On Wednesday, our friend and former colleague Julie swung by with her very cute daughter. Julie was one of our closest friends until she had the nerve to move to California about six years ago. There, she met her husband, and they currently have one child. Jeff, Julie’s husband, could not make the trip because of work reasons, but we were excited to see Julie and her baby.

We headed over to Rockne’s, a local restaurant chain, where Mer and I ate, and Julie tried to eat, but spent much of the meal feeding Riley. I think most moms can relate to that. Julie may be a mom now, but she is still lively and funny, and we still miss her. It was good to get to see Julie, even if only for two or three hours.

After Julie left, Mer and I headed over to Porthouse Theater, which is an outdoor theater that is associated with Kent State. They do three shows every summer, and a friend had given us two tickets to go see their production of Chicago. I know Chicago is an awful play about adultery and murder, but the music is great and the stage production is always well done. I was even impressed that the costumer for the show managed to have slinky outfits for all the dancers without their being wildly scandalous. The play was very well done, and we had a great time. When I compared it to the professional version of Chicago Mer took me to last year, it held up well, although I did notice the differences. Basically, in the professional version, everyone was sculpted and super buff, they could all sing, and they could all dance. In the Kent production, everyone was in good shape, but more or less what you can expect from twenty-something actors, and they were either excellent singers and okay dancers, or excellent dancers and okay singers. That is being picky – it was still a fun production, especially since we got to see it for free. Oh – the orchestra was great – they held their own against the professional show, with the slight exception that some of the instruments were hard to hear from time to time.

On Friday, Mer and I had a quiet evening. We got a small ice cream at a local ice cream stand (Rita’s – we had a coupon), and then we stayed home and watched the Hugh Grant/Emma Thompson Sense and Sensibility, which I approved of, even if they did cut some scenes that surprised me.

On Saturday, we had another whopping five grad parties. They were quite fun because I knew all of the graduates at these parties. Some of the highlights, apart from great food and fun people:
– The kids managed to turn a Sno-Cone machine into a snowball fight.
– One party had a very friendly kitty.
– Mer managed to lose in foosball to me when she scored on herself.
– I got in a Nerf sword fight with a couple of students.
– We got to sit around a campfire eating sundaes.

Late Saturday, Mer’s parents got to town for about a week. So, on Sunday, Mer went to church with them, and I went to a local Lutheran church because I hoped to get a half-day of work in at school. Instead, I fell asleep for most of the afternoon. We went to another grad party at a pretty house on a small lake where we got to spend some decent time visiting with Dubbs. After the party, we sung by the DiPaolos’ house, where we dropped off some cookies and visited them for about thirty minutes.

Summer turns out to be a busy little time, but very much in a good way.