Darien Daze

Marisa, Our Squeaky Prodigy

Awakened at 6:45 by my grandson, Mitchell, taking a shower, getting ready for school.  I am, however, the first one downstairs, coffee's made, settled in for a few minutes till Beth, then Marisa, then Rami, and finally Mitchell comes down.  Around 7:20, Beth drops Rami off for the 7:30 train into the city and Mitch at the bus stop.  Evie' arises in time to have breakfast with Marisa, who does not leave for school until 8:00. This seems to be the morning routine.  Only Tyler, our eldest grandson, a freshmen in college, sleeps in for now.

We picked the perfect day to drive East, as it was sunny most of the way, in fact, I had to wear my sun glasses it was so bright.  Snow covered fields, hills, then mountains when we got in the Catskills accompanied us most of the way.  Little traffic really until we got into Danbury, on RT 7, heading to Norwalk, then Darien.  We arrived about 2:45, just about seven hours after we left the lake.  Still quite a bit of snow in Darien though it won't last long as it's warming up each day, with a high in the 60's on Sunday.

We were greeted by the Tyler, Beth, and Mitch and, of course, an excited Cody, who knows us well, mostly because I take him for walks when I am here.  Marisa came home from school around 3:15, so the whole gang was there for the rest of the afternoon, wondering why Evie did not make chocolate chip cookies for them (my fault).  We hung out until dinner, Marisa and I breaking for a walk with Cody at dusk.  We sat down to dinner around 6:30, with out Rami, who was still in the city.  The boys loved the baked ziti, but especially the sinful dessert, chocolate, peanut butter cheese cake Evie made for them in Chautauqua.

We relaxed in the evening, finally getting Marisa to go to bed because she has school today.  Mitch went soon after as he, too, has school while Evie, Tyler and I stayed up and watched the first episode of Boardwalk Empire on HBO, a fairly violent series that Evie did not like much but both Tyler and I did. We were all in bed by 10:30 except for Rami who still had not gotten back from the city, a long day for him.

The kids have only a half day, so both Mitch and Marisa should be home by 1:00.  Beth, Evie and I are going off shopping this morning somewhere near Norwalk, picking up some presents for the kids and wine for us.  Salud!