Dancing Queen

We had a fun, low-key weekend with Megan. We went to her old high school's football game to watch the band. Their football team has never been very good, but the band has always been able to draw a crowd. Coincidentally, the game was against Jordan's high school (also a bad football team, great band kind of school), so we couldn't lose & we got to see both bands. The best part (besides seeing old friends) was that we got to leave after half-time, when the bands were done performing.

Saturday morning, Michael & Ben participated in the Great American Clean-Up at the local neighborhood park. I was going to go out towards the end to take pictures to show you, but they got back early. The good news is the worse thing they found was a bottle of urine, well, Ben didn't find it but one of the girls did & was apparently pretty fascinated by what that could possibly be in the bottle while the teacher was repeatedly saying "Put it in the bag. Put it in the bag. Put it in the bag." I guess it was pretty funny stuff. Sorry I missed it. Yeah, right. I am sorry I didn't get out there with my camera though, because Ben looked really adorable in his work boots and it sounds like they had fun.


Saturday afternoon was Jordan's game. They tied 1-1. This is the first real game Jordan and the other new girls have played with them, they have some work to do, but once they get the kinks worked out, I imagine they will have a successful season. Some of our soccer peeps came to watch & we were lucky enough to go to dinner with a couple of them. (We missed you S. & K.) We went to a local, kind of dive-y pizza joint near where we had our first apartment. The food was delicious and the company was great, but the best part was our snarky, pregnant waitress. That girl was so deadpan & soooo funny. We'll have to remember to go back every couple of months to see if she gets snarkier as she gets bigger.

Sunday, Michael & Jordan went to her game in Orlando. (Another 1-1 tie!) I had promised Megan some homemade macaroni & cheese while she was home, so I made her some for lunch. Now, I have made this mac n' cheese a million times and it has ALWAYS been delicious, but for some reason this batch was NOT GOOD. No, it was worse than NOT GOOD, it was HORRIBLE!!! I have no idea what went wrong, the recipe only calls for three ingredients, for goodness sake!!! I was so disappointed & I think Megan was too. I had even bought some new Rubbermaid containers so she could take the leftovers back to her dorm to eat some homemade goodness all week. We ended up putting the mac in the disposal instead & I heated up some fish sticks... also a comfort food from her childhood. I kept the containers & promised her we'd bring a good batch up on our next visit.



Today, I met my friend Tia & her daughter at the mall. I've known her since we were 11 and, although she has moved back to the area after she lived overseas, I still don't see her nearly often enough so that was a real treat. I am not a shopper & neither is she, but her in-laws were visiting from England & they wanted to shop so she & I just wandered the mall. While we were wandering I spotted the perfect dresses for Jordan's homecoming dance. She has just decided to go with a group of her friends, after saying for the past year that she wasn't going to any more high school dances. Jordan is (a) teeny tiny and hard to fit and (b) a pain in the butt to shop with. After school today we had a 30 minute window to shop, so I dragged her butt to the mall to try on the dresses, with strict directions that we were only going to this store. She liked all of the dresses I had picked out (SHOCKING!!!) and one of them fit her (UN-FREAKIN'-BELIEVABLE!!!). So, I have saved myself from (at least) a day of homecoming dress hell!!! YEAH ME!!! Here's a picture of the dress she got:

from White House/Black Market

On the way home, Jordan was saying how it reminded her of a "vintage" dress & I had been thinking the same thing. Something about it reminded me of this:

my very favorite picture of my paternal grandparents. While normally, I don't think you'd want to wear a dress that reminded you of your great-grandmother, I always thought my grandmother (G.G.) looked so glamorous in this picture. She said she thought of that picture as soon as she saw the dress too.

Aside from my grandfather & the family, G.G.'s great love was dancing. She was still taking dance lessons when she died a few years ago. Jordan can be self-conscious sometimes, particularly about dancing in public, but I pray that Jordan twirls that skirt around at least once at that dance, and channels my Grandma's love.