A post this late in the afternoon on ‘Coffee & Chiffon‘ can and usually does mean one thing – your girl is tired and in full-blown recovery mode! I have essentially been going non-stop since Wednesday morning, and now that I’m back home in New England and back to work, I’ve been trying to get caught up on missed correspondence, errands, and yes – blogging, too!
I had mentioned last week that I had driven to Ohio to celebrate my honorary nephew Archer’s sixth birthday (Archer of course being the son of my late best friend, Kelsey.) With airline prices being astronomical and myself never minding a longer drive to reach a destination – I opted to road trip it, instead, and headed out bright and early on Wednesday morning to cross through New York, Pennsylvania, and finally get to Columbus in about 11-12 hours total. The foliage throughout most of my drive was spectacular, and had I not wanted to get into town and checked into my hotel sooner than later – I would have absolutely stopped way more than I did.
It’s really important to me to be there for both Archer and his sister, Haven as much as I can – especially for milestones like birthdays – so when we excitedly reunited on Thursday after they’d arrived in town with their dad, it made all the time I’d spent in the car worth it!
When we weren’t playing at local playgrounds, watching ‘Harry Potter’ movies or going on little hikes, we all ate sushi (one of Kelsey’s favorites) at Kura Sushi or garlic parmesan wings (one of my favorites!) at Quaker Steak & Lube.
Archer’s birthday party was at Slick City, an indoor playground/arcade that has a number of slides for kids to race down as much as they want. I didn’t know such a place existed (Chuck E. Cheese was the birthday spot when I was a kid!) but it was so fun watching the kids and their friends have the best time – and reuniting with some of Kelsey’s friends and family I hadn’t seen for many years was an added bonus, too.
After cake and presents – I had to bid farewell to everyone and hit the road for a 10+ hour overnight haul back home to Massachusetts for some plans I’d had lined up with my girlfriends on Saturday afternoon. I’m seeing the kids again in a few weeks when I travel down to North Carolina, though – so it wasn’t too much of a sad goodbye this time around!
Admittedly, I had to stop more than once on my drive back home to rest my eyes for a couple of hours here and there since the return trip felt infinitely longer than the drive to Ohio, it was very dark out, and I could only drink so much coffee – but I made it back early on Saturday afternoon before freshening up and hitting the road again to meet the girls at the Davis Mega Maze in Sterling, Massachusetts to begin a celebratory day of Autumnal activities.
While we didn’t get as lost as we’ve done in years’ past, we still came across many dead ends and many confusing circles before we’d eventually found our way out – only to grab some deep fried Oreos and beer to congratulate ourselves on a job well done.
Afterwards, we headed towards Barre for hard cider and ale at Stone Cow Brewery, where we also picked out some pumpkins for one of the final activities we had planned that evening. I found an insanely huge one with a stem that weighed more than I did, and needed help getting it back into the car for transport to my friend Stef’s house when it came time to leave (and after we stopped to look at cute farm animals!)
Finally, the remainder of the evening was all about pizza and pumpkin carving in Stef’s kitchen – an artistic endeavor that was very messy but very, very fun – followed by a bonfire while enjoying the absolute bounty of roasted pumpkin seeds we were able to put together throughout our carving session. It was such a great time – and the perfect way to get even more into the Halloween spirit than I already am.
And while I slept like a rock on Saturday night once I’d made it back to my apartment, that wasn’t the end of my weekend – or the spooky adventures! – although I’m going to write about my Sunday evening a little later on this week!
For now, though? I’m curling up with a good horror movie and unwinding!
xo
Coffee & Chiffon 