A Northern Foray

Shelly and I took a brief trip to Maryland this weekend (in fact, I'm still there as I write this). Rather than enduring the mind-numbing, Friday-night drive, undoubtedly complicated by the perpetual mass-exodus traffic from our crime-ridden federal capital, we hopped a brief flight from RDU airport. Dropped off by an accommodating Erika, we discovered we had misjudged the departure time of the flight. No worries- we got on just fine, although the security people were slightly troubled by the three ounces of after shave lotion in my toiletry bag.

In fact, I was actually impressed with Southwest's service. The flight we were to board landed a few minutes late, but they emptied the plane within 15 minutes, had all of us aboard in about 10 minutes, and had the plane in the air five minutes after that. I would probably come home more often if the trip were only an hour long! We arrived home just in time to catch UNC overcome USC, despite trailing 16 points at halftime.

As we had no transportation, Jen and Tim had to make an arduous drive of their own to see us, and this after enduring the trials of Puppy Class. Shelly and I went out to Damon's in Crofton with them for lunch, then I accompanied them back to Aunt Linda's house, where I finally met the infamous Josie, Stainer of Rugs, Interrupter of Sleep. Here of some pertinent pictures of said afternoon:

I returned home at approximately 4pm, where I checked Shelly's progress on her Law School work, and where nothing else noteworthy occurred. We did watch A Good Year, starring Russell Crowe in one of his post-telephone-throwing roles.

Yesterday, in an exceptionally rare event, the entire extended family came over, and through-out the whole afternoon, steadfastly resisted my efforts to photograph the entire group. Grandpop was down from New Jersey, having arrived Friday, and Sunday, Danielle and Brooks' entire families made appearances. Most memorable incident- Gabrielle's ear-splitting screams, brought on by the horrifying prospect of having her hair washed by Mom and Dad's sprayer. We had a huge lunch of holiday proportions, then settled down in time to see UNC blow their championship chances against Georgetown. They might have won if the game were 30 seconds shorter, but they just stopped playing with about 10 minutes to go. There's always next year. But anyway, here's a picture taken before lunch:

The night ended with two games of Yahtzee, the like of which I hope to never see again (I did BAD).

Ok, that's all for now. If you hear of a Raleigh-bound Southwest flight going down in flames tonight, say a prayer for my soul! And Shelly's too, if you have time! ;)