The Weekend - Fun with Friends & College Basketball

We had an especially fun weekend this weekend because we had a couple of fun events planned.  Friday, two of my girlfriends brought their kids over to hang out and make Valentine’s cookies.  B grabbed some pizzas for us on his way home from work, I made Winter White Cosmos for us ladies, and we all had the best time eating dinner and hanging out together. 

When dinner was over, we rolled out some dough, let the kids cut them into shapes, and then the kids all played while the cookies baked... well, half of the kids played.  All of the second children stayed at the table because they weren’t going to miss out on one second!  Haha.  Once the cookies were cool, we let them each decorate a couple with pink and white frosting and several different types of sprinkles, and a fun time was had by all!  And I do think I’ll be finding sprinkles everywhere for weeks to come!  Ha!

Once the cookie making was over, they all ate their creations, exchanged Valentine’s, and then we rounded them all up for a group pic.  Note to self for the future, the next time we want to take a group picture, round them up before they consume all the sugar.  I took about 20 pictures and I literally had zero good ones, but my friend Jeannine managed to snap this one that actually turned out halfway decent.  They were wild!

Saturday morning our little family of four was up bright and early to head to Athens for the day.  We stopped for donuts at Krispy Kreme first and made one more stop for a little coffee treat for yours truly, and then we hit the road.  The day was dreary, but we lucked out in the rain department.  The forecast had been calling for potential flash flooding throughout Atlanta and Athens all day, but it ended up being foggy and misty all day instead of the torrential downpours that had been predicted.

Our first stop in Athens was Trader Joe’s.  We don’t have one in our city, so any time we go somewhere that does have one, we take full advantage.  We adore their house wine – the Charles Shaw AKA Two-Buck Chuck – and it’s only $2.99 per bottle, so when we go, we load up!  We grabbed two whole cases (yes, CASES), plus a few other goodies, and then we were off to meet my cousins for lunch.

My cousin Wil graduated from UGA a couple of years ago, and he currently works for the UGA football team, and my cousin Shelby (Wil’s little sis) is currently a junior there at the school, so both of them live in Athens.  Normally we are there for football games which means that Wil is always tied up, but since it’s off-season, he was able to meet us for lunch.  His girlfriend, Cat, who also works for the school in the athletic department also joined us. 

Shelby is the president of Tri-Delta at UGA and her sorority house happens to be fairly close to Stegeman Coliseum (the basketball coliseum) so she was kind enough to let us park at her sorority house and use her sweet presidential parking spot.  It was so convenient and so nice to not have to drive around looking for parking for half of the day.

She met us there at the sorority house and then we walked to Grindhouse Burgers, our lunch spot, where Wil and Cat were already waiting for us.  It’s a burger joint/pub so they had gourmet burgers and an assortment of beers, and it was really good!  If you’re ever in the Atlanta/Athens area, they have several locations and I highly recommend it!

After lunch, we parted ways from Wil and Cat who, but not before taking a couple of pictures!  I just love these people!  And fun fact, as I said before, Wil and Shelby are my cousins on my mom’s side of the family.  They are the kids of my momma’s baby sister, and my mom and aunt are ten years apart, so that’s why Wil and Shelby are so much younger than I am.  I baby-sat those two from the time they were itty-bitty until they were old enough to be on their own, and I feel like they’re my own babies.  I still can’t believe that one of my babies has graduated college and the other one is going to be 21 next month.  Lawd, I’m getting old!

Anyhoo, it was just a short walk to the coliseum after lunch and we arrived about an hour and a half before game-time so we let the kids roam around a bit.  We snapped a couple of pictures down near the court, let them grab some snacks, and then we headed to our seats.  The game was sold out so Shelby sat in the student section with her friends and we sat in our four seats together on the other side of the arena. 

The game was a ton of fun!  I’m not a huge basketball fan and this was mine and the kids’ first college basketball experience, and we all had a great time!  We ended up losing, but it was expected, so it didn’t put a damper on our day! 

Jacob really loved everything about the experience and he actually paid attention to pretty much the entire game.  During the break we went down to grab some popcorn and let the kids stretch their legs, and Jacob was eager to get back to our seats so we didn’t miss any of the actual game.  Olivia loved the cheerleaders and dancers the most and her little face would just light up when they would go out on the floor and do their cheers. 

They have both been to college football games as well, and while I love the college football experience way more than basketball, I do have to say that the basketball experience is much easier with two littles.  For one, it’s inside so it doesn’t matter what the weather is like.  Two, there are way fewer people there so it’s much easier getting around.  Three, the games are much shorter so they don’t have to sit still as long.  And four, the games are much more fast-paced which held their attention way more.  I have a feeling we’ll probably start throwing at least one of these into our winter rotation each year!

When the game was over, we met back up with Shelby and we walked back to her sorority house to get our car.  Before we left she gave us a little tour of the house and I couldn’t believe how HUGE it is.  She said theirs is the largest on campus and it sleeps 67 girls, which just blows my mind!  I can’t even imagine having that many girls living in one house together.  Lol.

We parted ways with Shelby after the tour and we headed back home, stopping by Chick-Fil-A for dinner.  It was a long day but the kids were absolutely fabulous all day.  B and I were discussing on the way home that neither of us heard one complaint all day.  No tantrums, no arguments, no fussing, no complaining all. day. long. 

Somebody pinch me.

Sunday was another dreary one and we spent it doing the usual Sunday things – lunch at my MIL and step-FIL’s house and dinner at my parents’ house.  Both of my parents were down with what was possibly the flu all last weekend so we hadn’t seen them in two weeks, so it was nice to get back to our norm!

We have a busy week this week with Valentine’s Day, Ash Wednesday (the start of Lent), and soccer starting up, so it’s about to get real, y’all!

Happy Monday!

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*Linking up with B Loved Boston for Weekending and HoHo Runs for Weekly Wrap.

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