Tony's Visit

So, in the midst of craziness, something pleasant was that my cousin Tony came to visit the last day & a half. He's visiting from England. It was really great to spend time with him and have grown-up conversations with one of my cousins. I have quite a few over in England and I don't know many of them at all, and if I have seen them, it was when I was a baby or very young. I've had a few times of being with Tony and Bobby, his older brother, so I feel like I'm closest to them. Something I probably knew but didn't put my finger on before is that Tony is someone that puts himself in other people's shoes a lot... I think he'd make a pretty good counselor, he says a lot of the stuff that I had to go to school to learn. It was cool to talk about how we both think it's important to connect with family and try to build relationships where they have kind of faded or just haven't even started yet. I feel a little refreshed in my desire to work on that some more, knowing that he plays a similar role in England, not that people wouldn't get together, but that sometimes we all need a little nudge. :-)

So in the last couple days, I think I wore him out, dragging him all over town and trying to make sure he got to do some things that he needed to do (Christmas shopping) and got to see some things that would interest him or that he might not have gotten to do or see... Monday night mum dropped him off and we all ate Wendy's together. After she went home, we went to a free concert on campus at UF showing Less Than Jake, a rock/ska band. That was enjoyable and quite an experience, quite a few funny people in the crowd being ridiculous etc.

Tuesday we rode bikes to my garden plot in the community garden, then met David for lunch at Back Yard Burger. After that we hit the mall for Christmas shopping. We found out there was going to be a basketball game Wednesday night, so we thought about going to that... Later that night we played hold 'em poker. David lost first both games, which was probably good anyway since he needed to go to bed. Tony won the first game and we quit the second game as it seemed it was never going to end and Tony kept announcing what cards he had in his hand out loud instead of inside his head. Quite a few humorous moments there.

Wednesday was campus tour day and I dragged him all over campus to see the Football stadium, some of the main student areas, the O'Connell Center, & we picked up some basketball tickets as well. This was the day I remembered to actually take some photos. :-)


american football field


o'connell center ready for the game later that day

We got home and had some lunch, a quick conversation about God, and I headed to class for the afternoon. David got home soon after that and Mum met them at the house. We all went to the basketball game at 7. We took a few pictures of us watching the game, but not so much of the game... but, hey these will be more valuable to us later.


us "kids" watching the game


the height of maturity runs in our family



having fun being silly


UF shakers turned wigs, very attractive, perhaps there will be modeling in their futures

Mum counted down the seconds until she could go to the karaoke night, which I admit I wasn't too excited about. But hoping to save Tony from a night with 50+ somethings and karaoke by himself with mum, I decided to tag along and made mum later than she wanted because I needed to upstage her outfit and put on sparkley eye shadow for the club. :-P

So we went and it turned out we still had plenty of time to get in a few embarrassing songs (yay) so what a relief. Mum went first with the Carpenters hit "Rainy Days & Mondays" sounding exactly like the recording. Tony was up next, but as he said he hadn't had enough beers for that made me go first with "Can't take my eyes off of You" (the redone version by Lauryn Hill). The key was off but after a few adjustments, I found it and being a "karaoke virgin" everyone paid attention and clapped, mostly out of surprise I think that I didn't stink. haha...

So, Tony was up last singing "Take on me" by aha. I guess I wasn't expecting much since he said he was terrible and not that good and on and on, so it really surprised me when he was actually great! I think we all loosened up after that, well I guess Tony and I did, since Mum had no fear whatsoever from the start, and we all sang another song each and did a little bit of dueting.


"i got you babe"

So I've learned that clubs/bars that cater to 50+ somethings can be fun after all, though no less smoky. We're planning on another karaoke night Tuesday when Jake brings Tony down from visiting him in Columbus GA and that of course is going to be even more hilarious and fun... generating even more loverly photos!