Good morning! What a weekend I had- I’m still smiling from it 🙂 Although it started out a little busy, once my parents got here, there was LOTS of relaxing for me. I mentioned it to my parents as we were sitting on my patio and my dad said that the last time I relaxed that much was probably the last time I was with them. I have to say- he’s got a point. If they weren’t here, I would’ve kept myself busy with random things, but since they were here, I pushed aside all of my “to-do’s” and focused on enjoying my time with them. It was perfect timing amidst the craziness of this summer!

Friday Night

My mom’s request for her birthday meal was “something Italian”. My boyfriend’s mom is from Italy (she moved here when she was 19), and I always rave to my parents about her cooking so my mom wanted to see for herself. RM and I went to Waltham on Friday after work and after eating dinner (she made us pork, carrots and a salad), we got busy in the kitchen. I’m not sure if it’s an Italian cooking rule or not, but the first order of business for me was wine… duh 😉

We made a chicken cacciatore dish and it couldn’t have come out more perfectly. Everyone (even RM, who has his mother’s cooking all the time), was raving about it!

So lucky to have the chance to get extra cooking lessons. Meatballs are next on the agenda 🙂

Saturday

I headed to Wakefield to teach my first class at PUMPS (went so well!!) and then ran about a million errands to prep for my parents arrival. It’s amazing how much you can get done when you’re on a timeframe 😉 Sue and Al got here around 1:15 and I made a little mixture of things for lunch while we caught up on the patio. Mom and I later went to get pedicures. I had a little treat planned for her: bringing mini bottles of wine to make the experience even better. Everyone around us was pretty jealous!

Later in the evening, RM joined the Gagnon’s, bearing gifts of wine and flowers for my mom- very sweet!

Phew- we drank A LOT of wine throughout the evening. It’s so hard not to- family, laughs, great patio weather… they all go hand in hand!

(apparently I missed the red shirt memo…)

I let my mom relax and I took care of all the prep work- I think she needed to wear the apron as a security blanket to make her feel ok about not helping!

Although my apartment is small, it was just enough room for the 4 of us (my sister was away).

Look at that dish! Oh. My. God was it delicious!!! I couldn’t get enough of it. All in all, it was a perfect night!

Sunday

I stayed with RM and let my parents stay at my place (Hotel Monique), so I headed back there on Sunday morning before church. We walked to a nearby church and were amazed that the mass was only 35 minutes! For my fellow Catholic readers, 35 minutes is generally unheard of for a mass! I’m used to at least an hour. Crazy.

RM took us to brunch later and then I spent the rest of the afternoon reading with my parents on the patio. While I was reading, I had thoughts like “oh man. I should be blogging right now. I should be getting ready for the week. etc.”, but instead, I let myself indulge in a new book! It felt really good.

Have any of you read this?

Once my parents left, RM and I headed back to Waltham to return the pot I borrowed from his mom. Conveniently enough, it was time for Sunday Dinner 😉 We had steak, sausages, salad, rainbow chard and peppers- so delicious, and eating outside again was even better!

We made a quick stop at the driving range before heading back to East Boston (and an ice cream stop… whoops!).

I was in bed by 9:30 and it was awesome… I can’t remember the time I slept that much and that well. Boy was it needed- I felt like a new woman yesterday!

Questions for you: What was something fun that you did last weekend? Have you ever taken a cooking lesson? What’s a book you’ve read or are reading?