Home is where you don't have to wear flip-flops in the shower!

I practically ran home from class Friday afternoon. The excitement was as great as Ishmael’s was when he was close to seeing his family. Now I only had to endure an extensive hour and a half drive home! We hopped in the car as soon as I got back to go pick Leslie up at Shreve. Then, we hit the road and tried to make a speedy trip home to our families without getting pulled over for speeding. I just wanted to mention that I wasn’t driving. J Unlike Ishmael, I did actually get to see my family! As soon as I walked in the door, my mom and dad ran to give me hugs. They like to be goofy and fight to give me the first and last hugs, so I ended up getting like 5 from each of them. I hadn’t been so excited to be home in a really long time. Over the previous three weeks, I hadn’t realized how much I missed being there with my parents. We had all gone to take my brother down to Miami of Ohio the weekend before, but it didn’t cut it as being home with my parents. I was so tired Friday night that I was asleep by 8:30 home time. Saturday morning, my mom and I got up early and drove into Illinois because we love going to the Orland Park Mall. It’s so much better than ours. We shopped a few stores and ended up getting 4 free loaves of bread from Sara Lee before heading down to Lockport to see my grandparents. The four of us went out for an early dinner, and then my mom and I proceeded home. That night, Mike came over, and we watched about four hours of HBO Presents on Comedy Central. Sunday has been extremely exciting. I got to go buy baby clothes for my neighbors across the street because they just had their second child, a boy named Nicholas Dean. My mom and I went out to Kohl’s and found a cute little fuzzy sleeper. Then, we went to Barnes and Noble and bought a book for the baby and two short chapter books for the seven year old girl, Kayla. Later on tonight I get to go out to a new restaurant, Little Tokyo, and maybe up to the Dunes for a walk on the beach and to watch the sunset. Tomorrow before I leave, my mom is going to make me spaghetti, pretty much my favorite food if it’s her homemade stuff, and we are going to make chocolate chip cookies together. My bonding activity with my dad this weekend is going to be learning how to change the oil in my car before I leave tomorrow. I don’t even bring my car to school… Overall, this weekend will have been pretty fantastic by the time I get back tomorrow!