What a Weekend!!

In the 2500+ weekends I’ve experienced in my lifetime, I’d rank this Labor Day weekend among the best!

 

 

It started early with Trevor’s girlfriend, Leah, arriving on Thursday evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ditka was almost as thrilled to see her as Trevor.  Ditka has never been a dog that likes to be held but since his surgery, especially if he seems to be having a tough day, he loves to be cuddled, especially by pretty ladies!!

 

 

 

 

 

Kyle and Jenni arrived for the weekend on Friday evening, in time to join us at the QND football game where the Raiders made easy work of winning their second season game against Macomb.

Trevor and Leah left early Saturday morning to travel with the QND Raiders to Iowa City to watch the Hawkeyes put it to Trev’s EIU Panthers.  The QND team coach always treats his team to one outing to a college game and they still have a former QND player on the EIU roster, Dominic Pagliara, so this was a good game for them to see even if it was a blowout as expected.  There’s nothing quite to compare to Iowa City on football game day!

If my mood Saturday morning had stayed around for the whole weekend, no one would have had a good time.  I was making 72 deviled eggs for the couples shower.  I followed all the rules that are suppose to make the eggs come out of shells easily and, lo and behold, the egg whites were sticking to the shells like they were glued. At about 11:00 our #3 ‘son’, Luke and his lovely wife, Lindsay, came by and walked in to the kitchen from hell.  Ken and Kyle were attempting to help with the eggs and I was generally throwing fits all over.  As a result we were running late for the couples shower, which, for those who know me, being late is a REAL pet peave.

Ok, so we got to the shower, poured down a couple of glasses of wine and the world became a much  better place!

Jenni’s brothers, Josh and JP, manned the grills, dishing out burgers and hot dogs.  We had lots of great dishes provided by the bridal party.

Ken organized a game of lawnchair baseball which was a lot of fun with the Cardinals and Cubs splitting the double-header.

At the same time some of the group were playing bags.   Ringbearer, Oaklee, found this to be the most fun and was happy to toddle around picking up the bags.

 

 

 

 

Kyle and Jenni opened  lots of nice shower gifts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, Cousin Erin taught her new buddy, Oaklee, how to pop the bubbles in the packing.

 

 

 

 

 

As evening came, many in the group moved the party to our house where we could also watch the Tivo’d Iowa vs EIU game.

Sadly, not much to watch, but then no worse than the other first games of the season when Trev was playing.  You just always hope when they put these top 10 teams against EIU that the guys play hard and come away healthy.  The I-AA teams get huge payouts for these games so it is really good for the programs so long as the guys don’t get hurt.  It’s also allowed Trev to play in such great surroundings as Penn State and Purdue.  Of course, even those don’t hold water to playing in the Horseshoe against Ohio State when he was with Bowling Green.

It was a really enjoyable day with all our young friends/family getting a chance to kick back together and enjoy time together.

Sunday was another fun family day.  Ken started the morning making a big breakfast followed by his great bloody mary’s.  It was the first time in ages that we’ve been able to have Kyle, Trevor, Luke and their ladies all with us for the whole day.

Around lunchtime the guys set up the croquet set.   Trevor and Leah went to the store and cooked up some really great variations of brats with onions and peppers.  Ken, the bartender switched over to making another drink he does really well, vodka gimlets, which has now taken on the official Frericks name of ‘Croquet Juice’.  So now we know the official drink for all future Croquet outings!

Most of the day was spent sitting on the patio, enjoying the gorgeous weather and each others company.

After sunset the group moved in to the house and ordered pizza.  At that point, a euchre tournament broke out.  Not like this group needs constant competition or anything!

Folks started to drop off little by little.  Jenni fell asleep with Staley on the couch as her pillow. 

I dropped off to bed about 11:00 but the card playing went on well in to the night.

Luke and Lindsay to the train back to Chicago early Monday morning.  The rest of the group enjoyed Kenny’s big breakfast and then packed up for the road.

By late afternoon, Ken, Trev and I were once again back to a quiet house, and I headed to the store to stock up for Trevor since Ken and I would leave Tuesday for a 2 week outing in the RV, leaving him to man the house.

I’m finishing this post as we travel done the Illinois Interstate on our way to Rantoul, IL for our overnight stop enroute to the 2010 Escapade.

Wonderful, wonderful Labor Day and now it’s great to be on the road again!!

Hugs, C