A Neat Weekend

This has the makings of a very special weekend. There are a number of things going on that if any one of them were the only thing on the weekend schedule, it would be a good weekend, but they're all happening together. It's one of those windows of opportunity where you'd like for time to slow down.

First of all, Jenn drove down to Columbus on Thursday to meet up with the Parkinsons and to pick up Haley, who's visiting from Scottsdale for a couple of weeks. They spent Friday hanging out at the Columbus Zoo, which has undergone quite a face-lift in the past couple of years. They stopped at City Barbeque to get some food to bring home to me, then they stopped at Graeter's, and didn't get anything to bring home. So now Haley's staying with us for the next half-week... she and Jenn are at work right now.

Meanwhile, Grandma Gates is staying with Aunt MarySue while mom and dad are at Stony Lake. Emily and Jeremy, who arrived late last evening, wanted to have some visit-time with both Grandma Gates and with Lincoln before they left this afternoon for Canada, so Lincoln and I made our usual bakery run to get day-old bread for French Toast, and instead of bringing it back to our place, we went over to Aunt MarySue's place and planned to have a nice breakfast. Then, to our surprise, Michael was able to come (he had to delay his trip to Stony Lake because of work, so he'll be traveling with the Gates/Hopwood crew). So Grandma Gates got to have breakfast with half of her grandkids (from three states!) and her great-grandson. I was really bummed I forgot my camera!!! It was one of those events that had we tried to plan it, something would have fallen apart. The six of us enjoyed a breakfast of French Toast, sausage and orange juice, while Lincoln enjoyed some additional nectarine (a whole one), yogurt, oatmeal, cantaloupe (about a 1/3 of a melon), honeydew (about 1/6 of a melon) and pear juice. Uncle Jeremy swears Lincoln out-ate him. Then we had some relaxing visit-time, talking Cavs, work and Lincoln.

Tomorrow we'll welcome the Great Grandparents Mullen for a couple of days so they can spend some time with Haley and Lincoln. There's lots of shuffling right now, but it's kind of a cool time.

This week will be interesting for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that I'll be solo at the clinic... something interesting always happens... let's hope it's just one interesting thing!