Friends Forever

We had a very relaxing morning. The girls played: with Christmas gifts, with Cathy's Wii, with Bandy, with toys in the house and in the garage, etc. The adults visited and made a big brunch: smoked turkey scrambled eggs by me, French toast by Susan, and caffè latte by Cathy (using the espresso machine that she gave Dad last year). Aunt Penny came out to visit, too, and before we left, we snagged a photo of three generations of Mobergs:

Suzanna, Cathy, Dad, and Penny on the couch; Abigail, I, and Hillary on the floor

The grandkids.

In the afternoon we set off for the eastern edge of the state, and I had the displeasure of driving through weather that got windier, colder, and more drizzly as we approached Grand Forks. But we're happy to be here in East Grand Forks, MN, where we're spending a couple nights with friends (Jay and Erin) whose family was one of several "game night" sets of friends (along with Jesse and Nicole and Rob and Laurie) when we used to live here. (Monthly or often more frequently, we would have a game night at one of our homes. We'd eat and then send the kids away to play the night away while the adults enjoyed beverages and played Catch Phrase or charades or a board game that inevitably got more and more entertaining as the night wore on and the beverages kept a-flowin'!) In fact, shortly after we arrived tonight, Jesse, Nicole, Rob, Laurie, and their kids showed up, too--just like old times! It's good to be with them again for the weekend.

I also had the opportunity to meet up with a couple good friends whom I haven't seen in a long time: Mishka and Darin. We met at the Italian Moon, a restaurant where Darin and I used to go frequently for late-night snacks, and we caught up a bit on each other's lives. Darin is in a Ph.D. program in OH, and Mishka recently got a graduate degree in nursing and is working as a nurse practioner. Darin had just been out tonight with another mutual friend, Michael, with whom both he and I had once been in a musical called Monky Business II: Back in the Sandals Again. So Michael joined us, too, and he's the only one of the three with whom I have a photo (Mishka had his camera along). Michael has an acting career that's going well in New York City, NY. I'm sure he owes it all to me. Or something like that.

Michael and I at the Italian Moon. When Suzanna was but a youngun, one night Michael and Darin were over to our house snacking and watching TV in the family room downstairs. Sleepy Suzanna came wandering out of her bedroom, saw a blond man seated on the floor at the end of the hallway, toddled out, crawled into his lap, and fell back asleep, thinking she was snuggling with Daddy. It was Michael! He mentions it each time that I see him.