What a great weekend!
On Friday evening, John and I did some shopping for our weekly groceries while Thomas attended his martial arts class. Chris was around we we got home – enjoying his NEW COMPUTER. He’s having a lot of fun with it and it is everything he hoped for and more. In fact, he was a little obnoxious with the bragging. We all ate a pizza from Rosati’s together and watch Casino Royale. Actually some watched and some slept in the chair. Ooops!
On Saturday, John and I began our day with our usual coffee date, this time at Panera so we could pick up a couple of items at the nearby Walmart afterwards. Then we went home, did some chores and got ready for Dave and Kelly’s visit. They arrived with Otis in tow at about noon. We took them to our favorite downtown place for lunch, wandered the shops a little and then headed over to Urbana for a driving tour of the old neighborhood. We ended the day with a light supper at our house, followed by Buster Bar dessert. Yum! Chris had a couple of friends over for Rock Band and a movie, but Thomas, John and I headed for bed.
Today was a great church service with a really good sermon. We were all set to invite someone to join us for breakfast afterwards, but we just didn’t run into the “right” people. No one seemed to fit or be available so we headed out on our own to Atlanta Bread where we ran into a delightful couple we know from church. We were pleased to sit down to breakfast with them as they also have children who are world travelers and have studied in interesting places. They are a little farther down the road than we are though and so it’s great to hear their stories, both successes and struggles.
After our visit, we headed home to meet the boys then shortly thereafter headed out to the Gifford parade. This year there were no concessions or any other attractions, just a simple parade that lasted about 20 minutes. It was actually kind of disappointing until I started watching the group of young cousins next to us. All girls in the age 2-4 bracket, they were thoroughly delighted by the tractors, fire engines and politicians who tossed handfuls of hard candy, lollipops and tootsie rolls their way. There were no clever floats such as the year of the “root beer float” but watching these young fans made the event a winner. We then went out to the farm where Mom had fixed among other things, a delicious batch of potato salad. Her Gifford parade day potato salad is a culinary high light of my year.
We dropped the boys in Champaign on our way to Bloomington where we met dear old friends Kevin and Linda for dinner. Dinner was delicious and the conversation was delightful. We stayed and stayed and stayed til finally the waitress figured us out and stopped refilling things. Eventually, we had to go. We did make one stop on the way out of town at the Krispy Kreme shop to bring our boys a hot dozen. I wonder if we had them in our town if we would love them so much.
On the ride home, I was “peopled out.” No matter how wonderful the people, too many of them make me tired! I told John I’d being staying up until midnight just to have time alone to unwind from the many conversations I had today. But again I emphasize, it was a delightful day.
The list for the week ahead is long. Thomas is grudgingly getting started on his summer reading assignment and Chris will be plowing head first in to RYE prep this week. We will resume tomorrow morning with checking things of the list. But for now, time for some peaceful, quiet time with my good friend – random TV! Good night!
