Spring Break Party - Stony Brook University CES Students!

Stony Brook Dinner Party!

This week is Spring Break at Stony Brook University, but we just couldn't bear the thought of not seeing our amazing students. This is the class that had just one student attending when we began teaching on February 22. Tonight, one young woman was sick and another had to go into the city and couldn't join us for the party.

So instead of meeting in room 309 of the Student Activities Center on campus, we met at the De Paula "pad" and partied. The students voted on lasagna (which happens to be one of our own children's favorites). It was good to be cooking again! (I thought of our kids and grandkids and all our family members who show up for dinner on Sundays for the feast:-)

Lin and I went shopping at 9:00 am and I began cooking in my miniature, under-supplied kitchen at 10:00 am and went straight through for five hours! Two giant pans of sausage/beef lasagna with three cheeses, oven baked garlic-parmesan french bread, green salad, sweet corn, fresh sliced pineapple, and homemade raspberry icecream cake roll. For ten of us I seriously thought we would have leftovers for a week. We had nothing left...and were thrilled to watch them eat! We have no idea what these starving students must go without.

After dinner and visiting, David Hamano, one of the talented students played a few numbers on his viola for the group and then Elder de Paula sang his signature song "Return to Sorento." The students seemed very appreciative. All the "planned" events were over by 9:30 pm, so they were free to go, but didn't. We were both surprised and happy to see that they hung around until after 11:00 pm to chat and laugh as a group. It was so much fun to have them in our home in a more relaxed, informal setting. It's good for us to get to know them as young people as well as students and for them to see us as regular people and not only as really old, formal teachers. We'll definitely be repeating this activty:-)