Visits with Parents

Before I begin today's official post, I must pause to recognize this day. For the last several years, I've made a point of taking this day off (when I had a more flexible schedule) to devote my hours to remembering the many who lost their lives on this day all those years ago. This year, 9/11 has fallen on a day I am working, but I do plan to spend parts of my day in reflection and watching the stories of the people. Whether or not this is a day you choose to physically pause (and it's fine either way), I wanted to create a space at the start of my words to say I remember.

If you're teaching your kids at home right now - or just want a good way to talk with your kids about 9/11, here's a video a friend of ours made several years ago. He's an elementary school principal.

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Ryan and I have already had our weekend for this week, and in an unusual twist, we had the opportunity to see family on both our days off!

Tuesday was my mom's birthday, and since our family is so scattered, we decided to try to see if her if it worked out in her schedule. She and Dad had plans to enjoy lunch at Eugenia's, which is a little restaurant in Wabash, and they said we could join them if we wanted!

I've never officially eaten there before (at least that I remember). Eugenia's is the restaurant attached to the Honeywell Performing Arts Center in Wabash, and I remember working a concert there one time on a Sunday evening. If I'm remembering correctly, Eugenia's didn't have evening hours on Sunday, but they provided a meal for me and my work guest, since we were on duty for their event. But this was the first time I remember being there on a regular day.

It was quite easy to keep our distance that day; they had one other party of two eating inside where we were, and another party eating outside on the patio. We had a great window seat and it was a GORGEOUS day outside, so the whole atmosphere was just delightful.

I gave Mom her present while she waited on her food:

She loves drinking cappuccino on Sunday afternoons in the winter, so I got her an official Grabill mug and some cappuccino mixes from the old fashioned general store. She loved them!

Our food was SO DELICIOUS!

And we had ice cream for dessert. Oh, it was so good. Vanilla bean ice cream rolled in candied pecans and drizzled with chocolate. I shared with Ryan. (I could have eaten it all myself.)

And a quick picture with Mom before we parted ways...

The next day after this lunch, we had the chance to see Ryan's step-dad! He came to visit us, see where we live, learn a bit more about our work, and he brought along his own kayak, and the three of us went out on a kayaking adventure!

 The day wasn't sunny this time, but it was actually pretty wonderful kayaking weather. Not too hot, and just enough breeze to help push us along!

We were out for about two hours and had some great conversations whilst gliding over the water.

After we were done with our adventure, we took him on a walking tour of Grabill, had lunch at the Mexican restaurant, and then walked some of the outskirts of town (to exercise off at least a portion of our lunch).

He was our first visitor from Ryan's side of the family, and we were so glad he came! :)