Surprise!

"Surprise!" is the cheer that greeting our friend, Bob, as he entered our living room last night. We hosted a surprise 60th birthday party for Bob at our house and I think he was truly surprised!
A couple of months ago Sally said that she and Liz were thinking about doing this party for Bob and wondered if it could be at our house. That sounded like a good idea to us. Friday was the start of Corey's spring break so he came home for the party (seeing as Bob is his mentor!) and coming to visit Corey was a perfectly normal thing for Bob, Sally and Liz to do on a Friday night. What was not normal were the 11 other people that were waiting in our living room to celebrate this milestone with Bob. 

There was lots of good conversation and good food. Bob's favorite desserts were served, chocolate cake, grape pie, and cookies, and we all shared a lot of laughs. 

So that is how our weekend started, and after a very late night last night, we tried to sleep in this morning, but Jim and I are not very good at that anymore. 

Today we had both sets of grandparents here for lunch and a chance to see Corey. Ponty's provided our lunch and I added a fruit salad and a selection of desserts leftover from last night! We enjoyed our time together.

A chunk of our afternoon was spent watching college basketball and we are getting into the meat of the college season. March Madness will be upon us in no time and I love March Madness. I watched Syracuse upset Marquette today~ it was a good time for SU to come up with a big win. 

I did some spinning, well, really plying,  this afternoon and have another skein of yarn to show for my efforts. 

I had to rip out about 6 rows of knitting on the sleeves of Jim's sweater because they were not long enough. Now you may be thinking, why would you rip out rows if they were too short and that is a good question. The rows I ripped out were for the arm hole shaping and I need to add the extra length before I do that shaping. I think I need to add about 4 inches to each sleeve. I got a start on that tonight. We rented some Jesse James movie and I have been knitting and blogging as that is on the TV.

A short, but intense thunder and lightning storm just rolled through with some heavy rain! 

We ate dinner at Chinatown Restaurant tonight and had a good meal~we've never been disappointed with that place. 

Not too much planned for tomorrow, just the usual Sunday stuff~church, grocery shopping, and ironing. And there is a good college basketball game on at 4, so I hope to have my chores done by then so I can watch. 

Hope all is well. 

Almost the Weekend

Check out these photos. Jim and I went ice skating at Canal Ponds before going to work this morning!! Skating at sunrise~a great way to start a day.




The ice is at Canal Ponds, on the J& J property. Jim looked out his window at lunch yesterday and saw some guys on the ice playing hockey, jumped up, ran to the car, drove home, got his skates and went for a quick skate. When he was telling me about this we realized that with the high temps predicted for today that the ice was not going to last. So we got up and out early this AM and were skating by 7 AM!

Corey comes home this weekend for a few days of his spring break. He won't stay for more than a couple of days because he needs to be back on campus where the action is! Gram and GrandDad are driving over to Syracuse to pick him up. 

I did my second training session at the hospital gift shop and all went well. One of my students came into the shop with her grandmother because her mother is in the hospital. That little girl sure looked confused about seeing me at the hospital!

We got an e-mail from Tucker saying that he was on his way home from Mexico, but did not expect to be back in the country until March 9th. He and Duane were going to take their time driving back, stopping to fish and to hike. I will be glad to have him back in the old USA, especially with the news stories I have heard about the violence in Mexico. Now that violence is with the drug traffickers, but innocent people have found themselves in bad situations. So I will be glad to hear he is back on America soil.

More later. . .

Hope all is well.

Sunday Night Before Lights Out

Here's a quick update on what we've been up to this weekend.

Friday night we set out early (like we always have) to go to the RIT hockey game. When we arrived at the doors to the arena we were greeted with large signs announcing that the game was sold out! Sold Out!  I guess that's what happens to rookie fans~we didn't realize how big the Air Force game would be. So we returned to the car, dejected, wondering what would we do now? I suggested that we try to rent the movie, The Express, the story of the Syracuse running back who became the first black player to win the Heisman Trophy. This true story was in the theaters last fall, I believe, but we didn't get to see it then. So we drove to Blockbuster on the Ridge and much to our surprise, the place was a madhouse! Doesn't anybody have a life on a Friday night? Are we all reduced to spending a Friday evening watching videos? Yes, is the answer. We got the movie and enjoyed it very much. So if you are looking for a good, family movie, I'd recommend The Express.

Saturday we did things around the house and then went to dinner with Julie and Steve at The Garland House. We had a good meal and lots of good conversation. We returned to their house for dessert and more good conversation and laughs. Being hockey fans, Julie and Steve commiserated with us about not being able to get into the previous night's game, but were able to turn on their TV to a cable channel that was carrying this night's match-up between RIT and Air Force. After a big win on Friday night, RIT did not look that good on Saturday night and came up short in the goals scored department. We had a lot of fun with Julie and Steve and will go out with them again in the near future.

Today Jim ran in an Indoor Track Meet at RIT and was pleased with his 2 mile time. He is getting ready for the National Masters Indoor Track Meet in Maryland in a few weeks. 

This afternoon we went to a charity luncheon where the keynote speaker was Coach Jim Johnson, of J-Mac fame. He was a wonderful speaker and we enjoyed hearing his stories surrounding the big game. 

Tonight we had dinner at Gram and GrandDad's to complete a nice weekend. Gram cooked up a delicious corned beef, which reminded me that now is the time to put a few of those in the freezer. 

Congratulations to the SU basketball team for their win over Cincinnati today!

It is time to go to bed. I seem to have come down with a case of the sniffles. Hopefully a good night's sleep with cure whatever ails me.

Hope all is well.