Fun (yet abusive) Weekend!

My friends are the greatest. No contest. Ever since I officially announced I was leaving, they've done everything in their will power to make sure that I go out with a bang and it's working! Seriously, every day has been jammed full of activity and quality time (my #1 love language!). And not just your average, plain activity. These folks know how to live it up! This weekend was no exception. It was a little brutal, but every bruise/scratch/scar is just one more memory to add to the overflowing bucket!

I'd like to say that my weekend officially started Thursday evening (life of a teacher!). I met up with my former college roommate, her husband, and her daughter for dinner at Cheddars. Favorite people, favorite restaurant! It was a wonderful time of laughing and catching up and saying farewells!

From here, I went to meet up with some friends at our favorite little pub for Thursday night trivia. We used to do it almost weekly, so figured I'd squeeze it in one last time before I left. They called me on my way over, though, and said it was standing room only and we decided just to hang out at Buffalo Wild Wings instead. My evening wasn't finished there, however, because I had been suckered into going to the opening night of the new Batman movie (notice the shirt above!). It was my first ever midnight showing of a movie, and quite possibly my last. It was really cool/funny to see all of the people dressed up and hear the audience go buck-wild crazy whenever something good happened, but it was WAY too late for this old lady and totally jacked up my sleep schedule the next day!

He kept calling me a nerd for wearing this shirt. He's totally just jealous... and lucky that I didn't wear my matching cape.

Our kickball team had Superhero Night a month ago. We just happened to still have our Batman and Robin shirts from that!

After semi-recovering/sleeping in until 10:30, I got up on Friday and got ready for a picnic with some friends. We had a good time and topped off the afternoon with some Rita's Gelati. I came home and took a quick shower before heading out again! Story of my life these days! Another one of my favorite restaurants in the area is a local hole-in-the-wall seafood place (weird, because I don't really like seafood and didn't actually eat it until a few months ago!). So, we decided I had to eat there one last time before I left. They had an hour long wait, so we went to Plaza Azteca instead. After a scrumptious Chimichanga dinner, we loaded up the car and headed to Virginia Beach for some American Indoor Go-Karting!

We all bought a Groupon for this place a while back and finally got to use it up. We did two races. The first was excellent... all fun and games like it was supposed to be. The second race was brutal. There were 2 people on the track that didn't seem to have ever raced before, so they were constantly in the way. Then, there was a "professional" racer (or so he thought/acted) on the track who had no mercy. He spun out once right in front of me and I hit him head on getting major whiplash. This 'race' felt a lot more like bumper cars and I can't say I was too sad when it was over. I got 6th out of 10 and took a second off my personal best, too, which made it all the better! When I woke up the next morning, I couldn't hardly turn my neck to the left and had a huge bruise on my left side from my collision!

This is day 2 of the bruise! It's about 2 inches long and an inch tall. It's quite painful to the touch! Battle wounds!

I didn't have time to reflect on how sore I was, though, because bright and early Saturday morning I had to get up and pack coolers for our day on the river! My sister Molly lives in Richmond and is always telling me about she and her friends going tubing down the James River. She was able to get us the hook-up on cheap tubes from VCU Rec Department and so eleven of us headed up there to set sail. SIX hours later, we made it to our cars at the Take Out point. We were told it was a three hour journey, but apparently it's been a dry year and the water level is exceptionally low. We were pretty much walking/paddling/scooting/dodging rocks for about 75% of the trip. I had an absolute blast and loved the entire thing, but it definitely was quite an adventure! Oh, and did I mention that there was a thunderstorm warning the whole time we were out there? Thankfully we only heard one loud crash of thunder and had beautiful (cloudy) weather the rest of the day!

What a fun, good-lookin' bunch!

Somehow or another, Alison managed to lose both her left flip flop and my left flip flop!

I think this was about 5 hours in... Still having a blast!

 As if that wasn't enough for one day, as soon as we got off the water, we went and quickly changed clothes so that we could make it to the Charlie Daniels Band concert! It was a beautiful evening and I loved being able to squeeze in one last country concert (even if I do only know two of his songs!).

Sunday when I woke up, my body looked and felt like it had just been through a major battle. Everywhere I looked I found scratches, bruises, sore muscles, splinters, etc. Signs of a great time! And STILL there was no rest for the weary! After church I was ready to just relax with a nap or movie, but was told that would be a lame way to spend my last Sunday in town. So, instead, Phil, Peter, and I headed to the Jamestown Settlement for a little History101. Jamestown is the birthplace of America, only 20 minutes from where we live, and after living here 8 years and teaching about it for 3, I'd still never been. It's a really cool place and was fun to see real life examples of what life was like back then. Mark it off the bucket list!

Aboard the Susan Constant!

After we'd had our fill of history, we went to Sweet Frog to meet up with Danielle. We hadn't seen her in what felt like forever, so it was fun to have a little Spring Break 2011 Reunion! :) The weekend still wasn't over, though, because then we continued on to Alan's for some Settlers of Catan. I won the first game (and definitely wasn't overly obnoxious while doing so!) and Alan won the second.

By the time I finally made it home, even my half-filled air mattress looked appealing. This week's not looking like it's going to let up at all, either! It's a good thing I have a 16 hour flight coming up because I sure am going to need some sleep right around then!  Like I said, my friends are the greatest! I wouldn't trade any of these memories or activities for anything!