But I would roll 500 miles for you

I traveled 442 miles round trip to have dinner with 75% of my kids Monday night and it was worth each of the 482 minutes I spent on highway 10.

I’m not really a numbers person anyway.

I am a person who loves glorious summer evenings, and smorgasbords of wood-fired pizza, and sweet bites of sour cherry pie, and Benny.

I also really, really love my family.

How lucky was I to enjoy all of that on an ordinary Monday night? 

I’ve always been a little greedy about time with my family, equally excited for my children when they passed their driver’s tests and nostalgic for those heady days when they bartered for transportation with happy (trapped-by-a-seatbelt) conversation.

So, when I heard a family dinner was developing at our favorite AirAnB, I arranged a few things and headed right on over. (Many thanks to my husband Vince for holding down the fort back home).

We gathered around a beautiful outdoor table set with wild flowers and crowded with love and anticipation. Charlie and Tara, whose wedding we get to celebrate in August, Facetimed us from their home in New Jersey and Vince checked in too. “Is everyone safe? Are you in for the night? Did you remember your toothbrush?”

A few of that crew are headed our way for the weekend so we’ll have an excellent opportunity to warm up our family gathering chops again in the coming days.

In the meantime, my belly and my heart are full.

Vinnie and Danni set a beautiful table.
And Molly brought an elegant pie she made with sour cherries foraged from trees in her Minneapolis neighborhood. (I brought that bag of cheesecurds you see in the background, an amuse bouche from Appleton. I felt less and less proud of my gift as I passed about a million cheese stores on my route to their house and saw the gourmet delicacies my kids whipped up.)
Vinnie wrangled himself a cool wood fired oven/wine barrel contraption he mans expertly. My friend Benny helped.
Just look at that little charmer! (PC: Ed Rhee) Benny rode from LA like a champ.
We loved Facetiming with Charlie and Tara.
It felt like they were there with us.
In a lot of ways, their setup reminded us of Parenthood…(PC: Ed Rhee)
They even have twinkle lights and a great fire pit.
Some of Vinnie’s delicious pizzas. (Please ignore the awkward allergy eye situation going on in the background). (PC: Ed Rhee)
Of course I drove 442 miles to hang with these gems!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.