Team Thompson: Visitors

Talk about slacking...we had two visitors in town for quick visits in May and June and I'm finally getting around to letting the world know.

I bet the world knew I was withholding information...sorry about that, world.

Visitor #1: Normally I only see this guy about once or twice a year, but because of his business trip to California, I was able to see Drew twice in one month! We had seen each other earlier in May when we were all in Washington for Nanny's 90th birthday celebration.

Drew is married to my cousin Maggie and they live in Illinois. I love them dearly and wish we lived closer together.

Drew was brave enough to face the wicked traffic on the 101 and drove down from SF to meet us for dinner -- last time he was in town we went to the city to join him for dinner.

We prefer taking turns. It's the right thing to do. Right?

We took Drew to Tied House -- a great neighborhood pub in the heart of Mountain View that's within walking distance of our place. Drew had to get going after dinner -- he was in town on a business trip, after all, and when on a business trip you're expected to do some business -- so Drew had to get back up to SF for some shut eye.

Drew -- we hope your Achilles is healing quickly and that you're feeling ok. We need you to get better soon so you can take another business trip to California (and bring Maggie so we can have a "Chyterboks do Mountain View, Part Deux")! Get well soon!

Justin and Drew. The only picture I managed to snap during our time together. Not the best, but at least it's proof :)

Visitor #2: My longtime friend Jeff Myers, with his friends Anna and Eric, took a fun road trip to California in June to see a handful of baseball games at various California stadiums. They weren't following a certain team, the goal was to visit stadiums.

Jeff and I went to high school together and have remained good friends. Want to hear a funny story? I sat next to Jeff for the better part of a year-long (I think?!) sophomore year business class and neither of us spoke a word to each other. Never! An entire year! My home town may be small, but there are two elementary schools...all I knew of this Jeff character at that time was that, although we may have gone to the same middle school for three years, he was still from the other side of town and I really didn't have a reason to have a conversation with him. I was a shy one back in the day.

It wasn't until we realized we were both turning out for the tennis team that year that we started saying hello at the beginning of class. Turned out Jeff is hilarious and one of the nicest people you'll ever meet! He even worked a few summers of cherry harvest for my family. I have so many fun memories from tennis, cherries, summer internships, college and so on that involve Jeff...I'm sure at some point I'll write about them, but I don't feel right doing it now because Jeff won't ever read this blog...you have to have the internet to do that! :)

An oh-so-flattering picture of Jeff, my bro Matt and me in our grubbies during cherry harvest. Please keep in mind this was more than 10 years ago...when it was neat to wear a bandana. Thank you.

So, Jeff and friends were in our neck of the woods for a day so we met them at the Steelhead Brewery in Burlingame for dinner. We moved the party to Elephant Bar after dinner, but Justin and I couldn't stay long because we had to work the next day, but the three teachers on summer break were able to stay at Elephant Bar a while longer to live up their vacation.

Jeff, Eric and Anna are teachers near Las Vegas. I haven't seen Jeff since my own wedding, nearly two years ago now, so it was great to catch up in person. It's hard enough to see all of my friends in Washington, let along friends that moved to Vegas to teach a bunch of adorable first graders.