A Perfect Day

Originally posted at Chez VH, October 17, 2010 -

 

Cemetery at St. Francis Seminary, originally uploaded by Chez VH.

It wasn't a perfect week, mind you. We worked way too hard last weekend (and before that) in the midst of a bad cold to get our house ready for an appraisal that was extremely disappointing. And, well, there were other things too, but it's more fun to tell you about the good stuff. ;)

The good part started on Friday afternoon on my way home from a doctor's appointment (where I found out that, in fact, I did NOT have pneumonia - hurray!) when I dropped by the library of a neighboring community to check on a book. You see, we had just received a letter that day stating that the book was assumed lost and that we would be expected to pay for it. We had been, in fact, looking for it for a long time and I had begun to suspect that it was sitting on the library's shelf. It was and I was such a happy camper that I stopped by a grocery store for a treat on the way home (since all of the kids had been looking for the book for awhile even though it wasn't their fault). It's not so much the cost of the book as the joy of knowing that, in the midst of all our chaos, we still can keep some important things, like keeping track of library books, somewhat in order.

So, that was an excellent start to the weekend, but I was still feeling sick and way over tired (had only gotten three hours of sleep the night before). John and I decided to rest in front of a movie in our room. The kids decided to play restaurant and thus bring us dinner (Ria was also a "guest" of the restaurant, they brought her food while she relaxed in front of the computer). We were presented with personalized menus a little later and placed our orders. Mine was an appetizer sampler (we asked for one of each of the appetizers - apples, crackers and cheese and deviled eggs), a salad with blue cheese dressing and apples and crustless quiche.

After we placed our orders with head waitress Terri, Kate and Frank came in and announced to us (taking turns saying each word): "This." "Is." "The." "Giants." "Restaurant." (I've obviously been raising them right in the baseball department.)

Although it was a bit chaotic, we were treated to a wide variety of food, which was just what I needed to get a good night's sleep. (Slept nine hours that night!)

Saturday morning, John and I made it to Mass (the feast of St. Margaret Mary - which included an excellent sermon on her role in the church), which was really nice. Then he took Ria for a long driving-practice outing to the bookstore and they got a nice father-daughter visit in at the same time. Gus had a high school boys outing at the seminary for a long afternoon and evening (capture the flag, Mass, dinner, etc). When we dropped him off, we decided to try to say hello to our "adopted" seminarian (who was stationed at our parish last year and we got to know well because we had him over for dinner and English practice regularly - he's from Colombia). He was pleased at the surprise and gave us an in-depth tour of the seminary and grounds. It's a gorgeous place with amazing staircases - including a crazy winding one that goes up into the cupola of the dome (which he was not willing to climb himself, but we all did) and a perfect fall day for exploring the grounds - including the old cemetery.

I'll have to put up a few more pictures after this post, because it was an incredible place to visit (and John got some really neat pictures). (God is good! All the time!)

Then the rest of us headed to Trader Joe's and then to a perfect little beach along the lakefront where we had a picnic (and spent plenty of time at the playground as well) before we picked Gus back up from the seminary.

Oh, yeah, and could I have asked for a better baseball game last night? Go Giants!