Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Duuuukes and Duke

Today is supposed to be Top Ten Tuesday but since I missed updating yesterday I'm going to put that off for now. Instead I'll just give an update on the last week.

On Friday morning we packed up our cars and headed south to JMU. (More on why we took two cars later.) We got to Harrisonburg in the late afternoon and checked into our hotel. Since our friends weren't getting there for a while still Eddie and Henry decided to take a dip in the hotel pool. While they did that I put on my running gear and headed out for a four mile run. Our hotel was close enough to campus that I was able to run through campus. Running on campus is a lot of fun, despite the hills. I got honked at twice! It was either a compliment or, more likely, just students being funny. I did enjoy that my run took me by the stadium where the marching band was rehearsing!

After we all got cleaned up from our activities we met up with our friends as they got into town. Rather than subjecting our little ones to a late dinner out we got Sheetz sandwiches to go and ate them in our rooms. (Sheetz is a gas station chain that has DELICIOUS made to order sandwiches.) We headed to bed relatively early (since we're old now) and rested up for Game Day.

We had breakfast at the hotel and then headed out to tailgate for the game. Our usual parking lot was full so we ended up on the roof of the parking garage across the street from the Quad. We were the only ones up there for a long time, which was fun. Henry and Owen (our friends' 18 month old son) were able to run around without us worrying too much about them. Once everyone was at the tailgate there were 10 adults and 4 boys (18 months, 14 months, 6 months and 2 months). Boy, how things have changed!

The game itself wasn't all that exciting....though I wasn't paying attention much to it....oops! JMU did win but more interesting than that was catching up with friends and watching the marching band. After the game the active and alumni brothers of Kappa Kappa Psi gathered to sing the Fraternity Hymn. There were 90 of us in our circle this year, which was awesome. For anyone questioning those who choose to become involved in Greek Life in college need only look around our circle last week to see the magic of brotherhood. The group of 90, people of all ages and backgrounds, have a common bond that runs deep and is truly meaningful.

After the game we headed out to El Charro for dinner. Delicious as usual! We went back to the hotel. We hung out in one hotel room and just enjoyed being together again. We also tried a persimmon for the first time, which was a bizarre experience. Our friend bought it on a whim at Wal-Mart in the produce section. We looked it up online and saw a reference to certain varieties when unripe taste "fuzzy". We weren't sure what that meant until we took a bite of the fruit. As soon as the fruit touched your mouth it felt like all moisture had been sucked out of your mouth and it was replaced with a coating of fuzz or fur. Very hard to describe but it gave us much amusement!

On Sunday morning everyone went their separate ways back home. Eddie, Henry and I met up with another friend for breakfast and then got ready to head out. Because we were already only four hours from my parents' house we had decided that Henry and I would continue the trip south and stay until after Thanksgiving. We figured it made more sense than driving the six hours back to New Jersey only to head back down seven/eight hours to North Carolina. The trip was pretty easy and we did it without stopping.

So far our visit at my parents' house has been good. Henry's enjoying getting to run around a new house and explore new things. I completed my first 9-mile run yesterday, which was a big accomplishment for me. Suddenly 13.1 miles doesn't seem quite as daunting. Don't get me wrong, I still have quite a bit in front of me and know it won't be easy but it's certainly less intimidating than when I was struggling to do 3.1 miles and had 10 more to add.

Tonight I got to hang out with Katie to watch the Duke basketball game. It was great to just relax, eat wings and watch Coach K break the record for most wins. He's such a class act and it made me very happy to see him reach this milestone.

That's about all for now. Have a good night/day, reader!

No comments:

Post a Comment