it was almost midnight and the kid was still WIDE awake...  So Maddy walked Matthew out to the car and we all went to bed.

Short night...  Matthew met up with us just before church Sunday and once again, The Grossery Gang is NOT a church toy!  But had we figured it out by this time? no.  Also Leon discovered on the way home that he left the microwave piece at the church.  Whoops!  We texted Maddy to check into that.

We ate a brunch at the country club, feeling ritzy!!!  And apparently I missed the prime rib on the buffet...  How did I miss that??!  I guess because I was too interested in the shrimp next to it.  

I like shrimp too.

 

Leon had acted up all weekend...  I'm blaming too much sugar...

sigh...  

Apparently a spider problem in Maddy's dorm...

He's a hobbit.

AKA, another way to use up the miscellaneous items we sent in care packages...

But having us all see Maddy and Leon's soon to be uncle Matthew was so worth all the angst.

We got home in time to visit with Meri and Ryan a bit.  And I realized that we still have Thanksgiving food in both fridges.  I need to go shopping tonight and get new food...

Must Read Fine Print and other campus visits

Meri and her bestie left right after school on Friday and headed north to Maddy's dorm.  

They had a campus visit at a nearby college, not Maddy's, but planned to stay with her on her campus the entire weekend.

I wasn't able to go due to a sewing meeting that I had planned on attending so Maddy agreed to be their guardian for the tour on Saturday morning.  

She did a really good job and didn't lose a single kid!

 Afterwards, she and Matthew entertained the girls and took them to a lot of hot spots in the old college town.  

Starting with the old coffee shop!  You can't pass that up!

Then of course, the brewery...  For the grounds around it, honest!

LOOK a peacock!

And then for a little illicit behavior at the town graffiti wall!

Don't worry, it's legal.  It says so on the snapchat.

 My sewing meeting was great except it got cut short due to a family emergency.

And I have to remember to turn my ring tone down when I'm in those meetings!!!!  However I probably would have missed the call and that would have been a mistake.

Last week, I mentioned that I sew a lot more when fuming?  Well, let's just say I did a lot of sewing over the weekend.

Don't worry.  It's legal. 

 It says so on my machine.

Senior Year Blues

On Saturday, Robb, Meri, Leon and myself headed north with a truck carrying the futon and a van loaded down with several boxes and bags that Maddy had had packed and ready before her Colorado adventure.

It took FOREVER to get Meri and Leon out in the car and down the road.  In fact, even after we got in the van, it took 30 minutes to go 8 miles...  I kept an eye on the odometer after filling the tank.  REALLY??!!  We need batteries NOW?  And it took way too long to find a movie in stock at Redbox that Leon would actually watch.  Then he dropped his milk cup and juice cup down the side of his seat where neither Meri or I could grab it.  So I had to pull over for that.  

Then a ditch break later when Leon mistook a #2 indicator for a #1 indicator.  Didn't we just stop ten minutes ago and you used the restroom there?

Well, that stop was ok as we saw some wild turkeys in the ditch AND we were able to retrieve a Lego piece that he'd dropped earlier.

But we finally all showed up about the same time.  Robb had had to stop at a client's on the way up, so he'd left a lot earlier than us.

So Maddy has a new futon this year as the one she used for the first three years kind of bit the dust.  I bought this from a sewing buddie's garage sale a month or so ago.  It is SO much more comfortable!

I've gotten the measurements and plan to make a new cover for it sometime this fall.

Since Maddy is an R.A. and the only other person in the hall until her roommate (another R.A.) showed up 2, all the other dorm rooms were empty.  And Leon needed a nap.  He and Meri chose an empty room across the hall and napped on the bunk beds for a while.
Apparently we needed Leon refreshed the rest of the day activities.

We loaded the empty plastic tubs back into the van with bags of clothes that we'd accidentally brought along.  It was a miracle as we took more things home with us than we'd brought.

Well, she got moved in and most things put away.  The Christmas lights were up so our work here was done.  I managed to grab a pic with her and the guy before we headed off to dinner with his family at their home.

While Robb and I visited upstairs with Matthew's parents, we heard a CRRUUUUUSSSSH-SHHASSSSHH downstairs in their family room.  It's an interesting noise and one that I had actually heard many times before back in Iowa.  Matthew had dumped his three bins of Legos onto a huge heap and the girls, Matthew, Leon and his two sisters dug in.

Pure heaven... If you're under the age of 22 and don't have to worry about being the one to find the odd piece under your foot when you're walking through the room in the middle of the night.  His mom and I eventually couldn't resist and we joined them.

At the dinner table, Leon grabbed Matthew's usual spot and pretended to be Matthew for the duration of our visit. And Matthew had to pretend to be Leon. Kind of a Freaky Friday kind of thing...

We asked Leon Matthew how does Matthew behave? He grabbed Maddy's hand and started kissing it, and then proceeded to kiss up her arm. Matthew Leon claimed that he doesn't do that and acted embarrassed.

:)  Kids are pretty observant!

Leon was in rare form and ran around the living room almost crashing into a wall and informing us that it's no big deal because he has armor under his skin.  He got it from eating snow.  

???

Meri cooked up a plan to stay the night with Maddy and come home the next morning in her truck.  After a successful presentation, she and the girls all went to a movie, then she stayed the night on Maddy's new futon.

So when the rest of us were leaving after dinner for our long drive home, Leon Matthew acted like he was going back to his house with his new family.  Deb seemed concerned, "Um... what doesn't he like?!"  I told her vegetables.  So she said "Leon Matthew, we only have carrots, broccoli and peas in the house to eat!"

He was cheeky and said that he likes to try new things.

Liar!

So I had to go retrieve him and he sobbed saying that he wanted to live there and be Matthew.

Sigh.  Don't we all?...

I mean... LOOK at those Legos!!!

The sobbing only lasted until he was in his seat and I was getting a movie started for him.

About half way home, Leon finally went to sleep and woke up screaming with a bloody nose.  

Oh dear.  It was rather tricky to help him with kleenex and stay buckled up.

He howled, "How does this always happen???!!!"   I asked him calmly, "Did you pick your nose?"

"YES!!!!"  As if he was just following directions and this just happened anyway.

"That's why dear..."

So, just following directions and ending this post now.  It was a long but fun day.

And I'm going to miss Maddy.  Sunday was pretty emotional for me.  I hope we see her soon.

She's BAAACK!!!!!!

I took a vacation day on Friday!!!  Robb and I headed out early and got to the campus just before 11am.  Robb is better than a GPS because he guessed 10:39 EXACTLY and we were finding a parking spot at EXACTLY 10:39am...

A few hours and a lunch later, we were mostly done.

I got paged and struggled to get logged into my computer from Robb's laptop.  Maddy took us to a coffee shop and I had my nose buried in the laptop almost the entire time.  I got a couple photos of the very unique place just before we left.

Maddy headed off to the first end of the year concert and Robb and I checked into the hotel and then found some seats in the auditorium and chilled.

Matthew found us and we enjoyed the show.

I took videos during the 4pm showing and then stills of the 7pm show where we sat with Matthew and his parents.

As I'm sure I've said on numerous occasions...  I wish I could go back to college!
Particularly this one.

Photo recreation.

Here is one of her choirs songs.

jlj

Afterwards, Maddy and Matthew came back to the hotel with us where apparently the hotel thought we were suckers...  The room was the hole of the county.  Smoky with smoke colored cobwebs on the ceiling and dirty walls.  Oh well, you pick your battles and it was cheap.
Because it was graduation weekend, all the other rooms were booked.

We ordered some apps from Applebees and by midnight were enjoying some Wan Tan Tacos.  YUM.

Saturday, we took Maddy some breakfast and she did her R.A. checking out duties until the graduation ceremony where her choir was singing.

Matthew got to walk a lit candle in, then he came to sit with us.

Then we did some more R.A. duties while Robb took off for home in the loaded down van.  The kids and I got a final lunch at the caf, more R.A. dorm cleaning duties, then the afternoon Call Service.

About 40-50 kids received calls to their first teaching jobs all over the U.S., a few overseas, but the overseas ones weren't announced during this service.  Those types of calls require a huge heads up.

So these graduates found out just where they would be moving to in the fall for a 1, 2 or potentially permanent position somewhere in the U.S..  A lot of gasps and surprised behavior from a few that got a call from California or Washington.  I wasn't as emotional during this one as I was from last year's.  Next year will be emotional as Maddy will be putting in her name for a call...
Maybe her stints in Colorado have seasoned me.
Maybe not.

After that service, we said our goodbyes to Matthew and headed back to the dorm to do the final run down with the rest of the R.A.s after changing our clothes to some grunge-wear.

Maddy and I had the duty of sweeping out the bathrooms and then the laundry room.
She'll kill me for posting this... but...  I thought it was funny.

When we got down to the laundry room, there were several baskets of clean clothes on the counters.  Maddy was shocked.  We knew several girls were going on the band tour and they probably belonged to them, but Maddy said, "WHO would leave their clothes down here??"  She went over to one of the baskets and pulled out a shirt.  "I mean who is missing these clothes??!"

Suddenly she stopped because the clothes she was pulling out of this basket were hers.  She had thought they'd been stolen out of the laundry room back in January...  But they'd been sitting in here the whole time!  Whew!  I'm glad we got the laundry room sweeping job!!

Around 4:30, Maddy asked if we could take off and off we went.  Exhausted but relieved that it was finally SUMMER for her!

Got home at a decent hour but every one went to bed shortly after anyway.

And while we were gone, another car bit the dust.  Or rocks in this case.  But that's a story for when we have lots of alcoholic drinks and are living in a nursing home in order to chuckle about it.

What did YOU do this weekend?