A Little Drive South

Sometimes when we visit friends for an overnight stay I feel as if the word

invasion

is more appropriate than visit.

I mean – there are eight of us after all.

Eight.  Of.  Us.

Eight.

That’s instant gratuity at restaurants.

That’s no-way-we-can-all-ride-in-one-car-with-another-family-to-save-gas.

That’s a party.

(Whether a party was planned or not.)

But we are somehow fortunate enough to have amassed a fair amount of friends who willingly

open their doors to our chaos

and hug our necks

as we clutter their homes with our suitcased possessions.

This week we crash landed at the home of Tyler & Amy and their two very handsome young sons.

What a wonderful field trip.

(That’s what I call all school day trips when I pack neither math worksheet nor phonics books.)

And on this field trip we let the seven kids run wild in the front yard.  (Seven because Riley stayed back with a friend to attend that traditional school with their rules about attendance and all.)

We ate delicious white chili and chatted late into the night.

And then I let Amy convince me to get up early the next morning and run five miles at Stone Mountain.

By run I mean I walked some of that distance and Amy was gracious enough to stay along at my pace and encourage me to run to the next marker or sign or whatever.

But it was five miles.

And that was a personal record for me.

Seriously.

I was excited to say I accomplished that and surprised to discover a muscle or two I did not know existed.

We drove into Atlanta and visited the ginormous Georgia Aquarium.  (thank you ben brown.  thank you mysterious larkin.)

Beluga Whales.  Sea Dragons.  Penguins.

Bergen and Baylor couldn’t get enough of sword fighting and wrestling and chasing.

(At home, of course.  Not at the aquarium.)

Berg was in a state of shock that there was another boy who wanted to jump and leap and battle as much as he did.

In fact, three-year-old Baylor was wearing five-year-old Bergen out.

At one point Berg asked his buddy, “Can we take a break?”

And Bay responded with a puzzled look, “What’s a break?”

To summarize . . .  A summation . . .   In summary . . .

It was great.

I hope we get invited back again.