Very nice weekend

Well, it was an eventful weekend.  It was a triple shot weekend.  We traveled up to Orlando to visit my parents, since this past Friday was my Mom's birthday.....and Sunday was Father's Day....and Saturday was the last day of band camp for the lovely Kellie Poe-Bowdren--complete with concert.  So we made the trek up there on Friday
afternoon and got there in time to give my Mom a nice cake to celebrate her--what, you didn't think I was going to give you a number, did you????--birthday. 
The following day we ventured to Deland, home of Stetson University (the Fighting Hatters), Florida to pick up Kellie and watch the concert that closed out her camp.
We were lucky enough to have my parents join us for the afternoon, which was pretty cool on a lot of different levels.  It was really kind of cool to have my parents watch as my daughter was there performing--very prideful stuff.  And so the concert is in this chapel on campus, which was built....I dunno....like 125 years ago.  Absolutely gorgeous, oak floors, beautiful woodworking throughout.....which also meant that the acoustics were fairly amazing.  So anyone who got up to go to the bathroom and who wasn't wearing sneakers had the entire audience listening to the CLOP, CLOP of their shoes.  Needless to say, that also meant that anything above a whisper could also be heard.  You know.....like a pair of grandparents who wanted to have a whispered conversation about how wonderful the concert was.  Oh, they thought they were whispering....but instead the rest of the crow heard:

"ISN'T IT AMAZING HOW MUCH BEAUTIFUL MUSIC CAN COME OUT OF ONE INSTRUMENT?"
"WHAT?"
"I SAID...ISN'T IT INTERESTING HOW MUCH...."

Seriously..it was hilarious.  After the concert we went back to the dorm room that Kellie had stayed in during the week and were regaled with stories about her "slightly" Goth roommate--the one who decided, first night of bandcamp--that she was depressed and wanted to begin cutting herself.  Yowsa....ya gotta love teenagers these days.  Naturally Kellie had managed to make approximately 73 friends in the 4 days she was at camp (its a gift) and had to offer some tearful farewells.....but finally we left the college.


  We then made our way back to my parents house, and then followed that up with a nice dinner at the proverbial Outback's.

The weekend finished up on Sunday morning as we all got up and were able to share Father's Day with my Dad--even if I did tease him and tell him I had bought the Hilary Clinton bio for him.  I could never be THAT cruel.

It was nice to be able to spend the morning of Father's Day with the man who has so influenced everything that I do in the role of a father and parent.  I can't even tell you how many times I find myself saying:
"I'm turning into my father."

And that's a pretty good thing.

Later,
Jeff