Friday: My mom and Dan arrived at my place shortly after 6 on Friday evening. They dropped their stuff off and we chatted for a few minutes before leaving for dinner at the Hall of Fame Café up on Lake Lansing (formerly Damon’s). We got in right away and had a pretty nice dinner; I was glad we finally got a chance to catch up, since it had already been more than a month since I was last in Ohio.
After dinner we spent an hour or more driving around the West side of town looking for a store that sold MSU apparel for my mom. She and Dan are going to the MSU-OSU game in Columbus next weekend, and she wanted to find a nice shirt to wear. Well, we went to Steve and Barry’s at the Lansing Mall… nothing. The girl there told us that Kohl’s had some MSU stuff… nothing there either. So, the whole venture turned out to be a big bust, and we eventually just gave up and went back to my place.
I had been wanting to give mom and Dan a little demo of my Wii since they’ve been thinking about getting one for a while, and I think it went over pretty well. After just a couple hours there were both pretty entranced with the tennis and bowling games, so I think they’ll eventually buy one.
Saturday: Believe it or not, I actually made breakfast on Saturday morning. Earlier in the week my mom had joked about expecting a big breakfast with eggs and sausage, so by-God I went out to Meijer on Thursday and bought everything I would need to do just that. I think the meal turned out pretty well, so maybe this will give me some motivation to actually, you know… learn how to cook.
I took off for Stef’s house a little before noon, and had an easy drive on the way to Bloomfield. For weeks Tim and Teri had been planning a secret surprise 30th birthday party for Stef’s sister-in-law, Marina, so there was still a little setting up to do before the party. Other than that though, Stef and I just lounged around for a couple hours before people started showing up.
We had a decent crowd — nothing extravagent — probably 15-20 people. The party had a French theme going on, and Teri did a really nice job of setting up the basement to look like a French café. Stef had even picked out a few CDs of French music to set the mood, so the whole setup was really neat.
The guests basically mingled downstairs for about an hour before the Southers arrived. Instead of just having everyone jump out and yell “surprise,” we decided to have them sitting around the dining room table and let Marina natually wander in and see everyone. I think we got her pretty good, because she was clearly shocked when she finally walked in and saw all her friends and family.
The party itself was a lot of fun. I sat next to Marina’s dad, Enzo, during dinner and he and I had a really nice conversation. I also got a chance to chat with Marina’s mom, June, for a while after we ate, so that was fun too. So yeah, lots of good food, music, company… the whole shebang. I think everyone really enjoyed themselves.
Sunday: Boy, Stefy and I sure had a full day today. We got up and helped Teri do a little tidying up before taking off for breakfast at the Whistle Stop in Birmingham. The place is tiny, but the food was excellent. As much as I love the Pancake House, it’s nice to just get in and out with a quick meal that isn’t a gut bomb sometimes.
We came back to the house briefly after breakfast, then went right back out to Somerset so Stef could spend her gift card from Urban Outfitters. She wound up buying a couple of cute hats there, so the trip was a success. Afterwards we drove out to Franklin to hit up the cider mill. The place was a complete zoo — people were parking on the street, in the woods, practically right on top of each other. It was nuts. The line to get cider and donuts was pretty long, but well worth it. I don’t know if I can say Franklin’s cider is any better than Uncle John’s (they’re roughly equal, in my mind), but they definitely have them beat when it comes to donuts. Whoa, man, them some tasty donuts. You gotta love it when you get a bag and there’s giant wet spots from the grease. Mmmm.
Stefy and I wanted to sit by the river and enjoy our afternoon treat, but the bees were attacking, so we decided to split. At some point during the drive Stef heard from her mom that Marina was brining Brandon into Birmingham so they could play at the park, so we decided to meet them there for a little while. We hung out for 40 minutes or so and had a nice time chatting with Marina and watching Brandon slide down the hill. After a while we needed to take off though for a movie up at the Palladium. We saw Michael Clayton, which was really good. After that we grabbed a quick bite at the coney island next door, drove back to Stef’s house, and I hit the road for Lansing.
So yeah, it was a busy day, but I had a lot of fun hanging out with my girl (as always).
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