My Biggest Reason for Smiling Today

So after a ridiculously long day at work (roughly ten hours) I raced home to squeeze in a quick nap before the greatly anticipated....

ANNA BANANA LOUISE (and her boyfriend, Rob) ARRIVED IN PA!

They got in around 9 or so after driving 8 hours to get here. I had been waiting forever it seems for this weekend to get here - but in other ways, it sort of snuck up on me. Still, it was unreal to see Anna's face in the car as it pulled into my driveway. I haven't seen her since May 15th, the day before I moved back home from Arizona. It was hard going from seeing her pretty much every single day for four semesters in all of our journalism classes, nights out on 4th Avenue and lunches on campus to not seeing her for almost 8 months to the day.

Since they had been driving all day, I just took them around the Mon Valley area to show them the places I've hung out locally and where I spent the majority of my time in high school. We went to the Hot House, a (newish) local bar which was pretty much empty, where we met up with Melissa and Miles. It turned out that Hot House not only has (the worst) buttery nipples ever, but the worst karaoke performers -- except for Miles, who was superb. I mean, "My Heart Will Go On" followed by "My Boots Were Made for Walking." Seriously? Seriously.

After that, Miles and I took Rob & Anna to Eat N Park, you know, cause it's the place for smiles. The food wasn't particularly good but Anna has always wanted to see this "magical place" I seem to spend so much time at (aka the only place open in Monongahela 24/7) and so there we ended up.

As you can see, Anna and Rob were happy to be there.
And I was even happier to have them there!

Side Note: This is the last mention of Miles in the blog for awhile. He's gone back to school. Sigh. Life in the Valley is about to suck, hardcore.