weekend journey

When we examined the calendar closely, we gasped and realized that the days, let alone weeks, are quickly evaporating before school starts again. We wanted to go to my parents' house before the summer ended, so I took off the 21st and we headed home on Friday afternoon.

One of the most exciting things (for me, not Ryan) was that we have two batches of kittens right now. We had lots of fun playing with the older bunch in the living room. We even got them to join in the tennis fun.






Lily currently has 5 kittens that were born June 3 and Sheba has 6 that are a couple of weeks behind. Weezer is the dad of all of them. He likes to supervise the kids on the cat tree.

Dad, Ryan, the dogs, and I took a hike around and through the woods. Maggie and Oreo like to run through the creek. Maggie runs down the middle and Oreo jumps from bank to bank with the hankety pank . . . Nevermind . . .

If the stars align correctly, a YouTube video along these lines will follow shortly after this blog. This is Mr. Fuzzypants on my head. He's the most adventurous of Lily's kittens.

Saturday night, after a quick trip to Dick's for Grant's back-to- school shopping (he's a PE minor), I took on mom and dad in Cities & Knights. Ryan and Grant went to try out Grant's new tennis racquet. Dad won, like usual, even though it was their first time playing it. Weezer strategizes with mom on their next move.

Sunday morning, not as early as we had planned, dad, Grant, Ryan and I headed to the nearby courts for some tennis. We had fun playing three sets mixing up the teams. The only bad part was the lingering sunburn . . .

Ryan was the only one who took any pictures of the tennis. Grant's taking tennis as a Pro-Act class this semester, so he's having to convert his racquetball skills a little. Ryan and I will have tennis courts practically in our new front yard. Unfortunately, they're cracked, severely faded, and barely have anything but a rough concrete surface. :(

We decided to try my dad and Grant's suggestion of going I-77 to I-81 through Virginia and over, but first stopped to see my mom at work. This is her and Wendy (?) at lunch.

The new route wasn't bad, but as you can see, a little confusing to be driving both north and south on the same road at the same time. We were pleasantly surprised to find gas for a mere $3.73/gal. in Wytheville, VA.

Driving through Knoxville was a trip! **insert awkward silence** After the gale-force winds, hail, power lines in the road, and miles of traffic jammed bumper-to-bumper, we made it through to the sunny side unscathed.

And behind us was the dark sky showing what we had just been through!