The Acorda’s drove down from Toronto to spend the weekend with us. They arrived around 1:45am Friday night/Saturday morning. They brought in their loads and loads of stuff and within an hour there were blankets, sleeping bags, pads, more blankets, and pillows strewn all over the family room floor. Tom and I had brought in his twin mattress from the garage and made it up for Eric and Myrna- the parents. Now had it been me I would have quickly curled up on the coach and fallen fast asleep- but these folks, they’re nocturnal. They stayed up for another hour or two playing scrabble, talking, laughing, and generally being loud. For the first time our upstairs neighbors had to come down and ask us to be quiet! The next morning Eric was up early laying out food for breakfast and getting things ready. I arose fairly early out of habit, and helped set out some fruit, as well as to get my “water closet” duties taken care of before the gang woke up and descended upon it in droves. Myrna had made several loaves of banana bread that they had brought with them. (They brought all the food they would eat for the entire weekend. We had told them this wasn’t necessary, but they insisted.) The kids woke up sporadically but always slowly. We didn’t get out of the house until 11:00, at which point we stopped by two stores because they were determined to pick up some sale Valentines candy. We tried Walmart first, but were surprisingly unsuccessful, so we then stopped by Maley’s a local chocolatier, and they bought $140 worth of chocolate, it was half off, and Erik said it was worth all the money they saved. We arrived in Kirtland around 12:30, and enjoyed taking pictures around the temple, as well as doing the tour of historic Kirtland. It was great to be there again. I am always so amazed by the immensity of the Temple, and the dedication of the Saints. We had an elder sister give us the tour, she brought out more of the womanly side of things, she shared how when she looked at the little trundle bed that Emma and Joseph used it made her think about how grateful they were for that first surviving child, to her it was a witness of the love of a mother for a child. I have never had mother as a guide before and I found her sentiments very inspiring.

    After Kirtland we drove them through University Circle. They loved seeing the campus and we were all excited to be able to walk out onto the frozen reflection pool in front of the art museum as it was frozen over! We tried a new Italian restaurant that Tom found online for dinner. He was a bit worried when we arrived because the place was certainly nothing to look at. It had random posters and calendars pinned on the walls, and the tables were all shoved to one side of the room as the kitchen filled the other half. The big plastic bag filled with the loaves of bread they were serving was sitting haphazardly on a desk next to the guests tables and the lighting was a bit dim. Regardless we were determined to try it- we love the surprise of such places! The cooks were obviously Italian (judging by their noses and strong accents) so we figured we were safe. And we were. The food was delicious. Tom said it was the kind of food you would get in a family’s home in Italy. It wasn’t the kind of food you would buy at a restaurant in Italy, but more home style. We all loved it, and thankfully despite their original hesitance towards Italian food, the Acorda’s loved it. One thing that was a new experience for me was that they ordered calamari- squid. The fried calamari was fine, it looked like onion rings, and the flavor was fine. But the cooked stuff was another thing. It came in a bowl, there were two forms the rings of the chopped body of the squid and the part of connecting tentacles. The rings were fine, I ate one, they are chewy like clams which I don’t like, but edible. But I couldn’t even stand to watch them eat the tentacles they would wiggle as they stuffed them in their mouths and seemed all too alive!

    We spent the evening attending a concert at Oberlin that featured a visiting Mezzo-soprano, Keri Alkema. It was fantastic and I think the older children and parents really enjoyed it. When they left that kept talking about what a cultural experience it had been to visit us! I think that is probably one of the best compliments they could have given, as Tom and I really love to live cultural lives. We spent Sunday playing games, sleeping and eating. It was lovely and certainly lively! I love all of their energy, it made this week with just Tom and I seem very quite. They loved the game of Taboo that we gave them. We played a couple of rounds of Nertz, scrabble, spoons, signs, and taboo with them. At first they didn’t like Nertz but as they caught on they wanted to play more and more rounds. We love the Acorda’s and can hardly believe that such a random introduction has led to such a binding friendship, we look forward to further exchanges in the future!