Weekend Basics

Ello and Good Morning! I've been joking all weekend that we now live in London — the weather's been overcast and spitting a steady rain for what seems like days straight now. Weather aside, we had a busy weekend as usual!

Friday night my parents came over for a family dinner while Stephanie and Brandon were in town for the night. With all the busy schedules and both kids being at school, these visits are more spaced out now, so we try to get everyone together when the timing strikes right. It was great getting everyone around one table and having that feeling of the house being full. We loved hearing the different stories and updates from their time at school this year and I have to admit it feels good when they tell me they're missing a good home-cooked meal. That's one department I'm confident in delivering, and paired with mom (that's Nana to the kids), we make a mean home-cooked dinner/dessert cooking duo.

Also! The shaved beard has made it a full week. It's here to stay for now, and we'll see how it pans out from here.

Early Saturday, Dad and I headed North up 81 to watch the JMU Dukes take on the Richmond Spiders in football. It's the only year we're able to attend games where Stephanie and Brandon are both at JMU, so we were excited to make the trip.  Maybe all schools have traditions like these, but I always look forward to seeing the bright purple streamers shoot from the student section at JMU whenever the DUKES score their first touchdown:

My proudest moment from the day though, was my photo-bombing stealth move. Can you find Waldo — I mean me, here:

I admit this might have been one of those "embarrassing dad" moments, so I was relieved when the kids began laughing hard when flipping through the different shots. As a dad, the embarrassing/funny can be a super fine line. I'm lucky to have stayed on the right side of it more times than not.

We'd also signed up to look after Sophia, our youngest niece, this weekend. So Mary hung out with this little wiggly one for the better part of Saturday before I got back from the football game:

Oh yeah, and this big guy says hello:

This photo was taken on our walk this morning. I snapped it right before he bolted after 4-5 deer and left me standing for 8-10 minutes until he came back all out of breath. No, he did not catch the deer!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend, whether it was rain or shine.

P.S. In fun-to-us news, it didn't take us long to finally catch up on all of Season 2 of Homeland. They sure know how to make you think you've figured it all out then toss in a big twist to make you question everything! We don't subscribe to Showtime so aren't caught up with the current season, but can't wait to see how everything pans out.