*I had a wedding to play for at work, so I used time before the rehearsal and wedding to build this shelf for our office to hold our tea supplies.
*Over the summer, I'm working on one song for work that we might do in the fall that looks a little tricky. I don't have any other music for the fall yet (including the musical), so my other music is Final Fantasy IX, Widor's Toccata, music for Masses, and any other fun project I want to do while I have time.
*The Husband caught Covid on the way home. The Son and I tested negative twice; we did have varying symptoms but apparently not enough of a viral load to cause problems. We did wear masks for two weeks and stayed home as much as possible.
*That gave us time to finish our puzzle of the astronomical clock in Prague; we are now taking a puzzle break to play Ticket to Ride before we get another puzzle ready to go.
*While sick I pulled on all the menus I know to make almost automatically, using up lots of supplies at home so we could go to the store as minimally as possible. One meal that I forget that I know how to make is fettuccine Alfredo; we make this recipe every Christmas Eve, and I am the official sauce maker. It's very simple: one cup half and half, one stick butter, and almost 8 ounces of Parmesan. The trick is getting everything to emulsify together; sometimes it's great and sometimes it breaks, but it still tastes wonderful. I like some fresh black pepper on mine.
*We spent our last full day at Indiana Dunes on as many beaches as we could. Although there are plenty of other trails farther inland, we decided to stay in sight of the Lake. Mt. Baldy was our morning hike, and while it was definitely steep it was not exhausting. We decided to do brunch in Michigan City at Dune Billies, and the weather was perfect for that. We did spend some time walking around the Outlet Mall and found some London Fog Milano cookies that were very tasty. We also went to the two beaches closest to the Century of Progress homes (https://www.nps.gov/indu/learn/historyculture/centuryofprogress.htm) that were funky and fun. The Son and Husband met a friend in New Buffalo after supper, and the rest of us (minus Dad) went back to Central Avenue Beach for our last beach sunset. The clouds and rain stopped just in time to give us a beautiful show.
*The Son was struggling with being on the beach (long story) so we dug a hole down to wet sand. He really enjoyed seeing the entropy of the sand work its way back into the hole.
*Saturday night we went to St. Stanislaus in Michigan City for Mass and then collected supplies to grill. I've never seen a church quite this green before, but they really carried it off well. They had a nice real organ, no cantor, and a Mass setting I haven't heard before.
*This was the cute sign at our hotel. Again we never met the innkeepers or received any kind of online receipt, but the stay went very smoothly regardless.
The next morning we did the Dunes Succession Trail. This includes a hike of many, many steps up to a point where you are supposed to be able to see Chicago. I'm sure you can when there are not fires burning in Canada, sending lots of hydrocarbons in the air your way. We were able to see Gary, Indiana. We walked the trail from the beach to the back, which meant we had a little trouble finding the start and had to walk through beach sand first. This made my dad pretty nervous as it was difficult, so he avoided the sand the rest of the trip.
The evening of our South Bend day, we wanted to go to our first Indiana Dunes/Lake Michigan beach. The closest one to us was Central Avenue Beach, a 5 minute drive away. We weren't there quite at sunset, but we did watch the sun go down and enjoy the sand and water. We never submerged in the Lake during our time there as it was still quite chilly.
*My brother got two degrees at Notre Dame, so we took the opportunity of being less than an hour away to stop by. He toured us around campus, we drove past his church and apartment, ate lunch at Fiddler's Hearth, and then headed to a couple wineries/orchards to pick up provisions. While in South Bend we stopped by two different Italian delis/restaurants for more provisions. We do like our grocery stores. For supper we drove to New Carlisle to eat at Moser's, probably our second favorite schnitzel place.
In Notre Dame we toured the admin building (inside the golden dome) and the library. I still have not seen inside the church, but yet again there was a wedding going on so we couldn't stop by.
