Cousins United (we miss Marlena!) In Darien, CT, For The Weekend

The Cousins, Hayden, Halle, and Marisa

The Boys

I was up at 6:40, came down to make the coffee and my son in law, Drew, from Virginia (he and his family drove in last night for the weekend) came downstairs, despite having arrived last night at 11:30.  So, we have been sitting here for an hour, shooting the breeze as we used to say until 7:45, when the girls descended upon us, all excited to be up and together again.  And we have an extra dog in the house because the Bissells brought Coco, so we now have two dogs and four grand kids for the weekend.

Friday was a busy day for us, Evie especially because as I mentioned above, our daughter Jill and her family were coming for the weekend.  So Evie started making her usual lists early, of things to get organized, like the bedrooms, where the girls and adults would sleep, and of food for the weekend, meals and such.  We are hoping to do some cooking out but  the weather may get in the way although we are going to miss the brunt of the blizzard that's supposedly hitting Boston and all points North of there.

Once we got things organized, lists finished, we headed off first, to Trader Joe's, about ten minutes away.  How great it would be to have Trader Joe's so close to our home.  What a great store.  I remember first going to one in San Diego when Beth lived there, back in the early 1990's, thinking it was such a great store.  Why don't they have them out East...well, now they do but not very close to us.  The nearest are Buffalo and Cleveland, and only Cleveland has wine.  We got mostly non staples at Trader Joe's, then stopped at Stop N Shop for the rest, also five minutes away.  The roads here in Darien and surrounding areas are terrible because they are so narrow, most turns are blocked by trees or bushes, so its difficult to see oncoming traffic, and there's lots, of course, unlike Chautauqua.  It's hard to get used to it.

The kids were home early, as I picked up Mitch from school at 1:30, as his classes were over and he wanted to get home.  Of course, he then jumped into his car to go visit his girlfriend who was flying to California later in the afternoon.  We relaxed with Marisa till dinner, and had an Office marathon, so Marisa is now caught up on seven seasons.  I forgot how funny the show could be.  Dinner was easy and good, just make some rice and heat up the chili from yesterday, get out the fixings and we had dinner.  We decided to be barbarians and ate in the TV room watching The Middle, a show Evie and I have never watched but it was not bad.

Evie and I stayed up then, till 11:15, when the Bissells arrived after their six hour drive from Northern Virginia, tired about happy to finally be here.  It looks like a few inches of snow today but nothing serious although the temperatures are going below zero this evening.