Hiya Monday!

Good Monday morning everyone! We had a lovely weekend and are still soaking up summer here. 

Thursday night we had our monthly wine club get together. Yes I'm going back to Thursday night because Thursday night will always be the start of a weekend for me. I blame college. 

Seared sea scallop with a lemon beurre blanc, Miller Farms pickled radish and watercress

Also, we're retired so as hubs likes to say, 'everyday is Saturday'. 

potato leek soup topped with pork cracklins and basil oil 

Besides the two courses pictured above we also had a veal marsala with wild mushrooms, golden raisin, spaghetti squash, and micro greens. Then a fourth course which included duck confit ragout with house made pappardelle, San Marzano tomatoes, Pecorino, Romano, and Ricotta. 

Dessert was a bananas foster cheesecake with caramel stroopwaffel. Yum! The entire menu was so delicious and the wines were wonderful too.  

We are kind of exhausted. When we got home from dinner hubs announced he was not doing a thing on Friday, and we did manage to have a mostly low key day. There was more catching up on laundry happening (yes, still!) then I spent most of the rest of the day in the office sorting, shredding, filing, and dealing with the paperwork mountain that had accumulated while we were busy enjoying in person time with our family.  

Friday night a couple we knew casually but not real well, invited us out to dinner. It was fun getting to know them better over Italian food eaten at a local restaurant we enjoy. 

Saturday morning we loaded up the car and the little brown dog and drove over the mountain to East Tennessee to spend a couple of days with hubs mama and his brother and sister-in-law too. We had not seen his mama in person since March so were overdue for some actual face time. 

Hubs family lived in Kentucky for a few years when he was a child and my brother and sister-in-law had very recently been back to that same small Kentucky town. They brought back everyone's favorite barbecue and had frozen the extra so we had that for dinner, then caught the sunset before watching more of the Olympics. 

Question-what do we watch when the Olympics end? 

Sunday morning hubs and I accompanied his mama to church and then to a light lunch afterwards. We went back to my brother-in-law's for a short nap (hi hubs!) and then late afternoon some friends hubs and I have known since college invited all of us to their house for dinner.  

I didn't take any pics of the women, but that's hubs in the middle with one of his best buds on the left and his brother on the right. When hubs and I were first married and lived in Knoxville we spent almost every weekend at this couple's house. Seriously we'd pack a bag and bring some board games and our favorite tunes and we'd move in with them for the weekend. They only lived a few miles away from us, but it was just so much fun to make it a whole weekend. 

Our hosts grilled ribs and we talked about many things old and new, but most importantly our high hopes for Tennessee Volunteer football, which we're all excited about. Go VOLS!  

We have a busy week ahead. Our once small, now somewhat larger than small ahem, backyard project is hopefully getting underway today. We shall see. 

One other note before I dive into this day...my daughter1 and her family (husband plus three small children) have moved to England for a six month stay while her hubs completes an orthopedic surgical fellowship. She blogs. Her writing is rich and precious and so real. If you'd like to follow along visit her blog at Sincerely Shannon. Her first entry related to the move is here-Hello, we've moved. They landed a week ago last Thursday then left for vacation the following Monday. Carpe diem! They were determined to squeeze in some fun travel on top of the actual move travel they'd just done before her hubs reports for work. 

We all live large here. 

Linking today's post with Holly and Sarah for their regular Hello Monday blog hop. Happy Monday everyone!