What a Weekend!!

We had a very busy weekend! I had to work Thursday but thankfully was able to leave early to get home and start baking the cookies for the shower! It's always nerve-wracking to decide to use cookies as a party favor, just praying they turn out ok.





Thursday night Howard picked Amber up at the airport and we all met at Mr. B's for dinner. It was a late evening so from there we just headed back home and off to bed as this would be the beginning of a very busy weekend.

Friday morning Amber and I did a bit of shopping, picking up last minute things for the shower on Saturday. Saturday afternoon we celebrated Scott's birthday with a nice dinner. I was hoping that the corn from my garden would be ready but it was not to be. Instead we bought corn at the grocery store and had steaks and a caprisi salad. We did get the tomatoes from the garden though. After dinner we all enjoyed this delicious ice cream cake that Amber made for Scott. It was so rich, ice cream topped with Snickers bars and a chocolate graham cracker crust! Yum!!


Saturday morning Tyler was busy gathering his stuff and getting packed up for his mid-day flight. I'm sure he was more than ready to return to the beautiful island of Oahu and his friends there. School starts for him tomorrow, his last semester before graduation! WoooHoooo!! We will miss him but hopefully he will be able to come back home again at Christmas time.


After Tyler left the rest of us got into serious shower prep mode and were busy cleaning and preparing the food for the shower. We mostly kept it low key but there is always that stress factor before the guests arrive. Did I remember to fix everything, is everything clean enough. You always notice those little things that have been left undone 15 minutes before the guests arrive. Thanks to Amber's best friend Nicole, I had much less stress than normal. Nic cooked most of the food and helped with the decorations. Everything looked wonderful and the food was great!




Sunday morning we got up early so we could make the 2-1/2 hour drive to the West side of the state to visit the Porter's. Andy had flown there Saturday to visit his family and we joined them for a lovely lunch of ribs, corn on the cob, potato salad and other goodies. Andy's sister and her family were visiting from Wisconsin so we had quite a group. Later in the afternoon Andy took us on a tour of his little town and we headed to the beach.






Finally it was time to head home and we were all pretty tired by the time we got home last night around 10:00. Well, except for Scott. He had decided that since he was going to be 21 at midnight he would gather his closest friends and celebrate by having his first legal drink. God, I don't have enough gray hair! Not being a drinker myself, I could never understand this stupid tradition. I would worry anyway but with his diabetes I think drinking is a risk he shouldn't be taking. All I can do is express my disapproval and pray that he won't do anything stupid.

Amber's flight was at 9:00 this morning and since it's almost an hour's drive we had to get up pretty early. She took what she could pack of the shower gifts and the rest will have to be brought to her on our next trip to Virginia. She got lots of nice things for the baby.

This afternoon I took the pups for a nice long walk all over the high school property. I didn't want them playing frisbee as Charlie injured his foot chasing a toy the other morning. He tore a toe and was limping. Today he ran and ran and it didn't seem to bother him at all. They really do need to get out every day. They enjoy it so much but I'm having a harder time finding a good place to go where there aren't too many people and no other dogs. I only saw one person there today but she did have two dogs, luckily on leashes, and I called Zoe and Charlie to me before they had a chance to see them, hooked up their leashes and walked to another spot where I could let them off to run again.


To finish off the weekend we took Scott out for dinner at a really nice Mexican restaurant called Sagebrush Cantina. Howard and I had tried going there this summer for lunch for there was over an hour wait and we didn't want to stay. At school last week I had heard that you could call this place ahead of time and have a spot saved so that's what we did. We called at 5:15 for a 6:15 reservation and when we got there at 6:10 we only had to wait 10 minutes. I love Mexican food and this was the best I have had in Michigan. It's not easy to find. Everything was fresh and good quality.

So, the long weekend is finally over and school starts tomorrow. It's after 9:00 and I still have things to do to get ready for tomorrow. Thankfully the kids will only be there for a half day so we can ease into things! Summer is really over. As always, it's gone too quickly.