A nice, quiet weekend

Not much to blog about, but we have had a nice quiet weekend so far. We went to a fundraising auction for a co-op preschool at a Methodist church in town on Friday night. We have several friends whose children have attended the school (it is actually affordable compared to other preschools!), so we went with our friends Nate and Sonja and their daughter Miriam to check it out and try our luck at the auction. There were over one hundred great items up for auction, everything from gift certificates to restaurants and salons to handmade quilts, a doll house, tons of gift baskets, and even an exotic trip for 7 days to Africa (I think? I don't remember where actually). Anyway, we thought maybe we could get something for a decent price, considering how many things were up for auction... but we were wrong. There were 5 ladies sitting 2 rows in front of us, and in the first 50 items, they collectively won probably fifteen items. They were going crazy! Lots of items were going for pretty high prices, which I guess is good considering the auction was a fundraiser, but we were just hoping for some bargains. We left shortly after intermission, as it was after Ellie's bedtime. But it was not a total loss: during the auction, Eleanor and Miriam played in one of the classrooms with childcare and had fun, and we had some tasty cake and chocolate fondue on fruit kabobs. So it was a free evening out for us!

Today (Saturday), we headed over to the original Cottage Inn restaurant downtown and had a lunch out with Nate, Sonja, and Miriam. The Bairs are often out of town on the weekends visiting family and friends, so it was a treat to get to see them twice this weekend. We then wandered around campus, soaking in the sunshine and warm weather while most of the students and Ann Arbor population was at the big Purdue/UofM game a few streets away-- we could hear the announcer calling the plays. Saturdays are very busy here in Ann Arbor when there is a game at the stadium, and the only time to really get around downtown and avoid massive traffic back-ups is to go during the game.

We came home and managed to get the rest of our leaves raked into the street for the city leaf-pickup that happens this week. Ben is currently working on bottling some homebrew that may be making an appearance at a holiday near you! Cleaning, sanitizing, drying, filling, and capping probably over 100 bottles makes for a very long afternoon and evening. Hence my opportunity to blog.

Hope you are all doing well!