February Group Dinner

We met Friday evening at the Boyntons' home for a great dinner. Vic made lasagna and chocolate mousse (dessert) and Rod made bruschetta. Ostergars added antipasto, Millers made salad, and we took bread. The food was great and the company was fun, although we missed the Christophersons and Freestones. We looked like a bunch of teenagers as we sat around and texted and shared aps. Crazy!

 Vic, Sharon, Rod, Kris, and Nancy

 Rod's bruschetta

 Melone e prosciutto

 Allen, Sharon, and Stan

 Rod looks put-out, but it was a farce

Just prior to pulling out our phones

Hope you all have a happy Valentine's. That's all for now.

OXO

D.

A Mid-Winter Visit and More

Among other news, Debra Sue Darling Gibbs flew in from Texas on 31 January. I dropped her off for her return flight this morning. As always, it is fun when Debby comes: much visiting, good food, and a movie or two. She also took advantage of "Dr. Pain" while she was here to get her muscles aligned and her back in place after packing children and luggage while helping Hilary get settled in Beijing. She had a good result from his treatments and may come back in a month or two for a tune up. We also got to visit with Jan Noble, recent of Russia, who is one of Deb's good Texas friends. Her husband was also an oil man; hence the time in Russia. Jan is a crazy-good baker; it was she who made the mountain of cakes for Alison's wedding.

 This has been a snowy winter

 The piles reached record heights

 Millie and the wee babbies have the snow-shoveling gene

 The inversion broke temporarily creating...

 crisp and clean air

 Ollie and Meg had dinner while their parents...

 took the ward youth to the temple

 Stew from the Christmas roast with Yorkshire puds

 And yes, I shaved; many (including Kris) didn't notice

 A beautiful winter evening at the Bombay House...

 with Debra Sue

 La Casita with Katy Kathryn

 Saturday in SLC to see Quartet, visit City Creek,...

shop at Trader Joe's and Harmon's, and eat Greek food

 Dinner at Sundance

 A perfect setting for a good dinner

 Still deep winter there

 Jan, Debby, and Dickie

 Jan, Debby, and Kris

 Night skiing at Sundance (the skiers, not us)

That's all for now.

OXO

D.

Adeus, Adeus

The bedtime song Clara grew to love this week says, "Adeus, adeus,... não esqueça de mim." Good bye, Good bye.... please don't forget me." My sentiments exactly.

All are safely home from Hawaii and Reno. I had a great week and hope the binkers did too. I am a bit heavy-handed on the cleaning-up-after-yourself thing, but I think that was tolerated reasonably well. I love those little boogers and enjoyed filling in. I also appreciate Anna's good friends who made the job easy. I am very fond of Reno and would go back any time (within reason). Reno never fails to delight me: the photos below were taken on a beautiful morning before the kids (except for Louisiana) were up and a day or so before the fog set in.

 Sunrise in the east

 Northern-Nevada skies can be spectacular

Mount Rose tinged with early-morning light

Who knows when there will something new worth posting, so adeus for now.

OXO

D.

The Sins of the Fathers

After gloating on Thursday that everything was going swimmingly, yesterday (Friday) there was a major cockup. Chatting casually with Clara at about 3:45, I asked nobody in particular, "Hmm, where are the boys?" THE BOYS!!! I forgot to pick them up. Never has anyone made a quicker journey up Thomas Creek Road with its 4 annoying stop signs and 3 even more annoying speed humps. The boys were waiting patiently, wondering why their grandfather was 20 minutes late. The sin of Anna's father was visited on her children.

Today was the final fling before the travelers return from Hawaii tomorrow. We cleaned the house (including those pesky bedrooms). My fondest hope is that it will still be straight and clean tomorrow morning, but there will be a couple of hours when neither the parents nor I will not be here to enforce an iron will on the poor binkers, so anything goes. When all was in order and everyone had eaten breakfast or elevensies, we piled in the car and headed downtown to The Discovery, a fun museum for kids. On the way home we made an obligatory Saturday stop at Costco to pick up a pizza and one or two other items, then a quick stop at WinCo for a few more items (including ice cream and root beer), and a final stop at the 7-11 Redbox for a movie. If it sounds like a party was in the offing, that would be correct.

 Friday dinner: Martha Stewart's mac and cheese

 Before

 After

 The Discovery in Downtown Reno

 The Climbing Cloud

 Boat racing in the Truckee River

 The girlies at the old Nevada telegraph office

 Mining-Tires-Are-Us

 Way out in old Nevada where the Truckee's waters flow...

 These girls have a distorted perspective

 The hospital dog at Costco

Costco checkout with our goods

 Pizza party

 Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days

 Root beer floats: yummy

That's the big finish to our party

Tomorrow Rob and Anna will be home and I will fly eastward to SLC and home. Hopefully we will overlap just slightly at the airport in Reno and will be able to bid each other welcome and farewell. So now the fun is done and that is all for now.

OXO

D.

Apologies to George and Ira Gershwin

It was a foggy day in Reno town. I awoke in the middle of the night and looked out the front windows to total dark where the city should be. The whole bottom of the valley was fogged in. It was an eerie sight, like some kind of disaster had wiped out Reno. By mid morning the sun had burned off the fog and by tonight, it was quite clear.

The day with it's comings and goings went swimmingly. Lucy didn't have math tutoring today, so when she arrived home we headed out to buy her a new flash drive as hers is non-functional. We also had to buy her some chocolate made in a French-speaking country. Godiva is from Belgium, non? Well the bar we bought turns out to be made in Germany. C'est la vie. We had a tight time frame and we rushed back up Arrow Creek Parkway just in time to pick up the boys. Back home we got dinner ready: meat loaf, fingerling potatoes, and broccoli. When the plates were clean, the dishes done, and the kitchen straight, we headed down the hill to U Swirl for dessert. The day is done!

 The valley was gone!

 Cold, freezing fog

 The bad grandpa has introduced the binkers to 

Looney Toons and they are very popular indeed

 So it turns out that Tucker doesn't like butter

on his broccoli

 Meat loaf beet loaf I hate meat loaf

 Those plates were cleaned because of yogurt leverage

 Dessert!

 Gummy worms and yogurt: GROSS!!!

 The valley reappeared (note the wonderful 

plane-watching possibilities from here)

What the @#%* are you doing with my camera Anders?

In the immortal words of Porky Pig, "That's all folks."

OXO

D.