An iconic movie, an iconic day in Chicago, a visit with some of the best people on earth, and this weekend is now one of our legendary family memories! On the cusp of fall, we flew to Indiana for Notre Dame football, garage tailgating, a university tour, frozen margaritas, Linda, spinning through town in a golf cart to Trader Joe’s, and the best part, seeing old friends again ❤️.

Kevin and Marci have been part of our whacky Foreign Service life since almost the beginning. Watching the boys grow up, helping us be parents, sharing recipes, understanding what is both right and left with the world, and bringing Mike through a year of COVID and single parenting with bike trips around Austria. If the circle of life relies on angels who are willing to teach, laugh, help, and love, Kevin and Marci are those angels for us. They also love Gus; enough to carry a leopard print cat wheel through the streets of downtown Vienna…

As guests of the Kilpatricks mere blocks from the Notre Dame campus, we woke up early to meander through the cemetery, light candles at the chapel, catch a late night soccer game, sleep on high thread count sheets, and wake up to espresso and homemade biscotti. And of course, there was the football game! My favorite part was the marching band, although I am nerdy that way. I guess the game was nice to watch, too! An unseasonably warm afternoon mixed with parades, carbonated beverages, and a crockpot of slow-roasted beef led straight to a nap and a terrible movie on the Roche Bobois sofa. I think it’s probably best, that none of us can remember the name of that horrible movie!

Our day in Chicago was a re-creation of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Like Better Off Dead and Swiss Family Robinson, we’ve seen these movies enough to know them by heart, and our kids grew up with these movies, too. They know that gummy bears get warm and soft because they’ve been in someone’s pocket, that it’s not an island it’s a peninsula, and that nobody should ever be absent from school nine times.

The day started with a rush to finish Jake’s college application at Starbucks, then moved on to a tour of Monet and Seurat at the Chicago Art Museum, tickets to a football game (not baseball, but close), and a reservation for lunch at a fancy Russian restaurant downtown. We drove a fun car that wasn’t ours (not quite a Ferrari, but a golf cart!), and cheered for a parade down Notre Dame Avenue. It was a long day of books, fine art, friends, and a fine dinner of shashlik and beet salad without spilling on the white linen tablecloth. The tea came from a real samovar, and we even had a bag of gummy bears!

The football game was a hot and sweaty mess, of food and drinks and people in costumes, cheering for the fighting Irish to beat Boise State. Seeking some fan-oriented attire of our own, we drove the golf cart to Hammes book store to get some sweatshirts. There might not be anything more fun, than driving your own golf cart through a pre-game street party for Notre Dame!!

I think we are still a long way from retirement, but seeing the possibilities is a useful reminder that we always have choices. Of who we want to be, how we want to spend our time, and how we want our energy to persist in the universe. Kevin and Marci have blessed us once again with their graceful friendship, and a reminder that we have the freedom to choose. There is a lot of laughter and love to be shared! So why not just keep doing it, for as long as we’re lucky enough to be here ❤️.