I’ve spent two wonderful days with Deb and her family. Yesterday, we had lunch together, went to the arts festival, The Book Loft, Schiller’s for the park and to the German food restaurant of the same name for dinner, and then to Graeter’s for ice cream.

The Columbus Arts Festival had a lot going on. There was live music and artisans from around the country. For some unknown reason, I thought the artisans would just be from Columbus, but there were people there from all over the country. After we walked the length of street twice, down and back, with the various exhibits and fair food, we found the children’s art area and the girls colored and stamped things. It was a good time. As I said to Deb…if I was able to be another kind of teacher, how much better can it get to color to with kids for an hour every day? I love coloring!

After we left the arts fesitval, we stopped off at The Book Loft. There are approximately 32 different rooms of books. It’s one of those stores that a book lover would need the large part of a day to adequately explore. We had just a little while to explore, but I knew I couldn’t buy much anyway as I have to conserve space in my luggage because of the motorcycle trip back home. I browsed around and the girls chose books and then we went to the park.

Not having kids, I didn’t process that the bottoms of their shoes would be extra dirty considering it had rained just the day before. I picked A. up to catch one of the bars and her shoes muddied my white shirt and shorts. I was shocked at first, seeing the black dirt on my while shirt, but then I was like, DUH! I should have known better than to get so close to swinging feet! The kids really had a good time playing at the park. Now that I think more about it, the park had swings and a jungle gym with monkey bars and slides; however, it didn’t have a merry go round. That was my favorite when I was a kid. I loved getting dizzy! ;)

Schiller’s (oops, it’s actually Schmidt’s), located in German Village, had fabulous food. The best part was the German potato salad. Well, and the sausage and sauerkraut were good too. Oh, and Deb ordered some pretzel bites — hot and chewy pieces of big pretzels served with mustard — that were quite tasty.

The girls were quite happy to go to Graeter’s, “the home of irrestible ice cream.” In addition to selling one of their favorite food groups, the one that we went to also has an indoor play area! And, now that I’ve been there, I have to say that the Black Raspberry Chip, which it’s famous for, was very good!

Today has been a productive day. Deb has been doing some blogging and grading papers, and I’ve been working on a syllabus for my summer professional writing class, and I also did a couple loads of laundry. Then, dinner was great…hamburgers and asparagas cooked on the grill, seasoned new potatoes, and a couple bottles of Killian’s Red. Can it get better? well, the the gooey brownies for dessert topped things off nicely!

Let me just say, Deb is quite the hostess! She has spoiled me to death and it’s been so nice to be around her and her family for the weekend. Some people want peace and quiet, but for me, it’s nice to be around such great people and lots of activity, especially since my apartment is usually so quiet.