Last weekend, Sonotmu flew out to Ohio to visit me and Mer. At least that is what we told ourselves. I am SURE it had nothing to do with OrangeBlogger being
on a business trip to Pittsburgh, which is conveniently located only 2
hours from our house. But I get ahead of myself.

Since Sonotmu
flew out on Friday, he agreed to fly in at 4:30 so he could attend the
staff picnic at CVCA and see a home football game. Mer and I had
forgotten that non-Christian and/or city-folk do not go to potluck
suppers very often (we Christians like to eat!). Sonotmu was pretty
impressed with the amount of food available, and even better was the
huge variety of desserts available. Readers of OrangeBlog will know
that Sonotmu has bet off desserts for September. *I* had no problem
eating 2 helpings. We had lots of good food, and had lots of laughs
with Mr. Churchill and his girlfriend (they are great people).

Since
we had time before kickoff, I showed Mer and Sonotmu the new cross
country trail at CVCA, which I am strangely proud of even though I had
nothing to do with building it. Still, the finished part is really
nice, and I took the opportunity to explore the rougher unfinished
part. ATTENTION, younger folk: do NOT take your love tromping through
the woods when she is in a skirt and dress sandals. The trail was cool,
but Mer had some trouble traversing parts of it. In her defense, she
laughed about it. Later.

We got back to the football game having missed 2 minutes or so, and we hooked up with Ombudsman and his kids. They were most amusing, but had to leave near halftime due to bedtimes (the kids’, not Ombudsman’s).

Anyway,
the game was quite exciting, and it was the first high school game
Sonotmu had been to since high school (17 years). CVCA won, 17-7, and
it was a most entertaining time. After the game, I got to introduce
Sonotmu to our local (non-Starbucks) coffee house Rico Latte where we got hot chocolate (not considered a dessert by the official scorekeeper, OrangeBlogger).

We all slept in some on Saturday, and Sonotmu was feeling edgy, so I took him to Quail Hollow State Park
to tromp around in the woods again. It was a nice morning, but I was
disappointed in the trail marked “Beaver Pond,” where the pond appeared
to be an algae-encrusted water hole that was about 15 feet across.
Still, a nice walk.

We also watched some DVDs (including the last
half of a Royal Fools show). But the big excitement of the day was the
road trip to Pittsburgh. We drove there, and Sonotmu had promised
OrangeBlogger that we would be there unless hit by a hurricane. So, of
course, we spent about 45 minutes driving through one of the heaviest
downpours I have seen in a long time. Mer compared it to a car wash
(which our car needed). We got there safely, and found OrangeBlogger in
her VERY swanky hotel, the William Penn Hotel. Mer and I did not get to stay in a hotel like that at our business (ASCI) conference last year….

Pittsburgh was south of the heavy rain, and it was a beautiful day. We walked about a mile to Station Square,
a cool shopping complex, where we ate at a Chinese restaurant. The food
was great (get the lettuce-wrapped chicken appetizer). After supper,
Sonot and Orange wandered off to be romantic by shooting zombies with
shotguns in the arcade while Mer and I ate chocolate while sitting on a
bench.

We then rode the Incline trains up the hill. I handled it
better this time (from when I was in Pittsburgh with Diakonos last
spring), but it is still high and steep. For some reason there were
fireworks going off in the northeast part of the city, so we watched
those for about 15 minutes. They were really good fireworks, too. We
wandered around the top of the hill and visited a really cool Catholic
church. We also got to see the ridiculous site of a man embracing a
woman in a romantic spot while she blathered on her cell phone. People
are odd.

We
took the nice walk back to the hotel, where the non-dessert-eating
Orange gave us her hotel mints. They really should have these bets more
often. We then drove out of the city, after only one wrong turn. A very
nice evening.

The next day being Sunday, we went to church
and Sunday School. We then went home and ate, and went back to Quail
Hollow (with Mer this time) to stroll around some more. We got back
home to catch the Bills-Patriots game on TV, but had to leave during
the fourth quarter to get Sonot back to the Akron Canton airport.

Sonot
has an interesting travel life. He seems to be able to only have one
leg of a trip go smoothly. Since his flight to Ohio went well, I have
no idea why we did not check on his flight before we left for the
airport. Mer and I go home to have Sonot call to let us know his flight
was canceled. So, we took the 25 minute trip back to the airport to get
him. To make up for the flight, I ordered pizza for us, one perpperoni
and one green pepper (Sonot is a vegetarian). When we got home, we
discovered we had two pepperoni pizzas. It was that kind of night for
Sonot. But, we got to spend some more time watching football, and I got
him to the airport the next morning where everything went smoothly,
getting Sonotmu back to work by 7:30 a.m. (in Chicago).

All in all, a very very nice weekend.

Oh – odd note – Mer and I have now seen Sonot and Orange in Chicago, Los Angeles, and in Pittsburgh in the last 5 weeks.