What a beautiful day

YESTERDAY WAS BEAUTIFUL! 80 degrees of perfection with clear blue skies and a cool breeze. So I took advantage of this abnormal for St. Louis summer day with the following agenda:

1. Laying outside reading (it was a business book for one of my online classes, but the weather made up for the slow read).
2. Lunch at St. Louis Bread Co. The chicken strawberry poppy seed something or other summer salad provided a fitting taste to the perfect weather.
3. An afternoon at the pool. I balanced my hours with a mix of reading and people watching. Quite entertaining.
4. A delicious dinner of grilled chicken, corn on the cob, asparagus and rice. A typical summer meal.
5. To work it off, my mom and I went to Castlewood Park, a top ten favorite of mine, and hiked the three mile trail. The matching couple a couple yards in front of us and the gay couple trailing us added a little humor to the climb.
6. When we got home, my little sister had a sleep-over party planned out for my brother and me. The ceremonies began traditionally with a ribbon cutting at the bottom of the stairs. Next came the game of "Guess Who" some would recognize from The Office where a note card is put on your forehead and everyone gives you hints to help you guess who you are (I was Johnny Depp, then Paula Abdul, then Elmo). Then came "Name that Star" where Mitch and I competed to name the celebrity under the paper first (I won). Last was "Murder" where each of us drew a paper out of a bag telling us either "murderer" or "sorry". It continues with the murderer killing people with his or her winks. With three people, the murderer (me) didn't get away with much. After our intense games we were starving, of course, so Abby moved us on to the snack table loaded with each of our favorites plus some odd additions: dove dark chocolate, Reese's pieces, jolly ranchers, nerds, craisins, chocolate chips, cookies and lemonade. It was a random assortment of our pantry spread out elegantly on doilies. Following snacks we played a little ping-pong, and then ended the evening with the movie Be Kind Rewind to which we all fell asleep to (because it was late, not boring). Abby is a talented party planner/thrower.

I love summer.