The weekend that was, May 18-20

The Joneses take in a paddleboat ride at Shawnee Mission Park.

We had a great weekend here, hope you did too!

I arrived Friday night after a few days in Minneapolis. Hustled home from the airport and picked up the family at 7 p.m. and we ran out the door for CHINESE BUFFET! Boyd wanted it to celebrate the end of kindergarten, but now they're closed on Tuesdays so we missed them last time (this is like the opposite of Taco Tuesday... No-Chinese-Buffet-For-You-Tuesdays.)

It was amazing and we stuffed ourselves, because yeah, BUFFET!

I was pretty wiped out on Friday so as soon as I got home, I got cleaned up, watched the two-episode Modern Family wedding episodes and then zonked out.

Saturday morning the kids, Adro and Judy got up at 3 a.m. for some reason... oh yeah, the Royal Wedding of Harry and Megan. Turns out the festivities didn't start until 5 a.m., so everyone just kinda fell asleep in the living room waiting.

I got up at a normal time and whipped out a bad-ass breakfast (eggs over-medium, breakfast potatoes and bacon with toast.) Then we headed out to Christopher Lipford's graduation party at Shawnee Mission park.

I've never been to that park. Turns out it's awesome! They even had paddle boats for $10/half hour, so we jumped in one and paddled all the way across the lake. 

This was amazing... when we first walked out to the dock we saw a sick fish swimming sideways in the marina. Then we went to the car to get cash... on the walk back to the dock, 500 yards away, we saw a blue heron.

Adrianne says, "that fish needs to get better fast or that blue heron is going to get him!"

(You know where this is going, right?)

Then we're halfway across the lake and really close to said sick fish. It's like we alerted the blue heron to its presence. And he took off, and we're all like, "UH-OH!" and instead of a straight line, it made like a J-turn and NAILED the fish right in front of us. We all screamed/cheered at the horrific/fantastic sight. 

It really was pretty neat, how many times do you see that so close? Adrianne actually voted this her favorite moment of the weekend.

Then we came home and relaxed in the garage... got a few games of Uno going. I didn't win any. Oh, I also worked for a little bit, wrote Golfdom Gallery because we were going to press Monday morning. And we watched the storm blow through... a big shower, with a little hail. We all watched with the garage door open. This might have been my favorite moment of the weekend.

Sunday, the family went to church. It was perfect out, so I took the dog for a walk. Then I came home and wrote my column for the new issue (an essay on a longtime superintendent who will be retiring at the end of June... perfect for the June issue, eh?) I wrapped the column just in time for the family to come home, then we all went to Kash's birthday out at this beautiful home with two private ponds in Eudora.

It was raining but we still went out and fished. Boyd caught maybe 10, 12 fish. A couple big bluegill! I took photos and will share them later.

After Kash's b-day it was Virginia's b-day at Paisano's. Yup, I ate again. The Marco Polo, chicken fettucini alfredo with vegetables. Excellent!

And then Evey got sick at the table (she felt like she might throw up.) Ten minutes later, I got sick at the table (my stomach felt like it would EXPLODE.) We hustled home.

I got violently ill, then took a long shower, said a prayer to the stomach pain gods, then got my laptop and proofread copy until I fell asleep.

It was an awesome weekend, even with the rough ending. Let's do it again next weekend! (Minus the explosions.)