Weekending

Linking up with Holly and Sarah for Hello Monday:

Friday evening we had dinner out with friends. Lots of laughing ensued before we hurried home. Alyssa had gone to our school's football game and asked if she and a friend could leave the game early to come hang out at our house. Said friend was a guy so as soon as we saw on our phones that she had left the high school, we left dinner (we had already paid) and then headed home. 

Alyssa and one of her friends before they left for the football game- each game has a theme and students are encouraged to dress the part of the theme. This week's theme was, "Rock the Elks" (Elks being the mascot of the team we were playing) and students dressed in rock n' roll attire. When Alyssa and her guy friend left the game at half time, we were down 0-14 but came back to defeat the Elks with a last second touchdown. (Maybe it was the theme that did it 😆)

Saturday was an early morning as Alyssa had a cross country meet in Kettering. The girls did great coming in 3rd place out of about twenty teams. Alyssa got permission from her coach to leave after her cool down and not stay for the other races because we had plans. As soon as we got home and Alyssa showered, we headed out the door for Donnie's firm's work picnic. 

Every year in September his firm hosts a picnic for employees and their families. It has been held at various locations throughout the years. The past three years that they had the picnic, it's been at the Trout Club, a fishing club in Fairborn that a couple of the families belong to. The firm had not had the picnic since 2019 due to you know what. It came roaring back this year at the Trout Club. It was great to see familiar faces- Donnie has been at the firm for twenty three years and a few of attorneys who were practicing when he started still practice so we have known some of the families for over twenty years. In the past six months, two new associates have been hired and it was nice to meet them. The associates have been a blessing to Donnie as he has been able to hand off to them some fairly easy, more standard legal work, allowing him the time to do some of the more complex work for his clients. 

So pretty!

Alyssa wondered how deep the pond was- very, based on the approximately eight foot stick that we found and used to try to get a rough idea of the depth. 

The good thing about playing soccer (albeit extremely casually) is that you can hold a water bottle and your phone in your hand and still play ;)

OK, so they weren't really playing, more like kicking the ball around

The property was near a cornfield. In my former country girl assessment, this corn is DONE!!

Inside the main building we ate a delicious meal of grilled steak, great side dishes and the best of desserts (Killer Brownies from DLM among others)

... and of course played bingo (a venerable AMF firm picnic tradition). I had the WORST card... until I got five in a row and won one round.  A $25 gift card for the win!!

Saturday evening we went over to our friends/ neighbors to watch the Ohio State football game outside. Neither they nor we are Ohio State fans so, while the game was on, we paid very little attention to it and instead had a good time socializing. The weather, fire pit, and company were great; enjoyable football was not necessary for the quintessential fall mileau. 

Sunday morning was church followed by a run to the mall. We had received some Bath & Body Works and Victoria's Secret coupons for free products which of course we couldn't pass up. We stopped by the grocery store on the way home to get some ingredients that we needed for dinner that night. We invited Donnie's Uncle Doug to join us for dinner. I tried another recipe that I received from Kroger in a coupon booklet (last Sunday, I also made a dish from a Kroger coupon book). This week's dish was this:

It was really good! Will definitely make it again

After Doug left, we relaxed for the rest of the evening. It was a busier than normal weekend for us but a good one.