Home Again!

My mother and her parents at the beach, 1921

Nope, DH and I didn't even get on our "bathing costumes" during our stay at the beach.  The weather was fine, but it was, after all mid-November! I think my grandparents look pretty neat in their bathing apparel, though.

We went to early church with my FIL at St. Andrew's Covenant Presbyterian Church, where my FIL went when he was a boy.  Then back to pack up.  I love how it's so much easier to pack to return home than it is to pack to GO.  We left ourselves an hour to get in one last walk together on the beach. It really is a nice beach--flat, sandy, just enough shells, nice dunes, and very uncrowded.  Here's one more picture.

The wave breaking just behind us "caught" us and totally soaked my shoes!

DH put the things in the car and strapped on the bikes and we headed off to my FIL's apartment.  He had invited numerous friends and family members to an "open house" between 12 and 2:30.  He announced that he was serving tomato soup and didn't seem to want any advice to the contrary.  I stopped by and picked up a vegetable platter and some spinach/artichoke dip at the grocery to round out the offerings.  Apparently he'd rethought his menu, because in addition to the soup he had little dishes of nuts everywhere (honestly, I'd guess there were 15 nut dishes in his small apartment living room and dining area!)  Have I mentioned that I'm a "nut" about nuts.  I found them very hard to resist, and am sure that I overdid both my nut quotient AND my salt quotient for the day (week).  Oh well.  Lots of people came and it was good to meet them and to give FIL a chance to "show off" his family.  We got off at 2:30--much later than we'd planned, but we got home by 8:30 or so with good traffic most of the way. Jay is a super traveler.  I was fooling around with my camera and taking pictures over my head toward where he was sitting behind me. This one turned out pretty well!  He was in charge of the big cooler on the seat next to him.  We always travel with baby carrots, bottles of water, bananas, and apples.  

Jay.  I can't believe he'll be 29 next week!

Let's just say that the scale was NOT my friend this morning.  Lots of cups of tea and glasses of water today in addition to my regular eating routine.  I loved having the babies come this morning. Ella was wearing a new little red corduroy dress.  I said I liked her outfit.  She replied, "Amie, this isn't an outfit, it's a dress!" Silly me.  We had baked salmon and almond apricot couscous with mint for dinner.  Then DH and I hit the gym for our strength training.  We switched our schedule so that we go on Mondays now because we have our Messiah rehearsal on Tuesday nights in November.  

I'm just starting to realize that Thanksgiving is NEXT week.  Aaaaak!  Did I mention that we're at 15 and counting for dinner that night???  (and 7 of them are overnight guests so I really have to get all my spare rooms spiffy--no piling up stuff in a "spare" room this time). Yikes.  No playing games on Facebook this week.  Oh, and yes.  We're celebrating FIVE birthdays next week--I think we're having birthday pies at T-giving dinner.  They're all clustered right around Thanksgiving Day.

I'm woefully behind reading and commenting on your posts.  I've read more than I've commented, but I'm missing that exchange.  It's part of my routine that works and I'm going to carve out some time to reclaim that part.  

Take care.