A not-at-all productive Friday morning gave way to some gaming Friday afternoon. I've connected with a few Winthrop students and we occasionally game on Fridays. It's casual, with folks coming when they can. Although that makes it a little difficult to plan, it does create a light atmosphere -- just some monsters to fight and some light backstory. It's fun.

Friday night Sarah and I watched a "Rick Steves Ireland" DVD to prepare for our trip. We've just about got an intenerary worked out for the drive. More on that later.

Saturday my dad drove in from Knoxville to help me with yard work. I have the best dad ever. I called him on Friday night to ask, if he wasn't doing anything, if he'd come and give me a hand with the aerating. He wasn't and he did. He arrived about 9:30 Saturday morning, we went and rented and aerator, poked lots of holes in my yard, then took the machine back. I put out more seed (bermuda grass, for those keeping score) and watered. I then took dad out to lunch at McHales and we watched some of the bicycle race going on downtown. The weather was great. We then just relaxed the rest of the afternoon. Sarah brought home some pizza ingredients from Past and Provisions. We cooked a pizza, did some more relaxing, and I went to bed early.

Dad got up early Sunday morning to get back to Knoxville. Since I was already up, I pried Sarah out of bed. We cooked some fun breakfast burritos, pack our stuff, and went for a hike. We hiked from Kings Mountain State Park to the Kings Mountain National Battlefield Visitor's Center and back -- about six miles. Again, the weather was great. The national park part of the hike had a controled burn performed on Tuesday, so it was ashy and smokey. Not the ideal atmostphere, but still interesting. I remarked that it was like Mordor.

We returned from the hike, showered, and went to the grocery store. We picked up some London broil on sale and grilled it up for dinner. Sarah cooked these shredded potato things that were really good to go with the steak. After dinner, we did some more Ireland planning during commercials of Desperate Housewives. I find the show amusing in an absurd way, but Sarah really likes it.

All of that, plus baseball is back!! What a great weekend!