The drive down to Columbus was pretty uneventful on Friday, and I made it to mom's house by about 3:45 or so. Dan's brother Maynard showed up a couple hours later because he was also spending the weekend in Ohio on his way down to his and Dan's sister Rose's house in South Carolina for her daughter's baptism next weekend. It was good to see Maynard and catch up with him over the course of the weekend.

We all had some dinner before taking off for a play in downtown Colubums at 8 on Friday night. My mom's coworker's husband was one of the playwrites, so we had free tickets to the show. It was basically this two-act performance of a series of short scenes about the history of this (now defunct) theater in Columbus. The first act was a little uneven and unfunny (in my humble opinion), but the show definitely picked up during the second act. A lot of the scenes included inside jokes about the history of Colubums that went over my head, but I more or less got the gist of things. The second act was much better (and funnier) than the first, and the scene penned by the coworker's husband was pretty clever. It's funny, because by the end of the night I had really come around on the show; while I could've done without the first act entirely, the second half of the play was actually really entertaining. I'm glad we got a chance to go -- it's always fun to get out and do things like that when I go visit my mom and Dan in Ohio.

I slept in until about 10 on Saturday morning, which felt really good. After a week of waking up at 6 AM every morning, it's always great to be really lazy and sleep in on the weekend.

I was up and around by noon or so, and we all got our things together to drive down to the Ohio Renaissance Festival for the day. It's been at least three or four years since I went to the Renaissance Festival in Holly, Michigan, so it was cool to go see the one in Ohio. The weather was gorgeous on Saturday too, so we picked a great day to go.

A lot of the shows and shops ended up being almost identical to the ones they have at the Ren Fest in Holly, but it was still cool to check everything out. At the very least, it's always funny to watch all the crazies who walk around in their ridiculous Renaissance getups. Plus I'm always down with having a giant turkey leg for lunch.

We took off after making a few laps around the festival grounds and watching a few shows, including the jousting. It was about 5 PM when we got back to the house, which meant we were just in time to catch the second half of Michigan State's pathetic performance against the #1 Ohio State Buckeyes. Of course, the good thing was that we also had the Tiger's game going on at the same time, so at least there was something worth watching.

Yep, who'da thunk it? The Detroit Tigers are going to the World Series for the first time since 1984 – the year I was born. I was really glad that Stef got to go to both of the baseball games this weekend, but I felt bad for her dad for missing them. He's had season tickets forever, but last week was his trip to Las Vegas with his buddies, so he obviously wasn't able to go. Ah, well. Anyway, I'm just really happy for the City of Detroit and all the Tigers fans across the state. It's about time we all had something to cheer for again!

Well, my sleep-in time was significantly reduced on Sunday morning since I had to get up early enough to go to the 9:30 mass with my mom and Dan. The service wasn't too bad, but man, that priest is horrible. He gave this 15 minute meandering sermon that could've been cut down to under five minutes. It could've been worse, I suppose, but somebody needs to get that guy an editor.

We got back to the house by 11 and my mom whipped up this nice, big brunch for us before I had to the hit the road. After we ate, I pretty much packed up my clothes, re-made the bed in my room, said my goodbyes, and hit the road for Michigan.

The drive home was smooth sailing the whole way, and I got back to Lansing by about 4:45. Stef was already at my place when I got there, so we headed right back out so I could buy groceries for the week. We eventually made it back to my apartment and just relaxed for the rest of the night, and watched "Thank You for Smoking" on DVD. It was really nice getting to pal around with my girl after being apart for a few days. So yeah, that was basically it for the weekend.