Natalie and Me Post #2

My sister-in-law's neighborhood is so pretty, with the large, tall trees that are in their autumn colors. Natalie and I had a pretty lazy morning. She read on her Kindle while I wrote a blog post. Meanwhile, my nephew Braeden was up very early. Lisa's stepson Griffin was here overnight also. He wanted to go shoot some baskets at the nearby neighborhood basketball court. When he first mentioned it, I thought it was a short drive away, but it turned out that it was a short walk away. Cool.

As soon as he heard basketball, Braeden grabbed his little basketball and was excited about going. I loved that he wanted Natalie to come along too. It was such a pretty day (60s and sunny at the time) that I had to go too. The light was beautiful, and my nephew is adorable, so I couldn't resist taking pictures. Whenever he sees a camera pointing at him, Braeden immediately stops and says, "Cheese." Awesome photo subject once he stops saying "cheese" and just looks at the camera. Natalie took this photo and posted it to Instagram--her first Instagram post. All of her friends liked it and commented on it, excited that she was finally posting to Instagram.

Instagram and/or selfies was sort of the theme for today. Natalie has been snapping away using my old iPhone 5. She is okay with the fact that it goes right to my photo stream for me to use however I want. She even said that she doesn't like it when I take photos, but she will snap photos of herself all day long and she is fine with it. I am good with that. I got this great selfie with the two of us in it out of that bargain!

We went back home after a short while because Griffin had a football game for his middle school team. He had to be there a whole hour early. Meanwhile, I tried to get in contact with Anthony around 11:30am. I thought he could possibly be up, and he was. We made the plans for the day. He has a test on Tuesday and all of his finals on Thursday, so I let him decide how much he wanted to do today. Eventually, we decided to go pick him up, take him to lunch, and then he wanted to go to Griffin's football game.

Braeden loved seeing himself in photos, and Natalie obliged with her incessant selfie-taking. This is a cute one, though, but then every photo with Braeden in it is cute. They were just biding time while we figured out what our plans would be. Lisa tried to get Braeden to eat lunch for a while, anticipating that he would take a nap in the car on the way to get Anthony, but to no avail.

Meanwhile, at noon Central Time, Patrick took Eric to the Packers bar to see the Packers game. Usually I will stay home with the kids and Patrick goes by himself, but Alex went on his college trip Sunday morning and it was just Patrick and Eric. They have the bar set up as very family friendly, with even a small area for kids to play. Eric said he played with blocks for a while. He's pretty good at using his imagination to keep himself busy. After two hours, however, he wanted to go home. Patrick had to finish out the game at home. Patrick sent me this selfie (again, the theme for today) when Lisa asked to see a picture of him with Eric at the Packers bar.

We went to Anthony's temporary dwelling. Right now, they were told that they could probably move back into the frat house in about four weeks. Great. That makes them move AGAIN in the middle of the next term. Their school year is made up of seven week quarters, and this week is the final week of "A" term. Anthony's room is on the third floor. I lost count because there were so many small flights of stairs winding up to where his room was. His roommate at the frat house has a separate "room" (or "single) on that same floor. One of our plans for today was to take him to the grocery store.

Natalie took this selfie in the car after we got Anthony. He wanted to go to Chipotle for lunch, and even though it wasn't that far, there was a lot of traffic on that road for some reason, and it took us a while to get there. I won't include it here, but Natalie was really getting into taking a bunch of photos, not just selfies, and she took a picture of Anthony eating his quesarito at Chipotle. She just cracks me up--at least I'm a little more selective in the photos I take. :)

By the time we ate at Chipotle and got to Griffin's football game, it was pretty much over. They lost in a close game, so Griffin looked a little down. His mom had brought his sisters to the game, so that's when Derek picked them up to take back to the house. He planned on having the girls have a "slumber party" in the basement yesterday evening. Natalie took this photo of Braeden wearing one of his sisters' headbands and sent it to me via Snapchat. Isn't he adorable?

After the football game, Natalie and I took Anthony back to his house. He dropped off some presents from my mom and sister, then we went to the grocery store (his request) and picked up about $85 worth of groceries. Patrick wondered if Anthony was buying non-healthy foods. Anthony was actually very good. It was Natalie and me that encouraged him to buy snacks, but he only got one half gallon of Dreyer's French Silk ice cream, two bags of candy (Reese's and Heath), and a bag of Pepperidge Farm Orange Milano cookies. Natalie even tried slipping a package of Oreos into his cart, but he told her to put it back. We went back to his house to put away the groceries and to meet up with two of his friends.

We met Anthony's roommate Justin and his friend Mike. Justin had just gotten back from visiting his family over the weekend. He lives about an hour away. Mike is from New York and apparently, Anthony is going back home with him next week during their week off and then they are going to a Breaking Benjamin concert in New York. He's planning on going to another concert later in the year. I think it's great that Anthony gets to take advantage of his location in the Northeast to go to some of these concerts.

Anthony wasn't very hungry at dinner time, so it was hard for him to decide where to go to eat. Justin wasn't hungry either because he had eaten with his family before coming back. Mike was the only one that at least ordered a regular entree at The Boynton. This is where Anthony's friends took him to eat last year for his birthday. Anthony and Justin both only ordered appetizers, and Anthony barely ate his calamari. He did eat some Lobster Rangoons that he ordered as another appetizer. Natalie and I split a small pepperoni pizza. She ate four pieces, so she was apparently the only one hungry. I even told Anthony that he could order something and save the leftovers, but since he isn't really a big leftover person, he didn't want to do that.

We walked back to his house after dinner and said our goodbyes. He has a big test on Tuesday that he seems very worried about, but he did admit that he had to eat dinner, so Natalie and I will be going back there today to have one last meal with him before we go back home tomorrow.

It was really great day today, and I'm glad Natalie and I had this opportunity to see Lisa, Derek, and their wonderful kids, and of course see my first-born son that I miss so much.