Weekending with Dad and Mom

The last time Mom and Dad were here, it was a "work trip" by which I mean, they helped us move all our stuff in, explored with us, went on multiple expeditions to set up internet and 

find shelf paper and then came back and hung pictures on the walls. It was fun, but we were on a mission. 

This time they came for no real reason. Just to see us and to comfort themselves with the fact that the piles of boxes that were once crowding everything out were now stashed in more clever spots, like under the bed. It was a short trip - they arrived Friday afternoon and left right after church on Sunday - but that's the beauty of living so much closer now! It really is so great to know that we aren't hours upon hours upon hours away anymore.

When they arrived on Friday, Carson was still in class on campus for a couple of hours, so we did what anyone would do: we went to Target. The closest Target to Mom and Dad is approximately 45 minutes away, plus I'll take any excuse I can to go to that lovely store, so it was a worthy venture. We headed toward downtown after that, since it was sort of close-ish to the time we were going to pick Carson up. We went to the Sweet Shop, which we'd walked past when they were here the last time, for Dad to get a frappe and for me to get a tea latte. We were going to walk around on the campus, but we had a shoe malfunction and just sat tight until Carson meandered over from class. 

I can't remember if we did anything in particular right then, but we definitely ate at a steakhouse that night. We returned home after a fun-filled trip to Big Lots (there actually isn't much sarcasm there, only a little hesitation in admitting that we consider that a fun Friday night adventure). 

On Saturday, we had a lazy morning. I slept in the latest, which was so great. Mom thinned out my hair; it was just way too thick and heavy and it feels much better now. We had breakfast and got a slow start before we left the house.

Oh gross, what is that? Not a small dead animal... that's my hair. If you scroll down, you'll notice that you can't even tell that this much is missing. 

 We went to the Flea Market. We'd passed it before on the way to the beach but hadn't been there because it's out of the way for us on a normal day. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it was huge, and there were lots of tables where people were selling random junk... like lots of really bad yard sales. There were treasures too, but we couldn't fit any of the furniture we found in our Civic, so we left it there and moved on without making any purchases. 

We went to walk around Lake Ella, because it's central, pretty, and Carson and I have walked over there several times before. On this particular day (the coldest day we've been near the lake), we stopped in one of the little stores for snowballs, which are like sno-cones, but very finely shaved, and have ice cream in the middle. I got a small mango flavored one, which ended up not really tasting like mango and was way too big for someone who was about to eat lunch. We will be back though. Carson's already mentioned it a few times.

I made us take a group picture, and then while trying to not get everyone's feet in the picture, moved the camera on accident and chopped off Dad and Carson's heads (I cropped the feet out for Mom's sake). On the second attempt, I didn't focus the camera correctly. So... still a group picture. 

    

 We went to Midtown Pies for lunch. It was between that and a bunch of other pizza places nearby, but we found it first. Carson loved this video game (looking - or is it from a real video game? I don't know) illustration on the wall. We all really enjoyed it and now Carson and I are excited to try out other local places to compare.

 

After lunch, we returned to the homestead for Dad and Carson to suit up for the game. Mom and I dropped them off and headed to Jo-Ann Fabrics for supplies for our project that night. Since there was no one to remind us to hurry it along, we stopped by DSW and World Market. We grabbed Jimmy John's for dinner (because I am a great hostess and plan nothing) and then got to work. 

I learned how to put in an invisible zipper, which was way less intimidating than anticipated. I have used my sewing machine on many occasions, but never for anything involving much skill, so it scared me. My machine kept acting up and eventually it was determined that it needed to be cleaned (I didn't know you needed to do that/how to do it) and that I need a new bobbin case, so we relied on Mom's machine for the rest of the night. We picked the guys up after the third quarter and then headed back to finish our projects, while they packed up and went to bed early. (Carson fell asleep on the living room floor immediately, and when I went to bed I left him out there because he's too big for me to move and he gets really disoriented when I wake him up :))

We went to church the next morning and then they had to get on the road right away. I made Carson take a picture of Dad and I after church because you have to take pictures or you can't say it happened :)