Easter and a 60th anniversary

It's been awhile since I've updated the blog, so here are some pictures of a variety of events.

One big event was that Diane and Richard became homeless and stayed with me for a month.  Their rental in Dallas sold, the new house in Burnet wasn't ready yet, and I had plenty of room.  Tipper and I moved upstairs and Diane and Richard and their little white dustmop yappers stayed downstairs.
Here is my temporary living quarters.  I also had the office upstairs which worked out well cause JanMa's Digital Memories has been busy.

 

 Here are the 2 white dustmop yappers, Lillie and Princess.

 

 I started my homemade vanilla batch, using vanilla beans that Mandy Durst gave me while I was in Amarillo.  One batch is from Tahiti, the other from Madagascar.  Using the website and various YouTube videos that Diane found, I managed to pour booze (I used bourbon and vodka) into some bottles I bought at Hobby Lobby and add the beans.  Both batches are a rich dark brown now and smell great.  It has to stay for at least 2 months before use, but I plan to keep it many months then pour it off into smaller jars for gifts.

 Easter came early this year, but the weather was great. Diane and Richard were living at my house for a month, so they joined me and Mom at the twins' house for Easter egg hunt and lunch.  Claire got into it, but Jake did things a little differently...

 Jake would pick up an egg, open it up, check out what was inside, sniff it (his Daddy used to smell his food too), then put it in his basket, then go look for another egg.  Needless to say, Jake got the short end of the stick in Easter egg count.

 While Diane was here, we went down to Mom's house and helped her arrange pictures on her red dining room wall.  I think it came out pretty good.

Early in April the twins started preschool. Claire is showing me how a flamingo stands.

 I also made a trip to Round Top to hangout for the day with 2 of my former students, now grown up women who have lots of adventures, Sharon and Jamie.  It was chilly that day, but the weather turned out great for the weekend and Sharon had a great show and sold lots of stuff.

 Here are Claire and Jake hanging out at JanMa's after school one afternoon.  Claire is playing with my ipad. I set a timer for 10 minutes, and then Jake gets it for 10 minutes.  I was at their house one day (there are 2 ipads at their house, but they still want the one the other one has, so I still do the 10 minute timer). Jake wanted a game put on his ipad that wasn't on it.  I was holding the ipad, telling Jake I would put it on there, but I couldn't find the app store.  I flipped through 3 screens, looking at icons, App Store was nowhere to be found. I told Jake I couldn't find the app store, not really thinking he would understand.  He reached over, swiped back one screen, opened a folder and pointed to the App Store, and then he said, "There App Store".  A few minutes later I asked him to find the app store on the other ipad, he swiped a couple of screens and opened another folder and pointed to it. He  knows his ipads!

One Saturday Mom and I drove to Austin for my aunt and uncle's 60th wedding anniversary.  Diane and Richard (who had moved to Burnet the day before), met us at the restaurant.  My cousin Michael also drove up from the Woodlands.  Mom, me and Diane and Michael are the last remaining members of my Uncle's family (besides his own kids).  Everyone else there was from my Aunt-in-law's family. 

 This was the topper on their wedding cake 60 years ago, and it decorated the top of the cake served after lunch.  Amazing, my aunt had kept it all these years.

 Here they are, my Uncle GC (my Dad's brother) and his wife, Aunt Helen.

 While in Austin we made a side trip to Burnet to see the progress at Diane's new house.  Also, Mom had not yet had a chance to see it at all.

 I also had a birthday, 61, which is sort of a nothing birthday, except that I got to have it, which is good. These flowers were a special treat, delivered to the office I was working at that day, from Jennifer and Jeremy and Jake and Claire. Bill took me out to eat at Salt Grass that evening.  Mom took me out to lunch with some friends later in the week at Olive Garden, which is always good.

 The second week in April brought a small crisis that required Mimi to watch the twins for 3 hours on 2 different days.  She did a great job, they were happy to see her and liked playing at her house, going to see the fish in the pond and making cookies. Here I was loading them back up to return home from Mimi's.  Claire wants to hug and kiss everyone goodbye, and so Mimi is getting her hug and kiss.

I'm also getting ready for the summer, which is going to require a new motor on the pool pump.  Bill took it off for me, and once the new one comes in, I'll probably have a pool guy install it because of the electrical stuff involved.

 But I also now have solar sun rings floating on the pool.  These are supposed to absorb sunlight and heat the water below up to 10 degrees.  It may take several weeks, but I hope to be able to get in the pool earlier in May.  We'll see!

 And one last belated birthday lunch with girlfriends at Tommy Bahamas.  We shared the pineapple creme brulee for dessert.

 61 and proud of it!