Such a lovely week!

Last week was a really good one!  Sarah's professors cancelled Tuesday classes so she came home late Monday afternoon.  It was so good to have my baby home. Peter had classes on Tuesday and had social events to attend Tuesday evening so he came home on Wednesday morning.  It was so good to have my baby home.

I had a hair appointment on Wednesday morning, and the kids both had appointments on Wednesday afternoon.  Dan went into the office on Monday and Tuesday but worked from home on Wednesday. It was so nice to have a house full of noise and activity again even if it was just for a week! We even had a chance to sit around the fire pit together on Wednesday evening.  There's nothing better than a fire, some good songs, and my family all together.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving day.  The Wallers joined us again and we feasted on  jalapeno dip, turkey, ham, sweet potato casserole, hash brown casserole, broccoli casserole, slaw, deviled eggs, homemade cranberry sauce, carrot cake, cream horns, chess pie, and eclairs.  It was all so delicious but having everyone home (even all of Jennifer's kids were able to come home!) and together on Thanksgiving was the best part.

 

On Friday morning, we headed to the mountains to get our Christmas tree.  We tried a new place and were very happy with it.  They had a great selection in the size we wanted. We picked it out, flagged down a guy with a chain saw, he cut it, took it down the mountain for us, bailed it, and we strapped it to the top of the car and off we went!  No fuss, no muss!  Just the way I like it.

Sarah had plans with her boyfriend Friday night and Peter was watching the NC State football game so we decorated the tree Saturday. Dan had put the lights on Friday night (that's his job) and then I started working on it Saturday morning while the kids were still in bed.  Sarah got up and added her favorite ornaments and then much later in the day (after more football watching) Peter added his.  I like it when we all decorate the tree together but as the family ages, the traditions shift and change and you have to be prepared to shift and change with them.

On Saturday evening, we all went to Mass together and came home and had dinner.  Then Sarah left to hang out with the Basement.  Dan, Peter, and I watched more football and then we watched School of Rock. 

On Sunday, we had lunch at mom's and then headed to Old Salem with my brother to get some family pictures for the Christmas card.  It was windy and Peter's allergies were acting up and he was sneezing like crazy but I think we got some good shots. We had fun anyway!

And then the kids left and it was just me and Dan and the cats.  I told Dan I had finally adjusted to it being just the two of us and then the kids come home for a week and now I'm missing them all over again.  But don't despair! In just a few weeks, they will be home for several weeks and the cycling of adjusting to them being gone, and enjoying them being home, and missing them when they are gone, will happen all over again.  But, I guess that's life. I'm just going to keep going with the flow!

I'm still here!

Yes, I'm still alive! It's been a MONTH since my last post but I've been busy!

I worked as an election official again and that has kept me occupied.  If you will recall, I worked the polls in 2020, again during the primaries this past spring, and since I still haven't landed a job, I worked the midterms.  

The gig lasted from October 20th to November 8th.  The days were long.  The polls opened at 8:00 and closed at 7:30 and since we have to open and close, that's a 12 hour day.  And for the most part, we all worked the full day.  But I did take two days off so don't feel too bad for me.  :)  

Our polling site voted 5600 people in that two and a half week period and another 750 on election day.  (This wasn't nearly as many as 2020 but it kept us on our toes and we had less workers than we did in 2020 so we were all tired at the end of each day.)

On one of my days off, Dan and I headed to Charlotte for Parent's Weekend.  We met up with Sarah and two of her new friends and one of their fathers for some tailgating before the football game! 

After the football game, we took a nice long walk around campus.  I know it's been 30 years since I graduated from UNC Charlotte but I still can not get over how much it has changed! 

After walking around campus, we headed downtown for Mass at St. Peter's and then dinner at Haberdish.  What a great restaurant this was!  We split this appetizer:

It was the PB&J Bacon plate which consisted of thick cut bacon, maple peanut butter, pepper jelly, and cabbage jalapeno slaw in a banana vinaigrette.  I know it sounds odd but we all thoroughly enjoyed it!

Everything we got was delicious and we would definitely go back! (Dan said it's the best fried chicken he's ever had at a restaurant - and he gets friend chicken A LOT!)

Dan is trying to use up extra vacation days so he took last Monday off and we headed back to Asheville. (Yes, we just went there with the kids in September but Asheville is a really cute town and it is a lovely drive so we headed back.)

We tried to visit the Basilica of St. Lawrence but we just missed the tour hours.  Guess that means we need to head back to Asheville again! 

After lunch and a walk through town, we headed over to Mt. Mitchell.  Mt. Mitchell is the tallest peak east of the Mississippi River.  We took the Blue Ridge Parkway and enjoyed the views. The leaves had already peaked but enjoyed the scenery regardless.  

Look!  On our way up to Mt. Mitchell, we spotted these three bears on the side of the road.  They were literally feet from us. Everyone was slowing down to make sure no one hit them!  And on our way back down the mountain, we spotted another bear!  

This past Thursday, Sarah headed to Raleigh with three of her new friends.  It was one of the girl's birthday and her father's company has box seats at the Carolina Hurricanes games and all the girls got to go! Sarah was so exited.  The Hurricanes won and the box they sat in was really cool.

 

One of the girls lives in Raleigh so they all went back to her house to spend the  night.  The next day they hung out with her family and then Friday night, Sarah took her new friends to meet Joe, her boyfriend, who goes to NC State.  She had a great weekend and I'm so happy she is enjoying life right now!

Peter had a great weekend too. On Friday night he and one of his roommates cooked dinner - pork chops with rice and beans. The gravy is a mixture of Italian dressing and soy sauce. He said it was delicious! I love it when he texts me pictures of things he's cooked.

On Saturday, he went to the NC State football game.  It's the last home game of the season. Sadly they lost, but he still had a great time.  He and his friends had really good seats.  They made the Jumbotron multiple times and he got to see Tuffy (the mascot dog up close).  

 

This is Tuffy with his trainer:

And then Sunday was Peter's 20th birthday!   He was texting me Saturday night after the game that he only had an hour and half left of being a teenager. And that's when it hit me that not only am I old, but he's also old - an actual full grown adult.  I have a hard time wrapping my mind around that still. 

But he'll always be my baby!  :)

Dan left for Ireland on Saturday afternoon but on Sunday I headed to Raleigh with my mom and my brother to celebrate Peter's birthday.  We had lunch at an Italian restaurant downtown called Gravy.  It was really good! We started with the Risotto Balls appetizer:

And I had a salmon salad with candied hazelnuts. It was so good!

After lunch we went back to his apartment to unwrap gifts.

One of the things I got Peter was an ugly Christmas sweater.  He was super excited and tried it on immediately!

Mom took Peter a bunch of cupcakes that he shared with all of his roommates and then the pledges came over and made dinner.  They had kebabs, cheesy potatoes, jalapeno poppers and brownies.  I think Peter had a pretty nice birthday!

And that's pretty much what we've been up to the last month.

Fall Break 2022

Peter and Sarah were both on fall break Monday and Tuesday!  But did they rush home to be with their mother?

Um, that would be a big NO! But that's okay.  I always tell them that whenever they want to come home, they are welcome and they can stay for as long or as short as they want.  I am happy to get them whenever I can.

So Friday Sarah stayed at school to attend the Taylor Swift and Harry Styles Dance Party at a club in Charlotte and had a blast.  She sent me this cool picture of Charlotte all lit up pink for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

 

 

Peter stayed in Raleigh and went with his fraternity (and another NC State frat and sorority) to UNC Chapel Hill to attend a mixer with some of the greeks from there.  He said he had a really good time. And then he stayed on Saturday to attend the NC State/FSU football game.  

 

Sarah came home on Saturday and immediately went to Kernersville to meet a friend for lunch.  She made it home in time to join us for Mass.

Peter came home on Sunday in time for lunch at Mom's and then we went to Walgreens for our flu shots. (Hmmmm...and I wonder why the kids don't want to spend all their time with me.)

Dan and Peter and I spent the rest of Sunday watching football while Sarah met the Basement in Kernersville.  They golfed 9 holes and had dinner together.  (And for the record, I think Sarah mostly drove the golf cart but she said she did hit some balls.)

Dan decided to take Monday off since the kids were home.  We drove to Asheville and had lunch at Pack's Tavern. It was really good.  

Then we walked around downtown Asheville before heading to Chimney Rock. 

The views were gorgeous and we had a really nice afternoon here and then headed home.  After dinner, Sarah hung out with Cheyanne and Dan, Peter, and I watched more football.

On Tuesday, Peter had lunch with Colton and got his hair cut and Sarah hung out with one of her friends all afternoon.  Then they both headed back to their respective schools and Dan and I went to the park to walk two miles. And just like that, fall break was over.

And yes, I'm already looking forward to Thanksgiving break when I will get to see both of them again!

UNC Charlotte Parents Weekend...sort of...

 This past weekend was supposed to be Parents Weekend at UNC Charlotte. But on Wednesday they postponed it until November due to Hurricane Ian.  While Charlotte was only supposed to get heavy rain and high winds the school felt it better to postpone due to all the uncertainty. The football game, was still going to be played but all of the other weekend events would be postponed.

We were only planning on attending the football game but since we (well, me and Sarah) didn't really want to sit out in the rain watching a football game, we decided to just transfer our tickets to the November game. But, because our hotel reservation was non-refundable, we decided to go to Charlotte and spend some time with her on Saturday and Sunday anyway.

Since we weren't bound by any kind of schedule, we got to Charlotte around 2:00 and Sarah met us at our hotel which was just a few minutes from campus.  We loaded ourselves and a small vacuum into her car and went to her dorm.  Sarah had asked me to bring the small vacuum down.  She has a broom but sometimes you just need to run the vacuum. :)

We then headed to the light rail station on campus and hoped the train the uptown Charlotte.  

The light rail in Charlotte didn't open until 2007 (which was the year after we left Charlotte) and this was our first time on it. It's so convenient that Sarah can just hope on it (for free) from campus and go uptown. 

We walked around uptown for a good hour and a half before Mass at St. Peter Catholic Church. Just before our visit to Charlotte, I was talking to Dan about the memorial brick a friend of mine had placed for Rebecca in a park near her home uptown.  Dan had never seen it and I've only seen it once, right after it was placed.  Since we had lots of time to walk around downtown, we decided to find the park.  We found it and we found the stone!  Dan was so glad we were able to find it because he really wanted to see it.

St. Peter Catholic Church was founded in 1851 and is the oldest Catholic church in Charlotte.  Also, as I was reading the history of the church I learned that St. Katharine Drexel was an early benefactor of  St. Peter and donated pews.  She founded Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for Black and Native American peoples. Her gift of pews to the parish was contingent on a promise that they would be reserved for the “colored” people, in fulfillment of her order’s mission. 

Fun fact: the morning after our wedding, Dan and I, and his whole family attended mass at St. Peter's but we had not been back since. (We were married at St. Patrick's but St. Peter's was within walking distance of our hotel.)

After Mass, we headed to Tupelo Honey for dinner.  It was soooooo good.  I got the Roast Beef Debris.  It was roast beef served over goat cheese heirloom grits with braised green beans, green tomato salsa, fried onions and fresh cilantro and it was delicious!  

After dinner we hoped on the light rail and headed back to our hotel.  There was a stop right near where we stayed so it was super convenient. We watched the NC State football game and sadly they lost to Clemson.  We were pulling for the Wolfpack but they fell short.

Peter and his friends had fun as well.  They set up a projector under a tent  outside so they could all watch together and they had a bonfire too!

We slept in on Sunday morning which was so nice!  Check out at our hotel wasn't until Noon so that was a plus.

Sarah has tickets to a Harry Styles and Taylor Swift Dance Party on Friday night at a club in Charlotte. She's very excited about it but I'm not sure exactly what it is.  It sounds like they will be playing only Harry Styles and Taylor Swift music and there will be photo booths, a costume contest, lip syncing, etc.  She's very excited but she wasn't exactly sure where it was. So we drove to the venue and there is a light rail stop steps away. So now she knows where she's going and which station to get off the train at.  She's going with one of her new friends. I'm hoping she sends me a picture of two of the fun.

We then had lunch at Zapata's.  Zapata's is an old favorite restaurant of ours. We hadn't been in years so we were excited to take Sarah there.  After lunch we dropped Sarah back off at her dorm and said our goodbyes.

Dan and I then found the place we used to work (it has since been sold and ultimately closed) and we checked out one of his old apartments and one of mine. It was a nice little walk down memory lane.  The 90's feel like just yesterday to me but they were so long ago. While our old apartments looked basically the same from the outside, the building where we used to work looked so run down and old.It has not been well taken care of.

Part of me wishes we hadn't seen it because now that's in my memory as well as the way it looked back in it's glory days.  Charlotte has grown so much in the past 30 years and as we were driving around our old stomping grounds, we couldn't help but notice how much everything  has changed.  It was looking going on a scavenger hunt trying to find buildings that I vividly remember because now they are surrounded by so many other new (new to me) buildings and were almost unrecognizable. 

It was a nice 24 hours with our girl.  She seems to be doing just fine. Her classes are going well, she's making friends, and she seems quite happy. (Plus, have I mentioned that the Target near her has an Ulta and a Starbucks inside? She might be spending a little too much time and money in there.)   So even though it wasn't quite the Parents Weekend we thought we were going to get, it was a really good one!  (And now, bonus - we get to go back next month for a football game!)