Weekend Round-Up: Friends and Family

This weekend started a little early! On Thursday night, my brother and nephew arrived from Sacramento to spend the night. We took them to dinner at Tropisueno downtown. My nephew is about to start junior high and is a great, chatty kid. It was fun to see our “glamorous” city life through his eyes. Chocolate croissants for breakfast and then back to work.

Friday night was mellow. Rob returned from a bike ride with his friend Corey at 7:30. I made a big dinner of pappardelle bolognese with green salad to share.

Saturday morning, Rob left fairly early for a ride with the Mission team. I spent the morning getting organized before leaving at 10:30 for Rebecca‘s bridal shower over in the inner Richmond. With a theme of ‘The Great Experiment” this was a perfect party for Rebecca. We were given lab coats and did America’s Test Kitchen style taste-tests on various foods. (yes, that is a hand-sewn graph paper tablecloth)

After tasting the bacon, chocolate, honey, ice cream, salsa, root beer, etc – we gather to reveal the real brands and to watch Rebecca open her gifts. What a fun event!

Quick stop at the grocery store on the way and then home to hear about Rob’s ride. We took out our bikes along the Embarcadero for a short tour to make the most of the patch of sun still in our neighborhood. The rest of the city had been irreprerably socked-in all week. Bread from the ferry building with butter and fresh blueberries at home for a snack.

At 6:30, we picked up visiting Lesley and Kendal for a dinner adventure. Lesley had a taste for crab, and with her about to move overseas for medical school, we decided to do it big at PPQ Dungeness Island. The garlic butter roasted and peppercorn fried dungeness crab at this Vietnamese spot completely lived up to expectations.

Back home again at nine, we drank tea to wash down all the butter and watched a movie before bed.

Sunday morning, poor Rob had to be at the ferry building at 4am to volunteer with the bike coalition. I got up around eight and grabbed the sunday paper (pajamas and a trench coat in the building lobby) and had a relaxing read. At 10, I motivated to pick up the house for my parent’s visit later in the afternoon.

A salad lunch and some tea along with computer time in the kitchen. An absolutely freezing day, I had to resort to turning on the heater. Summer in San Francisco!

At 2:00, my parents arrived and the sun finally broke through the fog for a few hours. We nested in the classic family vacation style – wine, snacks, books, newspapers, technology lessons and naps.

At 7:45, we walked down to Townhall for dinner with old business partners from my father’s film company. Mitch, in red, is a talented cartoonist and Pam, on his right, was the office manager when the group was in San Francisco. We had a great -huge-meal and stayed out talking until past 10.