Birthday Party

I have more pictures - you can see most of them at online gallery now that I've finally figured out how to do it. I won't try to identify everyone; some you'll recognize and others you haven't seen before. It was a good mix of friends and family. My computer geek friend John (the one with the new blog) took over at the barbecue, Reno and Lyman brought potato salad, extra chairs, and took most of the pictures. I took a few but not as good. The girls' mom and dad both dropped in; Tasha brought a couple of her friends. Dawn and family were there of course - she planned the whole thing.

If that gallery link works, I'll add it to the sidebar and refer to it whenever I have new pictures. It's certainly simpler than trying to post them all here.

This one (at top of blog) is 3 generations. Me, son Tim, grandson Wesley (girls' dad), and granddaughter Samantha (Jim's oldest). The only generation missing is the girls and I plan to see them next Thursday. Actually, there's still another generation; my mom will be 96 in July but it's a little far to travel from New York to California for a barbecue. Of course my oldest, Carol, wasn't there and she's still missed. Today is the one year anniversary of her death.

Jim's leave was postponed at the last minute. He was home by the Monday following and we managed to squeeze in coffee together (I didn't bring my camera because I didn't know I'd be seeing them). He left the next day to take his wife, Melissa, on a well deserved short vacation. His two youngest are growing like weeds. Zachary is a very mellow kid. He smiles constantly. Jonathan is about what you'd expect of an almost 2 year old. Adorable but active doesn't begin to describe him.

I'm seeing quite a bit of oldest granddaughter these days. She's busy with work, school, putting purple streaks in her hair (on her it looks good), but still managed to join Tim and me for a late breakfast yesterday.

Our garden is doing well. Destiny's strawberry plant has produced three berries which she has eaten. It's her plant although we may steal a couple for ourselves later on. It's doing so well I may pick up a few more - enough for a shortcake later on. The tomato plants are growing and the bell pepper has two tiny peppers.

Our weather continues beautiful but erratic. High 80's one day and down to mid 60's the next. Typical spring.

Much of the country is not so fortunate. Southern California is once again dealing with fires. Maine is flooding. The entire mid-country is going through more tornadoes and there have been fatalities in north central Arkansas. CNN ran a clip of a tornado very close to our friends Karen H. and Diane and her sisters. So far as I know, they weren't affected but it did touch down fairly close to all of them. More are expected today. I heard that Arkansas has now passed Oklahoma as "tornado alley". Please keep all of them in your thoughts and prayers.

I'm now working with a newer computer. I'd forgotten that I had the girls' machine. John took it home with him, performed his magic, and swapped it for the one I'd been struggling with. This is much better. It had never worked well for the girls but we think it just needed a thorough housecleaning. I'd bought it used and it was probably full of viruses from the beginning.

We're leaving in a few minutes to go shopping and maybe have breakfast out somewhere. I'd better close this out, put my shoes on, and finish getting ready.

Thanks to all for hanging in with me all this time.