An Unexpected Visit.

  On my way home from work yesterday, Mandy called ... she said that she was coming over. She has been home a lot on weekends, but on a Wednesday? This was an unexpected surprise!

     After raiding the fridge, she wanted to talk about meal planning, yep ... meal planning. Imagine my surprise when she told me that she wanted me to tell her everything I know about cooking, right now!

     "Write Your Own Cookbook" (I've started one for both of my girls) and pen in hand it was clear to see that she meant business. I was thinking to my self "Ahhh, Hello ... where have you been for the last 18 years?" lol

     We started with the basics, I talked and she took notes. She wrote in recipes and made lists of easy meal options. She had no interest in gourmet cookbooks, just the basics. You know ... the everyday stuff she has grown up on. We did this for over 2 hours.

      At 7:00 she went out for a while with a friend and I was off to my Photoshop Class, we both were home by 10:30. Somehow she was able to persuade me to take a late night drive to the beach just like we've done all of her life. We call it aimlessly wandering, driving with nowhere in particular to go. I think this is one of the things Angie and Joey miss most about being home. (have I mentioned lately that I miss Angie and Joey)?

     There's a lot of give and take in the music department when we are on these journeys, we're talking hard-core rap and hip-hop ... OK! I learned a long time ago that a little compromise goes a long way in allowing me extra one on one time with this girl while she was growing up. I think it allowed me to connect on a level that is normally reserved only for your friends and other liked minded people, I highly recommend it.

     In return she is usually game for turning the radio off so we can sing old songs that my friends wrote years ago, as loud as we can. I've been singing these songs real loud with my kids in the car for 21 years now:-)

     We did take a walk on the docks in Pompano, that's where we took the photo above. It was very late when we got home and maybe I did loose a little sleep last night but it was worth it. I spent the evening doing one of the things I love doing most ... nothing with Mandy!

     I'm sure that moments like these will be fewer and farther between as both of our lives begin to move in different directions but as for last night ... all was as it should be.

                                         *** Coy ***