Well I am almost despondent that Spring Break is over. The whole week went by way too fast and I don’t even have a new episode of Downton Abbey to be my spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. So I’ve just had to appease myself by making up fictional scenarios in my head about Duchess Kate’s visit to Downton Abbey last week.
For instance, I like to believe she’s telling Miss Hughes that it’s about time Carson proposed and it seems a shame they didn’t seal it with a kiss as opposed to just a pat on the arm.
And here she and Lady Mary are laughing about how relieved they are that Lord Gillingham is going to marry Mabel Lane Fox and Kate is encouraging her to make sure she sees Henry Talbot again because he’s totally dreamy even if he’s not the future King of England. Not all of us get to be royalty, Mary, but we can find a handsome stranger who crashed a bird hunt and drives a sporty roadster.
Anyway, we had a great rest of Spring Break. After spending time in Houston with Mimi and Bops, we drove to Bryan/College Station to meet Gulley and her boys at Honey and Big’s house and watch some Aggie baseball games. We were able to watch the Aggies come back from 3-0 to win 4-3 in eleven innings and improve to 18-0 on the season.
Gulley and I almost decided to make the kids leave early because we needed to be home by 7:30 and wanted to have time to go eat dinner, but then the Ags tied the game up in the bottom of the 8th and the kids informed us in no uncertain terms that they weren’t going anywhere. Plus, I don’t think Big wanted to leave either as evidenced by the way he immediately sat down front with the kids and they sawed Varsity’s horns off for the next three innings when they played the Aggie War Hymn.
Then, later that night, Tiff came over to hang out with us and we loved every minute of getting to catch up with her and just spend time laughing and talking. One of the things I loved about writing Nobody’s Cuter Than You was that it made me really think back on how important different friendships have been in my life and what they taught me along the way and so I almost have a new, fresh appreciation for the twenty-five years of friendship represented in this picture. We’ve loved and encouraged and prayed for each other for well over half of our lives now.
The kids tried their hardest to talk us into staying one more day, but Gulley and I both wanted to get home and have some time to catch up on things around the house and just relax before the break was over. So we headed home late Thursday afternoon much to their dismay and laments about how Spring Break should be at least two weeks long because school is just trying to ruin kids’ lives.
Of course it is. All that book-learning is just ridiculous and unnecessary.
We spent Friday just hanging out and then P, Caroline and I went to dinner at her favorite hibachi grill place that night and then came home and watched a movie and had a great time being together. Then she had a soccer tournament that required us to be up at an hour that I can’t even process, especially when you factor in that 6:00 a.m. now officially feels like the middle of the dadgum night thanks to the time change.
But it was a fun tournament and P and another dad brought their grills and cooked quail and sausage and kabobs in between games which, honestly, is a tournament strategy I can get behind.
We even brought Mabel with us in her kennel because she has cut her foot open and we need to keep her still for the most part which is about as manageable as wrestling a hyena. However, she thoroughly enjoyed the whole soccer tournament experience and, not surprisingly, wrote a haiku about it.
Blueberry muffin
dropped by unobservant kid
Soccer is the best
And finally, if your Spring Break is this week and you’re just on Day One, please know I am terribly envious but I hope you have a great one filled with all manner of fun. I’ll just be here packing a lunch while it’s still dark outside.