Weekending

Linking up with Holly and Sarah for Hello Monday.

We had a nice weekend-  it was the first one with Abby home for the summer, we got to see Jacob and some friends and we finalized plans for an upcoming summer trip. Throw in some good food, a good church service, nice weather (for most of it), subtract poor sleeping and being asked to work on Monday instead of a day later in the week when I was scheduled to work and it was still good.

Backing up to Thursday- I picked Abby up from college shortly after I arrived home from school. We got everything loaded into my car, made sure everything was out of her dorm room, and hightailed it out of there. We stopped for dinner on the way home and then once home, unloaded the car and got ready to have Abby home with us for the summer. 

On Saturday, I started prepping items for our meal with friends on Sunday. Highlights included making brownies with homemade chocolate frosting. I had some heavy cream in the refrigerator leftover from making a dessert a couple of weeks ago and I used that instead of milk that the recipe called for. The cream made the frosting SO good and rich and elevated box mix brownies a significant bit. I assembled the meat and cheese for ham sliders, cut up veggies for a veggie dip/ salsa, put together the ingredients for buffalo chicken dip and put together ingredients for homemade mac and cheese. For all of the items that required baking (besides the brownies), I didn't actually bake until Sunday. 

We also finalized plans for travel this summer. I don't take the opportunity to travel for granted. Donnie has been super busy for months; the last time he took five week days off in a row was March of 2021. 

By the afternoon, it was hot out- really a little uncomfortable to be out and moving in. But it was supposed to become cloudy so I convinced Abby to walk into downtown with me. There is a locally owned garden shop that I like to support each year by buying flowers there. I found some items and I liked but since we walked, we couldn't transport a lot back with us. We walked home and once home, I drove back to the shop to make my purchases. Once home, I planted the flowers and got them in the ground right before a downpour. 

Sunday morning we heard a great message at church and came home to find Jacob at the house. He came home from Cincinnati to have dinner with us and our family friends.  I told him to feel free to arrive any time on Sunday- I think he wanted to get two meals out of his visit ;). For lunch, we went to a new fast, casual burrito place. Then we hung out, cleaned up and I finished preparing our dishes for dinner.

Our friends came over late afternoon, early evening and we had the best time with them. Lots of laughs and the kids enjoyed catching up with each other. 

Jacob and Abby with our friends' kids who are close to them in age and were our kids best and first friends starting when they were babies.

Our friends moved away from Ohio many years ago (it was such a sad day for us) and have lived in several states but are moving back to Ohio and near us. We are extremely grateful for that!