Morgan's Grad Party in Mobile, AL

I guess the best way to tackle the out-of-town vacation posts is to do it backward. After our backpacking trip (post and pics to come soon, I promise!) we headed to Mobile for one day. Yes, ONE day. We arrived very late on Sunday night, slept in an actual bed, and prepared for Morgan's graduation celebration to take place on Monday. When I walked outside on Monday morning, I almost choked on the horrible, horrible, stifling humidity. I felt like I needed scuba gear to walk from the door to the car! It didn't take Archie very long to complain how hot it was. After having very pleasant, cool weather for our Cincinnati spring, it was a bit of a shock to the system to walk into that much humidity.

Since most family members couldn't make it up to Cincy for graduation and Morgan chose not to participate in the school's graduation ceremony, we decided to throw a party for Morgan in Mobile at my in-laws' house. Phillip and I decided on a 'mess' of crawfish as party food, since we could get them already cooked and ready to eat with no preparation on our part. Of course, my Mom-in-law went above and beyond with drinks and cake and stuff, which was very nice, but I didn't intend for her to have to go to any trouble. Morgan made a delicious banana pudding. Phillip and I picked up some burgers and 'dogs for those who are too wimpy for the crawfish. I'm talking mostly about you, Julie. Even our Peruvian guest was 'man' enough to eat the crawfish! I guess there's still too much yankee lingering in Julie!

The party was a nice way to get together with family and friends all at one time. Especially since we were only going to be there that one day. Unfortunately, when I'm tired (as I was after the backpacking weekend), I am rather lax at taking pictures. So only two pictures of the event were recorded.

What you see behind Archie and Lily is the outside refrigerator at my in-laws' house. Morgan stayed up very late the previous evening painting a mural on it. Unfortunately, the humidity was brutal that night and the freezer part condensed badly and made the paint run. More so on the freezer part than on the refrigerator part. Saying she was upset about it would certainly be an understatement. I wasn't sure if I would get permission to post a picture of just the fridge, because it remains a pretty sore subject. But in my own sneaky way, you can get an idea of how cool it looks, even though the paint ran.

We had a splendid party and even got to take turns looking foolish playing Analise's Wii. Watching the family hula-hoop was most entertaining. I was absolutely exhausted and ready to get home, so Tuesday morning, we headed back home. We weren't in any particular hurry, but still made the trip in a record ten hours! And I slept for three of them, which made for a much shorter and much more pleasant journey than previous ones. It was REALLY nice not to be responsible for the entire drive all by myself.

I didn't even try to attempt our 'back to school' stuff after returning home last week because of the mountains of laundry to do and the camping gear to air out, etc. We'll be hitting our curriculum again with gusto beginning tomorrow.

The dirty laundry bag actually made me gag when I opened it to throw the stuff down the laundry chute. I guess that's what we get for wearing the same clothes for three days while doing strenuous physical activity! Again, look for that post soon. I am working on it, and trying to get it organized to publish.