Last Sunday was also an eventful day. We started the day off by going to Aunt Mary’s church, which had the welcome advantage of allowing us to sleep until almost 9:00. We attended the service while Aunt Mary was helping out in the church kitchen, and then we hooked up with Aunt Mary for her church’s annual “Souper Bowl” party. It is a fund raiser for the youth program. The congregation members bring in various crockpots of soups and then the teens make subs. You get a sub and then can help yourself to as many soups as you like. I think there were about 20 kinds. It was quite tasty, and it was a good time to chat with Aunt Mary.

We finished munching around 1:00, and then we all piled into Aunt Mary’s car to go see her new condo. Aunt Mary decided she had had enough of a three-floor condo, and kicked around the idea of moving into one that had no stairs. She visited one two weeks ago, and this last week she got things rolling to buy it. We were very excited to see it, and so Aunt Mary took us there – only a 2-mile drive from the church.

The condo garage faces the development’s street, and we entered through it. The garage is quite large – I think the builder (who was there) said it is two feet wider than a standard two-car garage. There is storage above the garage ceiling, and the furnace is up there as well. While slightly odd, it makes sense to me. The furnace is up and out of the way and not taking up valuable floor or storage space.

The garage opens into the kitchen, which is really part of an enormous great room. The cabinets are beautiful, and the entire space has a very open feel. All the ceilings in the condo are cathedral ceilings, which makes it feel really open. There are skylights in the great room, and lots of windows in the place, so even on a cloudy day the place was quite bright.

The condo has two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and tons and tons of storage space. Aunt Mary’s room has the biggest walk-in closet I have ever seen. The den/sun room is a delightful space with lots of light and a cozy feeling. As much as we like, well, both of our houses, Mer and I were slightly jealous of how nice the condo is. Aunt Mary has done very well for herself, and I am looking forward to seeing the place once she has moved in (probably in March).

Mer and I then headed home, where I spent a good chunk of time making chocolate-peanut butter bars. We were to head over to the Churchills’ place around 6:00 for their first Super Bowl party in their new home. This was only the second time I had made these bars, and the peanut butter part of the bars came out very sticky for some reason. They tasted fine, but I’m not sure what happened there.

The Churchills are wonderful people anyway, and they had gone all-out with tons of food. Their TV room is great for this type of event – a 54-inch TV, two couches, an overstuffed chair, and lots of carpet space allowed for a good crowd to see the game. There were Mer and I, Zach and Londa, Dubbs, another CVCA teacher – Mindy, and then three people that I had never met before who were friends of Zach and Londa’s.

Zach had a quiz about the Super Bowl that he had taken from the internet. The winner was to get a $5 gift card to Starbucks. I’m very pleased to say that I got 19 out of 21 questions and I won one of the two cards. The other card went to Mindy for being the closest predictor of the combined half-time score.

I’m pretty sure that Mer and I were the most interested in the game. I do enjoy football, and this was only the 4th weekend of football I was able to see all year (we have no TV reception ever since the signals went digital). Everyone seemed to be pretty interested in the commercials. It was an entertaining game, and that made me glad – I would have been okay with either team winning (I had a slight leaning toward New Orleans), as long as the game was good.

So, all in all, the evening was a grand success. Good entertainment, good friends, and good food. It’s what makes a house (or a condo) a home.