Warning: This post may bore you if you aren't an Aggie

This past weekend, we went to visit College Station. We hadn't been back since Elliot was three months old, & I was in dire need of a java shake. We also hadn't seen our friends Jason & Paige in a year, so we decided to meet up with them there & spend Saturday together. Josh & I took the boys down Friday afternoon, had dinner at Blue Baker with a girl from our church who is a sophomore at A&M, then went to campus & walked around a bit. Josh did lots of reminiscing in the civil engineering building, Elliot did lots of running around, & I realized I don't handle change very well (just kidding, I knew that already, but boy did it flare up several times this weekend. That liberal arts building just should not have been built on the grassy knoll!).

This was our first experience in a hotel as a family of four. It went better than I expected. Elliot was super excited to sleep in a big bed by himself, & to get to watch TV in bed, so he did great. He also is a pretty hard sleeper so Jack never woke him up. Jack fell asleep fine in the pack n play but didn't sleep great for some reason. Oh well, we survived.

Anyways, Saturday morning we met up with J&P at a new (to us) coffee place called Mugwalls. It was delicious & I'm afraid if it had been there when we were there, it might have caused me to cheat on Sweet Eugene's a few times. Then we headed over to campus to check out the new MSC. I had heard about how much it had changed, & it definitely has, but overall I liked it. There is lots of seating now & the flag room was largely untouched, which is good. We had Layne's for lunch (which is to be expected) then spent some time driving around town, checking out our old respective residences & all the new growth in town, then met back up at Sweet Eugene's for the all-important java shake. I got Oreo & it was all I remembered it to be. We headed back to campus to walk around the Commons, where we all spent our freshman year, & did some more exploring. We hit up Northgate Vintage, a super cute store that is owned by another girl from our church here who is a student at A&M, then headed to dinner at Koppe Bridge. I haven't had a burger in forever; Koppe is worth the gluten & grease. Then we headed home. We so loved spending time with our friends who we miss having around, & loved spending time in a town that holds so many memories for us. The boys did really well too, despite the lack of sleep & being toted around here & there. We'll definitely be back before two more years pass.

Aggies & sicknesses

A lot has happened in the past couple of weeks! We went back to the Motherland (College Station, of course), Elliot got a staph infection, I got food poisoning at my birthday dinner... what fun! Well, I guess only one of those things was fun.

We hadn't been back to College Station in a long time, which is not okay, so we went back for a basketball game & tailgating (which was really just hanging out inside of an RV; no tailgate involved). I love driving into that town... seeing the sign off of Highway 21 - "College Station - Texas A&M University," rounding the corner to see Kyle Field & the smokestacks appear above the trees, passing Research Park (our park, where we had many dates, including our first date & the our engagement)... all the memories come flooding back. Such a good time. I love that all my memories of those four years are good ones.

Naturally, we went back to Sweet Eugene's for a java shake... twice. :-) Oreo & vanilla. The vanilla was superb, just as good as any I had while studying for hours on end in that place. Sigh.

The day before we left for CS, I noticed that the tip of one of Elliot's fingers was really red. It didn't look like an ingrown fingernail, & it was hot, so we took him to an urgent care clinic Saturday morning. Staph infection sounds scary, & it is really contagious, but we got him on some antibiotics (that turned his poop green, like he had eaten grass... gross) & they cleared it right up.

Then it was my birthday! I love my birthday, & I usually enjoy making a big deal of it & taking advantage of my birthday... & birthday week... & birthday month... but this year, baby + work kept me so occupied, my birthday almost just slipped by. What a shame. But Josh baked me a funfetti cake (my favesies) & took me out to dinner Saturday night, where I had clam chowder & fish & chips... let's just say I won't be eating clam chowder again for a while. I can't be too sure, but I'm banking on the yucks coming from those big chunks of clam. The next morning at church, my stomach started hurting, so we went home & I had some soup & went to take a nap, & woke up with chills. We thought it was the flu, but the fever was gone Monday morning & I felt significantly better. I am still getting queasy now & then, which probably means I should not eat cake & enchiladas....

So, there is our life as of late. That, plus a lot of work, that will hopefully slow down very soon. I need to clean my house!

(I am fully aware I could have just spent this time cleaning instead of blogging. But who does that??)