Great Wins

The sun, the moon and the stars must have been in perfect alignment this weekend because, quite surprisingly, all of "our" teams won. American University defeated Lafayette (very close and very exciting game), Denver beat New England and Seattle held off San Francisco. Even more surprising is that Kevin, Christopher and I were all cheering for the same teams. That never happens! However, I guess if you take the Redskins and the Giants out of the equation, the main source of conflict is removed.

Although it was too short, we had a very nice visit with my housemate from college and her family. All of our kids (she has two girls and one boy) get along really well. In fact, we joke that her son, Matthew, and Christopher could be twins because they look and act so much alike and have so many similar interests. 

As it was in my day, student attendance was pretty sparse at the game.

It was very cold and windy out so we gave the kids and husbands a very quick tour of the campus. Not much has changed in 22 years but I was still surprised that we could find our way around the student center and the sports pavilion.  I always forget how close I am to my alma-mater (it took us just about 30 minutes to drive to the campus from our home) and I really need to make a commitment to participate in a few of the symposiums and workshops that are offered to School of International Service alumni. It was a little sad to be on campus and reminisce about our friend, Peter, and all of our shenanigans back in the day.

As a requirement for his Civics class, Christopher needs to perform 15 hours of community service by the end of April. This weekend he accumulated most of his hours by volunteering for a local organization that provides resources and services to those in need. Friday afternoon/evening, he prepared and delivered complete bagged lunches for 60 residents of a homeless shelter in Reston. 

Thursday afternoon we went shopping for all of the supplies and Friday evening, our dining room table turned into a sandwich making/lunch bag packing assembly line. 

He made 120 ham/cheese/turkey sandwiches and then packed 60 brown bags with two sandwiches, granola bars, a container of applesauce, utensils, a box of apple juice and a bottle of water. It was a big effort on his part but, when we delivered everything to the shelter Friday night and saw the need for and appreciation of our donation, it made it all so worth it. Caitlynne was even inspired to plan to organize members of her crew team to prepare a similar meal soon. Yesterday afternoon, Christopher volunteered to help set up and prepare for the dinner for the kick-off of our church's Hypothermia Prevention Week activities. Our church is expecting to host 70 homeless people each day this week from 5 pm - 7 am and will provide each person with a place to sleep, a warm dinner, breakfast and will also give them sandwiches to take for lunch. This assignment has certainly been an eye-opener for Christopher and made him so much more aware of how many people in our area need so much.

My flowers for the week...

I have a feeling that I am going to appreciate their brightness even more this week as we are forecast to receive 3 - 5" of snow tomorrow. Agh! I am so done with winter. I wouldn't be too unhappy if the kids have a snow day as Caitlynne could really use a day to focus on and study for her exams. All but one of her projects have been completed but a lot of studying remains to be done. 

In anticipation of the snow and possibly not being able to run for a couple of days, I ran 6.5 miles this morning and will try to run 7 or 8 miles tomorrow before the snow begins. If I am forced to take a day or two off because of weather/road conditions, at least I will have gotten a good number of miles in already. 

Have a great Monday!