Summer hiatus

Like many parents of busy people scattered far and near, we hold precious the days we spend together.

Our Christmas gift is early morning laughter, our Thanksgiving gratitude is a table full of chatty faces we love, and our summer hiatus is the stretch of sunny days during which we are a party of six, please.

We wrapped up the latter with a trip to Chicago, which has become our second sweet home.

We saw Nerd Alert, the show Katherine and her comedy partner Leah wrote and are performing this month at the Annoyance Theatre. The show celebrates the nerd in all of us and we were thrilled to lend them our belly laughs and genuine admiration.

We toasted Nerd Alert and life in general at a nearby restaurant where we stretched ourselves — physically, across an accommodating table for nine; intellectually, Katherine’s sweet friends were both math majors who graduated from Northwestern University so we had to step up our Pythagorean theorem game; gastronomically, we still have no idea what Vinnie ordered but it came with its own table grill; and emotionally, we celebrated family with the poignant understanding that, come Monday, Charlie would head back to New York to resume his busy life.

Here’s to nerdy, wordy families and the blessed moments we share! Here’s to summer days, and polka parades (which I’ll write about on Wednesday), and beautiful music (which I’ll write about on Friday), and busy, busy weekends full of joy.