We began the weekend with the Western Governors University (WGU) alumni event at Texas Live!, an entertainment center with a variety of restaurants, cocktail bars, live music stages, and giant video screens. For the event, WGU took over the entire venue, displaying the university’s brand elements throughout, deploying an excellent DJ in the main concourse and a live country music band in the PBR Cowboy Bar. We were there to meet and greet alums from throughout the region, who descended on the event by the thousands, to tell them about lifelong career and professional development services provided by WGU. Despite being surrounded by food and drink, we only had a couple of sliders and beers—we’re just not consuming as much as we might have prior to starting our weight-management medication. Still, we had a great time with Cliff’s teammates—before, during, and after the event!

We returned to Cloud 9 around 10:30 p.m., where we relaxed with a glass of wine and the evening news before calling it a night.

Saturday morning brought a startling wake-up call: A hail storm! Although it sounded like someone was lobbing baseballs on to the roof, the hailstones were nickel- to quarter-sized, so we (thankfully) avoided any dents or dings. After the storms rolled through, we found ourselves settling into our typical routine: watching “CBS Saturday Morning,” reading The New York Times, enjoying Bloody Mary’s, brunching, napping. Jon managed to complete several transcriptions from the Revolutionary War Pension files housed at the National Archives. He volunteered to be a “Citizen Archivist” a few weeks ago to help transcribe cursive writing in military pension files from the Revolutionary War. Transcriptions using artificial intelligence are pretty good, but imperfect, so Jon and thousands of other Citizen Archivists are working to ensure these documents are accurately transcribed and faithfully preserved.

Because we worked the alumni event on Friday, we bumped Date Night to Saturday. Chef Cliff opted to prepare our steak dinner indoors due to the chilly, damp weather. Our ribeye was complemented by a 2022 Dragon Ridge cabernet from the Lodi region of Central California. We ended the evening watching “Real Time with Bill Maher,” followed by the local news and then the first half-hour of “Saturday Night Live.” Considering it was the night to move clocks ahead one hour, we decided to call it a night and head to bed.

Sunday was cool and overcast—ideal weather for snuggling inside for our typical routines. We spent some time troubleshooting a couple issues—a dripping kitchen faucet and a leaky water regulator. We’re hoping the replacement parts we ordered online will fix the problems and we don’t incur a costly service call.

After enjoying a brunch with eggs Benedict we napped through the afternoon before (reluctantly) bringing our weekend to an end. We’ll return next Friday for another eventful weekend—the annual Be Happy Chili & Wing Cook-Off and Bloody Mary Contest!