So here's the short of it, 
I like our tradition of Sunday night family dinner. 

And here's the long.

Tonight Valdis and Kalie were able to join us for Sunday family dinner. Liga had asked for chicken and mashed potatoes, and Mom had green beans from the garden.  And our Purple Cherokee Tomatoes were just wonderful!

The chicken was especially wonderful.  And Liga was documenting ever step so we can repeat it.  Everyone was complimentary.  I thought it was juicier and tastier than any chicken I've made in over a year.  Maybe it was just the chicken - or maybe it was having Liga insisting on basting it fairly frequently in the last 30 minutes of cooking.

Of course the best part of family dinner is the family.  Mom makes it almost every week unless she's visiting with other family out of town.  Liga almost always makes it - even if she's working a weekend, she can run over on her dinner break.  Valdis isn't always able to come, but he tries to be here as often as possible, and often brings Kalie.  Once in awhile we'll have others join us, but that's the usual crew.

So Hurray for Sunday night family dinner! And another Hurray for making a pretty good chicken!

So here's the short of it, 
Today was a nice cooking day.

And here's the long.

Liga was over for most of the day helping us out with some house cleaning.  Thank Goodness!  It was great to have some help.

Today's family dinner was pasta with a choice of meat sauce or marinara with lots of veggies to stir into either one. I used a wide noodle - but I had told the kids we were having spaghetti.

When Liga's boyfriend got here, she was trying to explain to him that we weren't really having spaghetti - I overheard her say, "well it's not really spaghetti, Mom's using Jewish noodles".  I thought that was pretty funny.  The meat sauce especially was a hit!

I also made a huge pot of navy bean soup - so between the leftovers and the soup we'll be good for lunch and dinner for the rest of the week!

It's been nice to be in this routine for almost a year.  Mom - the kids when they can with their girl/boyfriends when they can - all here for Sunday night dinner.  It's nice for us.

So here's the short of it, 
What a lovely evening. 

And here's the long.

We had a full house at our Sunday evening dinner on the circle.  We finally got to meet Liga's boyfriend, Ryan. He seems like a nice young man. Valdis brought his on again girlfriend, Kalie. and Mom was here.  Alan did a bang up job with the burgers on the grill. Dinner was good - the best part was the family time.

Liga came early and helped me out with more fall break cleaning. So now we have two cleaned up refrigerators!

Wonder what tomorrow will bring -- well, one thing tomorrow will bring is a team of heat and air workers (I probably coulda said "guys") I'll look really carefully to see if I see any girls on the crew.
Anyway, I'll be up fairly early, since they get here at 8:30! It sure will be nice to go into the cooler fall weather and winter with a new and working heat and air conditioning unit.  AND this company is going to take those ugly, ugly vents from the furnace off our back patio and send them out the side of the house. I am so happy about that.  They were never supposed to have been there to start with, but the installers all those years ago decided to put them there even though I was promised another location!  I wasn't home to see what was going on that time. Tomorrow and Tuesday either Alan or I will be here the whole time for the installation!

But I want to tackle another small fall break project as well - I just don't have one picked out yet - so we'll see.