Ridiculous

I bet if I were to look back I probably have one or two past posts titled "Ridiculous." It is a word that is quite often appropriate and relevant in our daily lives. In this case it is appropriate because it accurately described the amount of information I need to relay in this post to get you caught up with what we have been doing. In a nut shell (one the size of Texas) we packed up and peeled out from Santa Fe, drove across the middle west to Illinois, our truck and trailer were both loaded to the gills with stupid amounts of stuff, we stayed a week with my family, stored the trailer and left my parents house with windows bulging under the stress of cookbooks, canvases and dog toys to head east to Massachusetts. We drove in a storm the whole way across, landed on the coast to visit with Billy's family for three days then drove on to the ferry for the 2 hour ride out to the island. Which island? THIS one. Nantucket. The scene of the original crime. This is where Billy and I met almost ten years ago. We are here for the summer to bake, paint and burn our bums on the beach as much as possible. It's one of our favorite places in the whole wide world and I am so stoked to be here again.

But! I'm going to take a few steps back to slap up a couple of shots from the visit in Illinois....

Being that we would only be in town for a few days we decided to host a brunch at my Mom's and invited just a few close friends over. People we wanted to be sure to spend a day hanging out with because we luuuuuurve them so much. One of my best friend's (Beth) came over with her two kids Oscar and Sully. Oscar made buddies with Rudy and they tore it up out in my Mom's enormous back yard.




Beth's youngest is Sully. And people.... let me tell you something about this baby. He is no normal baby. He is a V.I.P. Just take a gander and I think it comes across quite obviously.



We were handing him around like an action figure so that everyone could get in on the chubby baby lovin'.


Don't worry.... contrary to what it looks like no injuries were incurred during these proceedings.

It was such a joy to get to see both of these kids. They are some of my favorite people in the whole world. Also in that category is our long time friend Gordon (aka Cappy.) He cruised down from Milwaukee on his motorbike. And then he cruised all over the mid west on it after he left our party. He's cool like dat. The man packs Teddy Grahams and Glenlivet in his saddle bags. Who else do you know that does it? No one. Just our Cappy.



Our friends Art and Andrea and their kids Max and Gianna came as well but somehow I spaced getting a photo of them. I worked with Andrea when I was about 20 years old at a little Victorian revival jewelry shop in Illinois. We laughed at all the customers behind their backs and sometimes maybe even right in their face. Good times.

We had some beautiful weather while we were in IL and a nice spring full moon filled the sky with light. Until I snatched it down and made off with it.



I spent a full day hanging out with my Gram at her apartment. We chewed the fat and laughed and looked at old photos. She tells us constantly that she is our biggest fan and well, I have to say that it goes both ways as we are her biggest fans too. She is the one that gave me my start as a baker.... so there is that too.



I don't have any other family pics... we got lazy with the camera this time I guess. We did have a great time cooking our asses off with my Mom (and my Dad when he was off work) and ate good food every single night. One night my Dad and Billy ate four pounds of mussels and a whole loaf of bread between them which was getting a little bit gross I thought... but they seemed to be having a blast. My Mom stayed home with Rudy so we could head out dog free a few times. It was a great visit and we came away feeling happy as heck that we got to hang out for the week.

Thanks to Patty for my hair spa day and to Ralph and Susie for taking us out for a grand dinner and a night of belly laughs.

I'll post some pics from our stay at Gail's (Billy's Mom) next time along with tons of island pics.
I am about to be fed a big plate of some sort of fabulous dinner so I am going to leave you here for now. Well, I'll post a couple of Nantucket pics just to get the ball rolling for next time. The town harbor and Brant Point Lighthouse and a shot of our beach where we live out in Sconset.