To San Martin and Back
Jun. 9th, 2012 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aTook a long trip down to San Martin and back today to celebrate Rob's graduation from SJU. We were lucky enough to get rides both ways from some of Bob's relatives. His brother Andy (and family) drove us south, then about 3.5 hours later his cousin Mike (and family) drove us north. We had a good time talking to folks both ways; I especially enjoyed a long chat with Mike, as he's one of Bob's relatives that I always felt the closest too. We (again) made some totally vague plans with Mike (and family) to try and bike together in Contra Costa County, which is between our house and his.
The actual party was at my mom and Bob's newly purchased and newly renovated house. It was very nice and had a great one-story floorplan, mostly along one axis, which meant that it was a really long house from the master bedroom and guest room on one side, down to the garage on the other. Which is cool because it made a lot of the separate areas feel very private. Pretty big too, with the master bedroom even having a whole separate sitting area and the garage being absolutely enormous. And three fireplaces! We were envious of all the great storage space (even including some attic above some of that humongous garage). They also have three-quarters of an acre of land, with some of that laid out as a (huge) backyard and the rest mostly dirt (and rock!) right now, with the plans to turn that into a large garden and a training area for my mom's dogs.
The party had 20 or 25 people in attendance: the usual mix of Wiedlins and Martinezes, plus several of Rob's school friends. It was, as always, good to see many folks that I know, think fondly of, and see infrequently.There was ping pong and talking, but the highlight of the party was surely the dinner. There was excellent barbecued chicken, but my mom also made several salads which were all great: an olive, tomato, and artichoke heart salad; a fruit salad, some Tabbouleh. Oh, and extremely fresh chocolate-covered strawberries, grown on a farm just a few blocks over, I believe. We got baggies of many of those to take home, where they'll nicely replace the veggies I often have with sandwiches at lunch.
All around, a nice day, though both Kimberly and I were pretty exhausted when we got home. By then I'd been socializing for about 6 hours straight, from 2.30-8.30 and I find that tiring. Whew!
The actual party was at my mom and Bob's newly purchased and newly renovated house. It was very nice and had a great one-story floorplan, mostly along one axis, which meant that it was a really long house from the master bedroom and guest room on one side, down to the garage on the other. Which is cool because it made a lot of the separate areas feel very private. Pretty big too, with the master bedroom even having a whole separate sitting area and the garage being absolutely enormous. And three fireplaces! We were envious of all the great storage space (even including some attic above some of that humongous garage). They also have three-quarters of an acre of land, with some of that laid out as a (huge) backyard and the rest mostly dirt (and rock!) right now, with the plans to turn that into a large garden and a training area for my mom's dogs.
The party had 20 or 25 people in attendance: the usual mix of Wiedlins and Martinezes, plus several of Rob's school friends. It was, as always, good to see many folks that I know, think fondly of, and see infrequently.There was ping pong and talking, but the highlight of the party was surely the dinner. There was excellent barbecued chicken, but my mom also made several salads which were all great: an olive, tomato, and artichoke heart salad; a fruit salad, some Tabbouleh. Oh, and extremely fresh chocolate-covered strawberries, grown on a farm just a few blocks over, I believe. We got baggies of many of those to take home, where they'll nicely replace the veggies I often have with sandwiches at lunch.
All around, a nice day, though both Kimberly and I were pretty exhausted when we got home. By then I'd been socializing for about 6 hours straight, from 2.30-8.30 and I find that tiring. Whew!