home again.

So we made it home after a hectic weekend. The whole lawn mowing experience didn't go so well. The battery was dead so I had to push mow the lawn. No biggie because I need the exercise anyway. I called my brother-in-law and borrowed his battery charger. No luck with keeping a charge as the battery is apparently bad. So I managed to get the lawn mower backed out using the battery charger, changed the oil, put it in the garage because it has a low tire too. So next weekend, I get to put in a new battery. Thanks to my father-in-law, I have an air compressor that I can pump the tire up with.

We did go to the the birthday party on Saturday and probably another one next Saturday! Nathan's (Emily's other son) is having one sometime next weekend. Birthday party and mowing next weekend. Ever have deja vu? (yes it's missing the diacritical marks above the "e" and the "a" but blogger is finicky about fonts and I don't want to take the time to get it right)

Patrick had his first soccer game on Saturday. I missed it but Miranda has some pictures that she will be uploading soon. He had a lot of fun. He has another one tomorrow night. It's supposed to be in the 30's though so it will be cold. He is really starting to get into soccer and he watched some of the Leixoes/Sporting game (Portuguese league - note the missing diacritical marks again) with me. He doesn't have a long attention span though for stuff like that.

Nellie has been watching a lot of the Barkyardigans, particularly one episode about pirates. She was looking at the instructions for Lincoln Logs and said "Treasure Map!". We get such a kick out of her. She has her own personality and is going to be quite a bit different than Patrick. She is such a drama queen though.

Weigh-in is tomorrow. Friday night was not a good night. I went to Iggy's Diner in Carthage and had the foot long cheese coney with onion rings. I was so full that I didn't eat anything on Saturday except a piece of cake at the birthday party. That's probably not real healthy. I sat at the bar (at Iggy's Diner and not an actual bar) and chatted with a guy that came in. He was 80+ years old and had been playing golf since he was 14. Needless to say he talked about golf. I can hold a conversation with anyone about most anything so I handled myself fairly well considering I don't know anything about golf. I did pick up some tips though (assuming I ever go golfing). There's nothing like getting that "home town" feel than sitting at the bar of a diner. Everyone chatting it up with everyone else.

We found out at the party that Bill, Valerie, and Lance Filsinger were off to Grenada so that was big news! Bill had went awhile back (a year or so ago?) but had to come back early when his grandfather died. Bill and I were great friends growing up but alas, time passes, marriages, children, jobs move you in different directions, etc... We are still friends but don't see much of each other. One of my favorite stories is when we went to Branson to see Ray Stevens. We were waiting in line when an older lady came up and asked us how many were in our party. They had two people that weren't there and wanted to know if we wanted to get in free if we didn't mind sitting with a retirement community. Tickets were $25 or so, we were single (and poor) so we didn't mind at all! We had a great time that night. Lots of great memories (except the driving ones. If you know Bill at all you know what I'm talking about!!!). He's a great and funny guy.

I hope you all had a great weekend yourselves.

nc