Sunday in Amesbury

Today started, as Sundays should, with Sunday School and church. This was, of course, after a wonderful breakfast of bacon, eggs, apricot scones, and coffee. Rosemary is in charge of all of the fourth grade classes at her church, so we were there early. She set up her room. The children had made book bags to send to Tanzania and she wanted pictures of them with their bags. Earla and I were put in charge of that. We took a few pictures -- Earla did; I gathered kids. Then, we wanted to join Rosemary's fourth grade class. They were studying the third commandment and I thought it might be good to have the review. We were introduced to the class and Earla was asked to talk to them about Tanzania and I went back to take more pictures. I guess I'll have to find another review of the third commandment!
After Sunday School, we worshipped with Rosemary at Holy Family Parish in Amesbury. It is a beautiful church and the service was wonderful, formal, and with a very good message.
After church, we returned to Rosemary's and Wadi wanted ice cream. Wadi and I have similar food tastes, so the two of us had ice cream - then lunch of soup (tomato/corn chowder for Rosemary, Earla and me and kielbasi bean for Wadi).
After lunch, Rosemary suggested we go for a drive, this time south on Highway 1A. The weather here today was terrific, sunny and warm. What a change from Boston! The drive was magnificent, and Rosemary is so good at pointing out places of interest. We drove to The Crane Estate in Ipswich. The Cranes lived in Chicago and this was their summer home. It is a spectacular home with 51 rooms and grounds that are magnificent and views of the Atlantic and greens that take your breath away. From there we drove to the Spencer-Pierce-Little House. It is named for the only three families who owned it. Today it is a site for Historic New England and a sanctuary for at risk animals. The house is quite interesting as the exterior is comprised of a number of different distinctive materials. Seeing the animals was interesting as well as the horse and the goats and the sheep and the turkey and the pigs all live together in the same pen. It was here that we met three legged Betty, too. The sun was setting as we drove home. What a beautiful sunset.
I left my camera at the house today and enjoyed just enjoying the views and the ride.
We arrived home and were relaxing before dinner when the phone rang. I'd won the knit bag at the first church sale yesterday. Earla and I walked down to get it. It's a very nicely done hand knit bag. We came back in time for dinner.
Dinner consisted of baked chicken with a cucumber sauce, saffron rice with raisins, carrots, spinach salad and wine --- Oh, so good, and realizing that we would have to start cooking for ourselves soon, even better!
A game of Scrabble, an episode of Iron Chef, maybe another game of Scrabble will conclude the evening.
Tomorrow Amesbury, packing, Seattle!