Last Friday after we finished up our tour with Mallory, Boo, Meg & I headed to Lake Junaluska, where we met Andy, Amy, and Sherri for a siblings weekend. We sure missed Zollie a lot. Saturday morning they were having a trash pickup around the lake, and those who were bodily healthy enough participated in that. Sherri with her broken back and me with my sick knees stayed at the Air BnB & had fun catching up. That afternoon after lunch we all went on a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway, from where we got on near there to where it ended in Cherokee. It was so, so pretty. We stopped at several overlooks, and every time we kept saying that the pictures would never do the view justice, and we were right. Here are a couple, though.

The library where Mallory works a couple of hours a day, transcribing oral histories that are on file there. Of course they are very good about working around her schedule, etc. It has been a great experience for her.

Our final stop of the day was to tour her sorority house. She didn’t even know this picture was on display, of the Philanthropy team from last year. This year she is the director. It was just a great day.

Friday morning Meg & I drove down to meet Boo at Mallory’s apartment, so she could take us on a tour of the USC Campus. What a great day we had. She was an absolutely fantastic tour guide. I got this picture at the first USC we saw.

She took us first to the side of campus where she has most of her classes, then to one of her favorite coffee shops in town for scones and chai tea (others did, in fact, have coffee), and then to the legendary Horseshoe – the oldest part of campus. She knew I wanted to see the Desegregation Statue, and it did not disappoint.

In her archaeology class this semester, Mallory is working with some of the artifacts that were found when they excavated the site of the kitchen building that went with the original President’s house. She is really enjoying that – I love hearing about all the treasures they found.

I knew that Mason was going to play pickleball with his bestie Jonah yesterday afternoon after church, but they surprised us with a visit after they finished up. Such a fun time hanging out with them for a while. Jeff said he felt like a dwarf standing with them 🙂

Today Jeff & I were in Rock Hill to see Adam compete in his first track meet of 2026. They had only been practicing for less than a week, I think he said, and he vaulted 10′ – just under his his PR of 10’6″ – so we were very proud. Already looking forward to cheering him on this coming Wednesday.

This puzzle is one Jeff’s folks worked many times over the years, and then passed on to us a few years back, but we had never worked it. I don’t know if they made puzzles differently in years gone by, but this was quite the challenge. A good many of the pieces didn’t hook together – just had completely straight sides the laid next to each other. It was fun, but hard to keep from knocking it apart until we got all of the pieces put together. We are vacationing in French Lick, Indiana, this summer, so we can spend time with Jeff’s dad and his family, and it’s not far from Bloomington, so Jeff is hoping to go up so we can spend some time exploring the campus, like we did a Notre Dame last summer. We hope to find some of these sites.

I am, frankly, stunned that I have actually gotten pictures downloaded on the same day that I took them. That is definitely not my way :-). Jeff & I finished what we think is puzzle #5 of our winter marathon – we think we may be developing an addiction. This one was only 500 pieces, but it didn’t have a picture inside, and the box only showed half of the puzzle, so it was quite the challenge. We persevered, though, and finally finished it up.

This afternoon was Adam’s final church league basketball game of the season. We have loved watching him play every week, so we’ll miss doing that. But then we heard today that his first track meet is next Saturday, so that will keep us busy for a while. I got this picture of our star with his proud family after the game.

We went out for a late lunch with the Rock Hill Longs after the game, and as we were heading home, who should pull up next to us at the red light but our sweet June Bug. A wonderful way to cap off our afternoon :-).

This was another puzzle Andy & Amy passed on to us – they love this brand and this artist, and I like puzzles with lots of detail, too, so that works out good for me. 1000 pieces – Shrimp Trucks. Fun.

Finally finished downloading these pictures from last weekend. Lindee took this picture of Clara with her proud grandparents 🙂

Our beautiful girl…