Bonding with Olivia

This year I had a joint birthday party with Olivia. Should have done this years ago – the level of attention is way higher!! Joey and Mark had been sidetracked in Italy so they missed out on tons of leftovers but ……………… One good thing is the large quantity of veggies and spaghetti sauce that was used in the meal – baked ziti. The antipasto salad incorporated the usual provolone and salami and veggies including three varieties of summer squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, green beans and onions – all fresh from the garden. We pondered early on about how much pasta to use for 14 adults and vacillated between two pounds and three. We opted for two because of the large salad, 8 pounds of sausage, and three loaves of Italian bread that would accompany the ziti. After we got the pasta boiling we read the box and it suggested 8 oz of pasta would work for 14 people. That sounded ridiculous but it turned out that the two pounds turned into about 10 pounds of finished product. It’s lots of work to make a meal like this and since it would take about as much effort to make half as much, go for leftovers. As it turned out, about 3/4 of the ziti was consumed so the two pounds was probably a good number for us.

Olivia came up to the lake the day before the party and will be staying with us all week. I took her surf fishing and she repaid my kindness by catching more than me. What’s that all about? She did Nancy things for a couple days and then she and I went crabbing. Had a good time but didn’t catch enough large crabs to make a decent meal. In between all those activities, she’s studying her AP Chemistry for next year. What dedication. I can’t ever remember being in the same room with a school book during my summer vacations. Nancy’s going to miss having her nails done on a nightly basis so that her nails were a color match for the next day’s clothes. Olivia brought up a small portion of her overall polish collection – a dozen or so bottles- and added to that on several shopping excursions. So Nancy had some very exotic combinations to show off to the bridge and quilting ladies.