Gorgeous Weekend

We had a beautiful weekend here in New England. First of all, on Friday, the tile guys finished our fireplace! As you may recall, when we moved in, the fireplace had the original (1945) tile on the hearth, with some old cracked granite on the surround. Now, the hearth is a lovely slab of Volga Blue granite, and the surround is iridescent glass tiles. Before and after pictures are below:

Sorry, I didn't replace the grate or the tools yet, but you get the idea. It is hard to capture the quality of either the stone or the tiles, but they are really pretty - the colors are very subtle, and they change with the light in the room.

My cousins, Lisa, Daniel, and Joan came to visit this weekend, too, from Cleveland, Ohio. We had perfectly beautiful weather all weekend, starting with Lewis' first soccer game on Friday afternoon (against Barrington Christian School; Wheeler won!). Saturday, we went to their cousin Naomi's house in South Kingstown, RI for an 18th birthday party for her daughter, Maya. There was a fabulous (tri-lingual) band, and delicious food. Although it was a little cool, the backyard was really pretty and wooded, and there was also a badminton net, which everyone enjoyed (although maybe not as much as the band). (Lew and Maya, pictured on the right.) Saturday evening, we went to another Waterfire in downtown Providence, which is always fun.

On Sunday, we had the whole day to spend outside before we had to take everyone back to the airport. It was the nicest day of the whole weekend - it turned out to be almost 80 degrees and sunny! We went to Newport, where we had lunch on the water and then walked part of Cliff Walk. The views were amazing, and so were the mansions! It was a really terrific weekend.