Our New Toys

This week has been another busy one, but with a couple of exciting moments! First, we bought a new car! We've been shopping around for a while now, and we happened to find one we thought was too good to pass up. We're now the proud drivers of this lovely 2007 Toyota RAV4.

(Note: this picture came from the dealer's listing; I haven't yet had time and sunshine to take my own pics).

As some of you know, Mark arranged to buy some very cool drums from Black Swamp Percussion before he finished the internship there. They finished both drums last week, and we were pleasantly surprised that they arrived at our door on Saturday! Here's Mark opening the packages and showing off the new drums.

Visitors!

Last weekend, Mark's brother Damon and his wife Diana came out to visit us here in BG. Here's a few of the things we did:

Dinner at Wasabi in Detroit on Thursday (after picking them up at the airport):

On Friday, Diana had to work (remotely), Mark had an exam, and I had 3 classes to teach, so Damon came to school with me and sat in on my classes. Between things, he explored campus a bit, taking some pictures he later used to give Mark and I a "quiz" about campus. Between the two of us, we did pretty well!

Hard at work

From Damon's self-guided campus tour

On the way home from school, Damon had a close encounter with the Falcon!

That night, all four of us went down to the Corner Grill, a diner downtown that I've been wanting to try for a while.

The breakfast items were definitely good enough to go back for.

On Saturday, we drove up to Toldeo to have lunch at Steak 'n Shake, then we went downtown in the afternoon for the Black Swamp Arts Festival (which is probably BG's biggest annual event). There, we watched a couple of concerts, browsed some of the booths (paintings, photos, jewelry, etc.), and enjoyed some fair food.

On Saturday night, we watched the Batman and Robin movie from the 90s...it was awful! Then we caught some fireworks from the front lawn of our building--courtesy of BGSU's first home game.

On Sunday, we had a quiet morning at home, then went out to the new Stone's Throw Tavern for lunch. It was a bit noisy, but good enough to go back another time. Then we took D&D to the Dairy Queen for some big blizzards. 

After a few more rounds of cards, it was time to head back up to the airport. The weekend went by really quickly, but it sure was nice to have company! If you're interested in another perspective on the trip, head on over to Damon's blog. If Damon and Diana are reading, thanks again for coming, and know that you're welcome back any time! :-)