Summer grilling

After our travels from last weekend, it was good to spend some time at home. On Thursday, Anna and I had our first meeting with our sponsor couple for marriage. The program is called FOCCUS and it’s a program where you answer a bunch of questions independent of any discussion with one another and the results are tallied. Then you are paired with a couple who have gone through the FOCCUS training and the goal is for them to facilitate open discussion between the soon to be married couple. Anna and I both agreed that the meeting went really well and we have a very nice couple. They’ve been going to St. Kate’s for roughly four years so I’ve seen them before, but don’t really know them. It will be a good way for all of us to get to know one another well. Len and Lory, that’s their names mentioned that they knew who I was by name, but it would be a great opportunity to get to know Anna and I at a deeper level. Most couples meet around four times, but they mentioned that because of how we scored in the “test”, we would most probably end up meeting just three times. Our next meeting will be next Monday. We are both looking forward to it, for sure.

For some time, Anna and I had wanted to invite people over for a summer grill out, but because of the amount of weekends we were gone, the earliest weekend we could fit in was the past weekend. So, we had roughly twelve people come over and I grilled some brats and hamburgers. Everyone brought either a side dish or a dessert. There was more than enough food to go around and then some. Anna and I got our shopping done earlier in the day and went to my favorite place to get most of the stuff – Costco. Thank goodness the weather cooperated. Initially, it was a little warm, but it did not stop people from sitting on the patio. As the evening progressed, it really turned out to be a very beautiful evening. Everyone had a good time and it was just good to spend some time outside socializing and catching up with one another.

I found out on Friday evening that one of the servers was fired by the owner because he was not happy with the way she acted and also because he had gotten a number of complaints about her attitude with the customers. That came as a huge shock to a lot of the other servers because they all pretty much hung out with one another. Personally, I thought she was a fine server, but I do tend to see the good in people no matter what. I know she will be missed. Aaron is on vacation and will only be back to at the restaurant on Wednesday. He’s vacationing in California and it’s the first vacation he’s taken since taking over the managerial position at the restaurant. It’ll be interesting to hear his thoughts about what transpired while he was gone.

Not too much is going on this weekend. Anna left this morning for a conference up in Mason City, Iowa. She’ll be back in town on Thursday evening. I’m sure I’ll find stuff to occupy my time!

That’s the news from me for this week.