Illinois Visitors

Last week, some friends of ours from our church back home (Washington Christian) came out for a visit/medical procedure. Our first introduction to Mike and Jess involved an ant-covered plate of soggy cookies (don't worry: it's been all uphill since then!) They were part of the Care Team ministry who welcome first-time visitors to the church. As part of their efforts to get to know newcomers, standard practice had been to take the visitors a plate of homebaked goodness sometime that first week. Unbeknownst to them, we left for Maine early that week for Kate and Greg's wedding and returned some two weeks later. Needless to say, the ants had had one heck of a treat but the rain had not done them any favors. [Side note: the Care Team now delivers a dry soup mix in a sealed Mason jar instead.]

Anyway, Mike needed to have an outpatient procedure done to see if he was allergic to anesthesia and ironically, Wake Forest was one of like three places in the country that does this special test. They flew in on Wednesday, and we had a great time hanging out, catching up, and playing games until his procedure on Friday. And even after that, he was a real trooper and by Saturday we were back at it touring Wake's campus and Old Salem, going out to dinner, and meeting up with some friends at Foothills. I believe the Buzzword record is probably held by Chris and Mike who pulled out three perfect 10's in a row! And, it was on a Saturday morning nonetheless when Jess and I could hardly manage scores of four at a time because our brains were still foggy. (By the way, this is Buzzword the board game, not the Knox College "buzz" game of Harley Knosher fame for those Prairie Fire alums reading this).

I was excited that I finally made it to Fourth Street Filling Station, a restaurant I've been wanting to go to ever since this summer when they had Shrimp Boil and Beach Music Night (that I sadly could never make it to). Jess and I went with the three appetizer dinner - so we hardly had table any table space - but yum, was it ever delicious! From bacon wrapped scallops to shrimp and grits, to this layered eggplant/spinach/cheese dish, to fried calamari... It was all quite tasty!

Chris' office had their Christmas party on Friday, so apparently he felt the need to maintain the spirit with the crew Saturday night by donning the lovely elf hat. While I've yet to see the pictures, Suzi had worn this hat - complete with an entire elf costume! - as part of the entertainment portion of the Friday afternoon work party. She had organized a bar crawl for Saturday night involving the 12 bars of Christmas (I think there might have been lyrics and everything), but I'm pretty sure they only made it to three... (We called it a night after one).

Anyway, a great visit. A successful surgery. A sad couple of friends who had to return to single digit weather and snow on the ground.