Settling in

We finally had a weekend at home that was not full of renovations. WHAT?! How can this be?!

We had a quiet Friday night with dinner cooked at home and a movie streamed on Netflix (thanks again for your password, Mom!) 

Saturday morning we slept in (glorious!!) and then took MacKenzie over to the Fishers farmer's market. She's pretty popular around these parts and got lots of pets from strangers.

Slow Saturday morning

Begging for breakfast scraps from the balcony

I had a lunch and facial date with my friend Amber as a belated birthday celebration. I again chose to eat at Piada, this time in Carmel, and was not disappointed! The Farmer's Market Salad (I guess my day had a theme) is: made-to-order with field greens, ripe strawberries, all-natural roasted chicken, feta, avocado, grilled sweet corn & spiced pecans, tossed in our signature lemon-basil dressing. (The two ingredients marked out were nixed from my salad because feta is gross and spiced anything is the devil.)

Piada made me the best salad I've ever consumed

Amber's facial was terrible in that the esthetician got acid in her eye and had to spend most of the session washing poor Amber's eye out. Mine was lovely, though. I almost fell asleep it was so refreshing. I also got a much better report than I did last year about the state of my skin since I started paying attention to it now that I'm older. Sigh.

My other theme for the day was belated birthday celebrations. Susie and her boyfriend, CW,  took Jackson and I out to one of my favorite restaurants, Mama Carolla's for dinner. We got to sit outside and enjoyed a nice meal together. Thanks again, Susie!

ITALIAN WEDDING SOUP at Mama Carolla's
The soup is worth the drive. From anywhere. 

Saturday evening Jackson and I returned to a store Amber had introduced me to earlier in the day, World Market, and got some housewares and patio furniture. We'd been looking for outdoor furniture for a month without success and we found what we wanted there was on a steep sale. Score!! Jackson even talked to manager into taking more money off of a spare chair they had that matched our set. He's nothing if not persuasive. Or is that persistent? Or is that annoying? In any case, he got what he wanted. (Shocking. Oh wait. NO.) After an interesting drive home with a car so full that I could only wedge into the backseat, he set off to assemble everything. About 90 minutes later we had success.

MacKenzie in her new spot

Watching the world go by in style

We have two chairs on the front balcony and then a matching table, chair and bench on the back balcony. The front one gets morning sun so MacKenzie and I had coffee out there Sunday morning. It was lovely. The Fishers Freedom Festival was going on in the park across the street so we took MacKenzie over to explore. She got even more pets and adoration from strangers and declared that she shall never leave Fishers again. (Except for the next time she goes to Evansville. Or Upland. Or wherever else she goes with us. HA!) We hung out a bit longer before Jackson headed out to golf with our friend Andrew and I went to Upland to visit Madison.

It was a lovely afternoon for a convertible ride and Madison was happy to see me. I ate Ivanhoe's and chatted with my folks before heading for home. Jackson wants everyone to know that he beat Andrew on the back nine. (I can only assume that means Andrew beat him on the front nine, but who am I to split hairs?!) ;)

Susie came over to watch the fireworks from our place and cashed in on the ice cream that we skipped the night before due to being stuffed with Italian food. These two  like Handel's down the street from our place. Luckily my favorite joint, Graeter's, is not within walking distance.

Susie insisted on ice cream and then they made the "fat face" once she got it. Typical. ;)

The fireworks were lovely and we all had chairs to sit on finally. Hooray!

Fireworks from the balcony

It was a great weekend settling into our new 'hood. It honestly feels like we've really relocated far from our old homes but that is entirely untrue!