Weekend in Gainesville

In mid-November we spent a long weekend in Gainesville, Florida, where my alma mater is and where Jonathan’s parents reside.  His brother’s family and his sister—unfortunately without Uncle Randy who was called away to New York with work to help with the Hurricane Sandy relief—all came in to town for our visit, too.  The weekend was non-stop fun, starting with the Gator Growl on Friday night (the country’s largest student-run production, a pep rally for Homecoming).  Gator Growl was hosted by Dara Torres and had performances by Tracy Morgan and country singer Josh Turner.  We also went to the football game on Saturday, met up with some old friends, celebrated Jonathan’s birthday (a little early) with his family, and even had just some cozy downtime with Nana and PopPop.  It was an awesome weekend and I really hope we have the chance to make this visit every year—hopefully next time with Uncle Randy, too!
The big game, actually not too big of a game for the Gators (against the Ragin’ Cajuns) was midday Saturday, but unfortunately it was a nail biter.  But, yay, an exciting play at the end meant the Orange and Blue were victorious!  All hail, Florida hail!


On Sunday, we explored the UF campus and mostly, the now very empty, stadium.  We weren’t allowed to run on the field like we did last time, but we had fun nonetheless.  The kids ran stadiums endlessly—I definitely ran my fair share in college, but not wearing the grins all these kids had while doing it.  Some of these pictures are totally Where’s Waldo—see if you can find at least one kid in each.  :)

{the gator chomp.}
And then Sunday evening, we had some quiet time with just Nana and PopPop.  We took Gator on a walk on a greenway behind Jonathan’s parents’ home, where he used to find shark teeth in the creek (what the kids are trying to do here) and then we went home and played Pente and other games with Nana.  It was a very nice time.