After whirlwind weekend of family, friends, kids, cooking, eating, meeting, catching up and cleaning up, our condensed summer careen into fall is complete. I took time! I did not work through. It was epic.
As per the usual, nothing went according to plan. The conference paper I had to write took two days – not one. I got it done, but made poor Jess – who could’ve crossed the world in a canoe faster than she flew thanks to stopovers – wait at the train station. Five minutes, but still! We caught up over lunch while being eyed like lunch by Harley riders. (We apparently didn’t get the memo that thirty something with luscious curves gets their engines racing. Duly noted!) we beat the rain back to the house by a hair, and the cooing love fest that our kids benefitted from began! Yes – we brought in reinforcements. 🙂
Everyone was exhausted – big and little people. So we cancelled our cool dinner and ordered in. We sat on the deck and talked our brains out until we staggered to bed for some rest. Bliss. The next day, we had coffee and breakfast (scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and dill) outside in our pajamas, with the kids noodling around us and the neighborhood springing into action. We did not spring. We did groceries, a little cooking, a stroll – just took it slow. To crown our weekend laziness, Dave sent us for haircuts. Don’t mind if we do. We strolled through the Harleys as a before and after picture.
Jonnie and the other Jessica got screwed by Chicago weather and took almost 24 hours to travel from Nashville, so they bailed for Saturday night. We had our Grand Garden Feast anyway: chilled cucumber soup, tomato and basil salad in maple balsamic, beautiful home-cured steaks by Dave and grilled corn. Smug and stuffed, we nattered on in the candlelight for hours after the kids crashed. Then the dishwasher broke. How does that always happen after an epic meal rather than a paper towel breakfast? No matter. We followed up the dishwasher repair with Tess’ toy kitchen build. We passed that intelligence test by a hair, and she was in awe of the results.
Sunday was crazy day. Frankie, Joanie, Jonnie and the other Jessica drove up from Chicago at the crack of dawn. Jess, Dave and I had our moment of coffee peace, then broke and scattered to prepare for the baptism: showers, baths, cute outfits, clean diapers, bows in curls and matching shoes. This weekend we fully needed the third parent (Jessica!).
We held the baptism at my parents’ house in the garden. The day was so beautiful and the crowd so fun that I kept trying to gulp all of the amazing – you know, one of those magical days you can’t even believe turned out so perfectly? Time passed too quickly. Then we headed back for some singing and a thrown-together meal with everyone before people had to head back to real life. My parents popped in and we all sat around – you guessed it! On the deck – making merry and laughing our heads off. We couldn’t have dreamt up a better Labor Day.
