A Visit Home from Blues Boy

Good morning JCA's!

I've been searching for navy blue flats (ballet and moc-style) and in my next post want to report on a few interesting possibilities (Heidi, oh Heidi, are you listening, GF?) -- but first lemme tell y'all why you're looking at an especially happy JCAUNCMom today!

(1) The weather's (finally) beautiful and dry here and

(2) WAY more important, Mr. J'Mom and I had the absolute delight of a nice long-weekend visit home from our almost-20-year-old DS#2!!!

Since his older brother Journey Boy has a blogosphere name, let's name DS#2 more descriptively.  How about "Blues Boy", in honor of his startlingly blue eyes and his love for all things "Carolina Blue"?  Sneak peek at the big blue eyes and the face I love so much:

Blues Boy blew into town last Wednesday night for UNC's fall break and brought with him an adorable suitemate, along with a huge dose of clutter and stinky giant shoes and noise and laughter.  The most fantastic manly aromas drifted out of Blues Boy's shades-drawn-vampire-in-residence bedroom, our guest room (shades also drawn -- vampire number two in temporary residence) and my usually-pristine-these-days bathrooms, which for four days stayed all delightfully steamed up and messy with wet towels on the floor and the lingering scents of Old Spice deodorant (BB's favorite) and some pleasant girl-enticing cologne.  I spent the whole weekend wearing a big silly grin.  The boys packed just about every Atlanta activity possible into their 3 1/2 days here.  Lots of college kids seemed to be on break or just in town this weekend, so Blues Boy got to introduce many of his high school "posse" to Cute Suitemate.  Saturday night a big crew piled into our house for ping pong, pool and roasting s'mores, marshmallows and banana boats over our little copper fire pit.  Hubby and I spent the evening in the living room watching shows we'd TIVO'd, answering the front door, happily getting big hugs and hearing life-at-college tales, and listening to the chatter and belly laughs coming from the back yard.  Heaven heaven heaven!!!

Today the boys are back at college, and in the ATL our house is quiet, order is restored, and our little old dog is zonked in a state of delighted exhaustion.  This must be a bit like what Cinderella felt like at 12:10 a.m.  Dinner tonight will be on a much smaller scale, and the doorbell won't ring to interrupt our evening.  These aren't bad things at all -- don't get me wrong.  Life in an Empty Nest is sweet in many ways, and I do enjoy the order and peacefulness.  But I don't think anything will ever send our happiness rating soaring more than having our children, their friends, and someday their wives and children home to visit.  It's the definition of pure joy.  If we could bottle that feeling, creating world peace would be a piece of cake. :-)