Sorry about leaving you hanging…I was very tired (partying like a mom away from her children rock star takes a lot of out me) and Tessa was very cranky (teeth emerging) so I didn’t have a chance to blog again yesterday.

I spent the weekend here.  For those of you who didn’t attend the best university ever, that is Ohio University.  (No, not Ohio State – very different places.  I hear they play football there or something.)  A group that was a big part of my college experience had a reunion for its 30th birthday.  My old room mate called and said she was going.  Steve told me I should go.  So on Friday morning, I headed to Athens. Steve stayed home with the girls.

I always forget just how much I love Athens until I go back. And the Student Alumni Board is a huge part of my great memories of my time there.  It was a group of amazing students.  We worked hard and played hard together.  I had the best time with everyone who came back.  We were saying it felt like it could have been any random Saturday 15 years ago.

This was the first time I’ve been away from the girls over night.  That means it was my first child free weekend in over 2 years.  I missed them but a weekend not being a mom is the best mother’s day gift EVER!  This is a photo of part of our group this weekend in an old favorite bar. (I don’t think they’ve cleaned the bathrooms since we graduated.)  All of us, without discussing it ahead of time, left our spouses and children at home so it really was like old times.

I didn’t want to go to the annual street party that started back in my day and has grown into a huge thing.  I told everyone I was too old to drink bad beer on strangers’ porches.  But I am sure to be the only mommy on the playground this week who can say they attended a party that had to be broken up by the riot police this weekend.  The orange glow is a couch on fire.  You might be able to take the mom away from her children but you can’t take the mom out of me anymore.  I might have uttered the following phrases: “Who is going to clean this mess up tomorrow?”, (in reference to the tiny porch roof holding 75 drunken students standing on it) “That is going to collapse and someone is going to die.”, and “That fire is awfully close to those electrical lines.”  I also insisted that we leave when we realized the riot police had arrived although I bet the toilets in jail are much cleaner that the ones in the Pub.

Some things never change. There was a lot of this:

And we had to grab a burrito from the Burrito Buggy after a night out uptown:

Some things do change.  Tex insisted we take a cab to the street party just because we could:

And we were so shocked by how cheap drinks were that we talked about it all weekend and took pictures.  (That wasn’t the case when we were poor students.)  This was a round of 7 draft beers (not rot gut cheap stuff – at least 2 of us were drinking Leinenkeugal Sunset Wheat) for $7.

And on my way home, I was able to meet up with my BFF for a cup of coffee.  It was a fabulous weekend – exactly what I needed.  Thanks Steve!