A Perfect Day

Fall was at its most glorious last week, and on Friday, Daryl and I had an appointment with John Allegretti, the architect who is designing our home renovation/addition. His office is located in St. Joseph, Michigan, on the west coast of the state, right on Lake Michigan, which is a 2+ hour drive away. It was a beautiful day for a drive, and I had arranged child care for the entire day. We talked and talked. After our meeting, which took about 3 hours (basically until we were stuptefied and could not have made another decision!) we found a small but authentic Mexican place for lunch. We love Mexican food and it's hard to get good Mexican in Michigan. St. Joseph has a great downtown, so we walked slowly back to the car, browsing shops. All the way home we listened to the radio which was playing songs from the 70s and early 80s, basically our highschool and early college days, which was fun. The entire drive was lined with trees in radiant colors, and as early evening approached, the full harvest moon rose. It was spectacular, and right in front of us as we watched it for the next hour.

When we arrived at home, the kids were happy and the house was clean. We quickly changed clothes and I put A. to bed, and then we headed off to a wedding reception for my old college roommate that I was reunited with last winter. She got married this summer out of state, a small family wedding, and was having a reception to celebrate her wedding at a nice bar/restaurant. She married a man who is the head of the local branch of a large corporation. Her husband is extremely well known and well connected in Ann Arbor, so we met a lot of interesting, well-heeled people at the party, including the mayor of Ann Arbor, the mayor's wife who is a professional pianist, the director of the University Musical Society, the director of the Michigan Theater, the principal flautist for the Ann Arbor Symphony, etc.

We returned home around 11:30pm to (mostly) sleeping kids and a clean house. We haven't spent that much time alone together in a long time, and it was a really special day.