Relaxing and Bread making

I took two days off from work this weekend so I could relax and spend some quality time with family. In the past four years since I've started working for 'the Department' I have missed having dinner on my mom's birthday because of work. We took the "clan" to this Chinese food place where they served fried chicken with the chicken head (it was fried too). The food was decent but the service was lousy, they didn't do a good job and messed up our drinks order. Then on Monday I headed down to Modest to visit Anne. It was raining when I left Sacramento but it cleared up a little when I got south of Stockton. The Almond trees were in bloom and created a picturesque drive out to the Boonies where Anne lives. =) For dinner Anne's friend from work, Sue (who is from New Zealand) invited is over and while dinner was cooking we played Apples to Apples and a card game which was like 'war' but invovled 3 or more people. The card game's objective was to get rid of your cards first and the last person to lose their cards was called "the Village Idiot". Sue's daughter, Ella, was rather disappointed when on the second game she was "the villiage Idiot". But the night was fun and full of laugh. Ella and her brother Sam are very funny together and they would tell jokes during dinner.
Then on Tuesday Anne taught me how to make bread from scratch. I had trouble making the bread rise the last time I attempted this feat and Anne had some good recipes. I made this white bread with a hint of honey in it and it actually turned out well. Also I figured out what I had done wrong the last time, which was to kill the yeast by putting it in hot water instead of the lukewarm water required to activate the yeast. Plus I found out how kneading bread is a good stress reliever!