the tour de donald

sixty two hours and fifty three people later (which may be a low estimate), the tour de donald is complete. we had a whirlwind weekend in st. louis where i impressed even myself with my scheduling abilities. there was not a moment to spare as i tried to squeeze in a meet and greet with as many friends and family as possible.  

we rolled into town on friday afternoon and after a quick stop at dr. jack's we headed straight to donald's first high school football game experience. it just so happened to be homecoming at francis howell and there also just so happened to be severe thunderstorms in the area. but being the super fans that we are, we sat though the rain with kim and my mom and cheered the vikings on to victory.

we started saturday off with a visit to the st. charles republican headquarters (where i felt really important knowing the girl in charge) before having lunch at a friends house. then we spent the majority of our afternoon at the park since our weekend visit just happened to coincide with the salem camp reunion picnic, which was pretty helpful for making introductions. donald got a crash course on my church family and the legend that is salem family camp. we contributed nothing to team abraham as we failed to bounce even one pencil into our glass (while the other teams each bounced three), but we did have a respectable finish in the egg toss.

after dinner and ice cream with some high school friends we headed back to my mom's house to watch mizzou's slightly disappointing football debut in the sec. sunday morning we made the rounds at church, followed by lunch with our regular crowd. and even though donald was anxious to get to a tv for the opening day of the nfl, we managed squeezed in a visit with edith and edna as well. later that day my aunt, uncle and cousins came over to eat dinner and evaluate donald for potential acceptance into the family. i've been assured that their report will be on its way soon and we're keeping our fingers crossed for a positive review.

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like daughter, like mother

i am not known for always having a kitchen full of food. in fact, what i am known for is spending an astronomically small amount of money on groceries each month. it's something i've sort of perfected over the years, without being able to totally explain how i make it work. at some point it stops making sense even to me.  

my kitchen only has two staples...cereal and milk. everything else is optional. this works well for breakfast, but is not especially helpful when it comes to packing my lunch. it was a situation such as this that prompted what would become one of my friend missy's favorite stories. i was at her house for dinner one night (a regularly occurring event that is a contributing factor in the low grocery budget) and i realized that i had enough odds and ends to make a lunch for the next day, if only i could find some bread. not wanting to stop at the store for a whole loaf, i asked if i could have two pieces to go. she found this hilarious. (and i went home with the bread)

that being said, missy was the first person i thought of when my mom told me what happened to her the other day. she was at a friends house having dinner and packing boxes for their upcoming trip to honduras. as she was leaving at the end of the night they offered her one of their home grown tomatoes. she accepted and was anticipating a delicious blt when, alas, she remembered she didn't have any bread. so naturally, she asked if they could throw in a couple of pieces to sweeten the deal...and they did.

as missy said when i told her the story, "it's a good thing there's those of us in the world with bread to spare". a good thing indeed.

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