Good Times Were Had...

Whew! Nothing like a whirl-wind weekend! Our little family went to the Hoosier State over the weekend to visit with families and babies. Lawyer now has two sweet baby cousins and he had fun "petting" the baby girl's head and squishing the baby boy's cheeks. I even sneaked a peak at Lawyer holding the baby girl's hand while we were in the car. Smitten, he is.

Being in "The Bend" we took an excursion to Notre Dame and hung out on campus. Books were bought (I love that Lawyer could spend HOURS in a bookstore, he never tires of it), jerseys were upgraded and an ornament was to be had.

We checked out the "go-to" sights on campus:

Notre Dame Cathedral

The Golden Dome

The Grotto

Touchdown Jesus (Mom - Just go with it, okay?)

The Football Stadium

This is Jason's "shoulda-been" Alma Mater...had he had the money. While he didn't graduate from ND, he does have a Leprechaun tattooed on his shoulder. That's how much he loves this school so it was sweet to capture moments of Jason telling Lawyer all about Notre Dame: Jason with his heart-felt stories and Lawyer with his passive interest with his obligatory "Cool."

Some of my favorite pictures were taken when we made an impromptu stop at Jason's dad's shop. It's been in the family for over 50 years and it's funny that Jason is in the same line of business that both his grandfather and father have been in...three generations of Polish-American glaziers (although, Jason's not a glazier..just in the "glass business").

This building used to be the old Hoosier Brewery that was in operation from 1900-1949...I believe sometime shortly after that, Jason's grandfather bought a portion of the building to start his glass business. If I'm not mistaken, this portion that Jason's dad's business resides was an addition to the original 4-story building and it became the bottling house. I wish we had gotten to go inside because the inside is just as amazing as the outside (in a nostalgic kind of way). Back in the back and down a few steps inside is where I believe there used to be a tunnel (it's been bricked since the brewery closed) and from my memory, I think they used to have horse and buggies pull into the tunnel to load up the carts with the bottled booze. Oh and Jason's grandfather sat in the same seat at work for almost 50 years that his feet wore an indention into the concrete...so his footprints are permanently part of the slab.

Photo Courtesy of Brewers of Indiana Guild

Here's a picture I found from 1938 of the same building as above, it's just from the opposite location and back when it was in operation.

Love it!

Jason used to play on this loading dock when he was boy!

And last but not least is a picture of one of the babies...his eyes are simply beautiful.