In Good Company

This weekend we welcomed our good friends Mat and Angie to our home. They were able to come up early Friday afternoon and stay until Monday morning. We had a great time and we hope that despite a somewhat fussy weekend for Topher, they enjoyed themselves as well.

Friday night after a quick tour of the work we've done downstairs, we sat and chatted and had a delicious chicken casserole for dinner. One thing about working and getting older is we've all found we get tired quite early on in the evening. Where we used to be able to stay up until the wee-hours of the morning just sitting and chatting, we now find ourselves heading off to our respective bedrooms before 10pm... oh well, at least we aren't the only ones.

We woke up Saturday morning, ate breakfast and decided to all drive down to Jordan Creek Mall in West Des Moines. Mat and Angie were able to get a little shopping done, and Topher enjoyed the chance to get out of the house. We ate lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, which Topher enjoyed at first, but after working himself into such a tizzy with his napkin, had to sleep out the rest of lunch.

We then drove back home, and Topher put forth his best attempt to keep Mat and Angie from having children for at least another 5 years by crying all the way home, inconsolably. It was a great ride... everybody was giving ideas on what was making him cry and how to make him stop. Turns out all he needed was to not be in the car anymore, a pretty easy fix unless of course, we needed to get somewhere (which could pose an interesting problem for this coming weekend).

After quickly changing some clothes and unpacking some of our mall stuff, we headed out to Mom and Dad's to celebrate Mom's birthday. Lindsey and Jo had come over from Iowa City early Saturday morning. We gave Mom her birthday present, a concolor fir tree, and enjoyed some cake and pie that Lindsey had made earlier in the day. We also all enjoyed playing Guitar Hero: World Tour on Mat's Wii. It was pretty hilarious for all of us since for most of us, it was our first time playing. Mom and Jo both did well singing, and Mat had a very interesting rendition of 'Beat It'. I've always been sceptical of the Guitar Hero games, but I can now see why they are so addictive. Drums were definitely a challenge, apparently I haven't gained any rhythm since I was denied the opportunity to play drums in 5th grade band.

Sunday we watched some more NCAA basketball, but our heart wasn't in it since Mizzou finally had lost on Saturday in the elite 8. Thirty-one wins though, a pretty incredible season and hopefully a sign of better things to come for Missouri Basketball. Go Tigers! Last night we finally said our goodbyes to Mat and Angie since I was going to work very early this morning.

A very fun, and also very busy weekend.... hopefully the three of us can recharge this week before heading to the Lake of the Ozarks to see more friends next weekend. Wish us luck!

-T.J.