Rainy Day Darien.... Tyler's Graduation

Tyler Albarran, Fairfield Prep, Class of 2013

Beth and Mitchell

Proud Grandparents

The Almost Happy Family

Three of us are up at 6:00, waiting for the coffee maker, to grind, then brew the coffee.  Nothing like a morning wait for your coffee  It rained quite a bit last night but, fortunately, most of the day was fine, for graduation, for our brunch, for our cookout, of wings, pizza, and bratwurst.  We were originally going to leave today but because Mitch's volleyball team plays in the State Volleyball Semi Finals, we are going to stay to watch his game Tuesday afternoon, drive home on Wednesday.

Singing The Star Spangled Banner

Graduation in Fairfield College's Gymnasium

We had Tyler's graduation yesterday at 10:00 in the morning and everything went off well.  It was hot and humid in the gym but no one fainted and it was as quick a ceremony as you could ask for except for the Old Boys, class of 1963, who were talked about and each one was called up on stage to receive a fifty year certificate.  I suppose it's a nice thing to do but it prolonged the agony of sitting in the stands in the heat.  Two hundred of Tyler's classmates were called up to receive a diploma.  We listened to a mediocre graduation speech from a Priest who taught at Prep for forty years, but it was a great day for the boys.  At the conclusion, everyone gathered in the quad for cookies, kind of a mad house because of the crowd, the heat, and the fact we could not find Tyler for about ten minutes, as there were crowds of kids and parents celebrating.  We stayed for about a half an hour, had enough of the heat, and drove to New Canaan, for a brunch at the Rodger Sherman Inn.  It's a very nice bed and breakfast, with a great bar and dining room and there were quite a few people enjoying the brunch.  When I said yesterday it would be nice to linger over a meal, well, I take it back, as our brunch took over two hours, much of it waiting for our food.  It was a prix fixe menu, a choice of appetizer, breakfast or lunch options, then dessert.  It just took quite a while between courses.  Most of us started with bloody marys, then Caesar salad or shrimp cocktail for an appetizer.  For main course, I ordered Eggs Benedict with asparagus and frissee, but most ordered the biscuit and egg scramble or omelets.  A cake or ice cream was the dessert.  All were really quite good, as was the ambiance, but the kids did get bored and so did the adults after awhile.  We got there before 1:00 and left about 3:00.

Brunch at Rodger Sherman  Inn

We were exhausted when we returned so some of us took cat naps, then we had to start getting ready for Tyler's friend Brian and his family, who were coming over to celebrate with us.  Evie had made pizza dough and sauce in Hudson, so she rolled it out with Marisa, and got six pizzas ready for grilling out side on Rami's new pizza stone.  The pizza was extraordinary, great dough, five minutes on the grill, the vodka sauce on the pizza rich and tasty, and people just sat outside, waiting for the next pizza to come off the grill.  Beth made a great wing sauce, honey and Asian spices, so we cooked those on the grill for about twenty minutes and the kids devoured them in about ten minutes.  It was hard to believe  that after our great brunch we could be hungry again, but we all were.  We then had beer cooked bratwurst, then grilled, and they were great, too, but by the time we got to them, we were mostly full so we have lots left over to enjoy today.  Pam, Brian's mother brought two avocado salads, one with shrimp in it, kind of a seviche, the other had bacon and tomatoes, both interesting and tasty.  Beth made a cheese cake for dessert, one of Tyler's favorites, and ordered a carrot cake, his other favorite, so we had lots of sweets as we sat up talking till 10:30.

Yesterday was also Beth's birthday, so we celebrated it along with Tyler's graduation.  Tyler mostly got money for graduation but we also gave him three books, two my favorites from the past year, one a history of the United States over the past twenty years.  We got Beth a number of small presents, some funky pottery from Mexico, a painted frog, a large painted dragon fly, a small purse, a bag of gluten free corn chips!  All in all it was a great day.