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Sunday 2008-03-02 - February: a Good Month for Visiting
Written by Dragon
As if we weren't busy enough already, February brought a few visitors down to Florida. This month sure did not go like I had thought I'd be spending my weekends, actually, it was better because of it. I had originally thought that each weekend would be spent doing as much homework as there was time for. Instead, almost every weekend was spent with family and friends.
At the beginning of the month, my friend Dave had his Big 40th! His wife planned a great party and surprised him by getting friends and family to come in from different areas of the country. We got to go have some fun at the party, which is where I got my first shot at Guitar Hero. Check out Dave's blog for more about his "best birthday... ever".
In the middle of the month, my grandparents arrived and stayed at my parent's house for a few weeks. A couple weeks back we decided that we needed to go visit them on Saturday afternoon. We had a good time there, chatting and playing around. After we had been talking about how my younger brother always wants to wrestle with me when we visit, I was quite surprised by my grandfather. He walked up to me, put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Do you think I can take you down?" He's about my size, a little bit taller than me, but since my grandfather is 75, I wasn't really sure. I didn't think he was serious when he slowly reached around my shoulders and started trying to wrestle me to the ground. Everyone there started saying things about how we're not kids anymore and that someone was going to get hurt. Even at 75 my grandfather is pretty strong and has some endurance. We wrestled standing for quite a bit - it was no MMA match, that's for sure, but it was a battle of wits in a sense. I was being very cautious about my maneuvers because I didn't want my grandfather falling to the floor and hurting some part of his body that already aches. Others there were mentioning how they could see my grandfather thinking deeply about his next move, like playing chess. In the end my grandfather started to turn me but I twisted away which brought both of us to the ground. I ended up with my head and right shoulder above my grandfather, so I rolled him a little into a light pin. We got up, hugged, and both sat down for a breather. My grandfather said, "If I were your age, things would have been quite different." I would definitely agree with him. If he were younger, he wouldn't have the aches and pains that I had been worrying about so much during this match. However, he still is surprisingly strong and I'm sure being on the farm would have made him a very strong person at my age. If I could jump into a time machine, I'd take him up on his challenge.
Last weekend we celebrated the birthday of our daughter. We had friends come to visit us in the local park. Even though we were still scrambling at the last minute to get things for the party, I think it was just fine. Our friends from work, school, worship, and play, came together to join in the celebration. We had a nice amount of food and cake. The kids had fun running around the park and beating up our 2-year-old (aka recycled) pinata. My friend Charles also brought the Pirateer game, which we enjoyed playing a little bit near the end of the party. Overall, I think it was the best birthday party that our family has ever had! (Thanks to everyone who made it special!)
This weekend, Beth's brother John arrived. He and his family are on their way back home to Michigan after traveling around Florida for a while. They arrived a little late in the afternoon, so we enjoyed a dinner of Haystacks (a meal like tacos or tostadas but using Fritos corn chips as a base rather than taco shells or tortillas) and talked about recent events at home and upcoming plans for a family reunion in July. John also reminisced about his old Supra after seeing my car. I let him take my car for a quick ride and he and his wife felt like they were back in their dating days again. John told us about his experience buying a water fountain from a yard sale only to find out that it was a $6000 fountain that had been stolen from a bank. Since the bank had already gotten theirs replaced, John spent months trying to get back the fountain that he had spent $75 dollars on. In the end, he got a great deal and paid just $75 more for an awesome water fountain that he will be putting in the pond at his house. Hopefully we'll be able to get up there in July for the reunion and to see all the renovations that he's put into his property. We ended the night by going to a nearby park to see the sunset and then went to StarBucks for some coffee and snacks before they left town.
After John and Mindy left, we went to visit Blaine and Candice. They were hoping that we would be able to come over for some games. They already had some other people from Beth El Shalom and a couple from the Seventh Day Adventist church there when we arrived. We started off the night with Wits & Wagers. I believe that Candice won once and I won the other game. In the one that I won, I was finishing the game with very few chips. I decided to bet it all on my own answer, which was in a 4-to-1 payout slot. Candice bet on my answer too, but she didn't put as much into it as I did. Beth returned from our house with a few games, including Scruples and Union Pacific. We played Scruples, despite a lack of enthusiasm for the game by some people at the table, including myself. Sue (I think that was her name) won the game. After that, one of the guests left and the other seemed more interested in watching us play games than actually playing herself, so we played Union Pacific with 6 players. Steve and Sue decided to bail on us 3/4 of the way through the game, which ended in a tie at $56 Million between me and Candice. We played Blokus just before going home for the night. Beth spread out her pieces to every corner of the board, but Candice still won just barely. Our final game of Blokus gave Blaine his first win for the night when he managed to block off a quarter of the board all to himself.
Overall, February was a busy, but good month. (Of course, yesterday wasn't really part of February, but it was the weekend for that last week of the month.) Hopefully upcoming months will continue to be as entertaining, while I continue to hold onto my high GPA in college. By the way, I got an A on my first English paper! I'll try to post it online sometime soon so that everyone can learn more about The Highwaymen.