Daddy's Quilts (1/6/2015)

Today was my last day in Albuquerque. Wowser. it was hard. It was such a great visit with my mom...19 days of fun and precious time together. I had an evening flight so we stopped at Musical Theatre Southwest on our way out of town and I got to see the quilts. For most every show this group has put on, the cast and crew got a t-shirt with the logo and dates of the show on it. The group had a big pile of t-shirts and didn't know what to do with them and they came up with this quilt idea. When our family's dear friend Mr. Thompson passed in November of 2013, we inquired as to a specific item we could donate in his honor and they said the money to make one of the quilts. So we did. And when Daddy passed in February of 2014, a group of friends did the same thing. Between the two sets of donations, there was enough money to pay for three quilts and to have plaques made honoring these two men who were such good friends with each other and friends of the theatre. I'm glad I got to see them and with my mom.

Happy Birthday 2015!

I wish everyone had parents as cool as mine were/are. Birthdays may be a day for celebrating all the years you've had to live so far, but I love to celebrate my amazing parents that made it all possible. What a giant blessing for me!!

For my birthday this year, my mom took me to El Patron, one of my favorite restaurants in Albuquerque. And, of course, I celebrated with green chile chicken lasagna...a house specialty. Oh you should taste the serrano cream sauce.

Here's to another great year of life, love, laughter, and travel.

serrano cream sauce

Green Chile Count

I arrived Tuesday, June 11 around 9am. I went to a "tea" with Mother but there were no green chiles served there. Mother made my favorite beef strogonoff for dinner (no green chiles). Wednesday morning (and Friday morning), I had a green chile cheese bagel at Smith's grocery store in the deli department with my parents and their walking group.

Wednesday was a stay at home day and enjoy casual time with my parents. No green chiles in their house. ;-) I did go out to get my hair cut and enjoyed time at Pen 'n Pad, a great little shop I've enjoyed since childhood. I came home with refills for two favorite pens plus two new calligraphy pens and a cool notebook I can use in my new job as division chair.

Thursday, Mother and I went to "Fun Day" and toured Lilly Barrack's jewelry studio then to lunch at St. Clair Winery and Bistro where I had Pasta New Mexico--pasta with Southwestern cream sauce and green chiles. The menu special was a glass of their Blue Teal Riesling for $4. Oooooh yummy wine and great pairing.

Friday was another stay at home day.

Saturday morning when "the gang" went to brunch at Milly's (as they do every Saturday), I had Milly's Breakfast Special of potatoes smothered in red or green chile (guess which I had), cheese, sausage, bacon, and ham, topped with two eggs any style (I chose "over easy"), served with a flour tortilla. This is not a photo I took (why would I order coffee?? and pancakes and orange juice?? I couldn't finish the breakfast by itself), but that came from their website. I guess I was too excited to eat Milly's breakfast, plus having so much fun visiting with longtime family friend Stephanie, that I forgot to take a pic.

Saturday night, before seeing The Producers at Albuquerque Little Theatre, we had dinner at Route 66 Diner, where I had a root beer float and green chile stew.

Sunday was Father's Day and while Mother attended a surprise birthday party for a friend of hers, I took Daddy out to lunch. He said he didn't really care where we went as long as there was ice cream. The Model Pharmacy (one of our favorites) was closed on Sundays so we did a little yellow pages search and then a Google search and found Route 66 Malt Shop (not to be confused with the 66 Diner). Dawn was our waitress and we had a blast, plus it was yummy yummy yummy. I had a quesadilla with 2 cheese, tomato and green chile. Oh my. Daddy had a barbecue sandwich and we both had banana hot fudge sundaes for dessert. (We both brought home boxes with half of our lunch so we could have plenty of room for the sundaes...I'll get to have more green chile quesadillas later.)

6/20/2011 The Marathon is Over

Wowser. I've been gone for 25 days. That's a long time to be away. I basically had 3 separate trips end-to-end, which is the only smart way to travel out of Maine because no matter what trip you're on, it takes two full days to get there and come back, so you might as well make the most of it. I figure I saved 4 travel days by doing the back-to-back thing. And fortunately, I was able to do laundry in all 3 places, so I packed light (one 36-pound roller bag). I did some shopping in Albuquerque, but I shipped a box of stuff home from ABQ, too.

So today's marathon was: up at 0230 CDT to shower and pack, leave KMO's casa at 0400 to arrive at airport at 0430 for an 0600 flight. I flew to BWI (sat next to a delightfully inquisitive and articulate 1st grader), changed planes, flew to Boston, B A R E L Y caught the 12:35 Concord Coach to Portland (Maine), waited 30 minutes, caught another Concord Coach to Augusta, drove my car from Augusta to Farmington arriving 1715 EDT. What a day. I stopped at the grocery store then went home where I opened all the windows (storm windows were still down 'cuz it was still cold when I left) then sat on my veranda and soaked up sunshine and cool breezes . . . very cool breezes, not like the ones in Austin. But I was exhausted. I started to listen to the Red Sox game on the radio while I was unpacking but went to bed when the game was still tied 3-3. I missed the 42-minute half-inning where we scored 10 points and went through the lineup at least twice. Go Sox!

So this marathon trip was more than just today . . . I was gone for 25 days! That's a long time to be gone. But when traveling from Maine, it makes sense to put your trips end-to-end 'cuz any one trip involves two full days of travel just to get to and from your destination. I saved 4 days by putting 3 trips together: a week in Dallas for Hank's ordination to the priesthood and lots of great friend visiting, 11 days in Albuquerque with my parents and all of their/my friends, and the big KMOve.

Thank you, God, for safe travels, fun adventures, and amazing friends and family. Here's to the next adventure!!

6/7/08 Saturday Breakfast at Millie's

Breakfast at Millie's is a Saturday morning tradition for my parents and their walking friends. You'd think after walking together Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings that they would see enough of each other, but they obviously don't 'cuz they get together on Saturdays, too (and often go to the theatre or dinner or other fun things as well). Everyone on staff at the restaurant knows all of them by name and all of the walkers know each of the staff by name. I'm not sure who enjoys whom more but they all have a great time.

One of the things that cracks me up about this group is when they walk, the women go one way and the men go another. Then they all meet up at the coffee shop in the local grocery store and visit (a well-deserved reward) and the men sit together and the women sit together. When they go to Millie's they sit the same way. It's almost like junior high when boys sat on one side of the dance floor and boys on the other. But it works. They all have a great time and truly enjoy each other's company.

6/5/08 More silver polishing

So I arrive in Albuquerque on June 2 and guess what's on Mother's list of things to do while I'm there . . . Polish Silver!! How fun is that?! Who else gets to polish silver in two states in one week? There wasn't as much to do as there was at Cathy's and Mother and I polish silver pretty frequently when I come visit, so there's never much tarnish buildup, but I just thought it was pretty funny that this would be a silver polishing trip. :-) In about an hour working together we got it all done. It's always fun to polish silver in Albuquerque because each piece has a family story that goes with it.

4/27/08 The e-Cousin Champagne Tradition

Here's another cool e-Cousin tradition. It was actually born the same year as the e-Cousin Spa Day event. Mary Louise's daughter, Christi (technically, a first cousin once removed from all the e-cousins except ML) married Matt that year and the e-cousins decided to celebrate. What gift could we give. And we came up with the idea that each of us would bring a champagne glass. We would toast Christi and Matt and then give them all the champagne glasses. They would end up with a set of 8 glasses, but no two would be alike. It's actually pretty cool because it's beautiful set of glasses and goes with any china/crystal patterns and every decorating taste (country, modern, etc.), and your guests can always figure out which glass is theirs.

So we did it for Christi and Matt in 2001 and Katy and Bing in 2007. Since Rebecca and Albert got married in October, it was perfect to do their champagne glasses at the next family reunion, which happened to be at their house. :-) Then Katy figured out that we had never done it for Nancy and Dale. Even though they got married after Christi and Matt, we somehow missed them. So we decided to "get caught up" by giving them champagne glasses, too. You can only imagine the nightmare of the emails. There was one set of emails going to ALL e-cousins about the reunion and regular e-cousin chatter. There was one set going to everyone except Rebecca about Rebecca's glasses and another one going to everyone except Nancy about her glasses. Oh my. But somehow, we pulled it off. :-)

Here's Katy filling the glasses with bubbly so we can break them in and toast Rebecca and Albert. All the glasses on the left of the sunflowers were for R&A. Notice that there are more reds on that side since Rebecca seems to have an affinity for things red. (And isn't it appropriate that Katy's face be hidden by sunflowers now that she lives in The Sunflower State?) All the glasses on the right are for Nancy and Dale.

Because ML couldn't be there, Katy brought glasses for her. Apparently there was even side emails going on between the two of them as Katy went glass shopping and then sent photos to ML to see what she wanted to give. And we even thought to bring an extra one for Rebecca to give to Nancy and Dale even though she didn't know about it. That was quite the trick! But we "thunk" right. Rebecca was sooo excited and relieved that we had a glass ready for her because she didn't want to miss out on that. Dang we're good! What an amazing group of women to be a part of!

4/27/08 Sunday Brunch

I love the Sunday Brunch of Family Reunion weekends because it's so relaxed and so fun and such a celebration of family, fun, and life. But I hate that it signals that another reunion is coming to an end. :-( This year's was no exception. But it was nice that everybody stayed for most of the day. There were no early departures (Nikki and Vernon before sunrise or Deborah and Daughter on the 9am flight). So the entire cast spent the entire morning and even part of the afternoon together before the inevitable call of work and obligations on Monday morning called us back to our regular lives.

Albert cooked up some of the fish that "the boys" caught on their escapade while the e-cousins were at their spa day. It was my first time to eat "dolphin" (the fish not the mammal) or barracuda. They were both delicious but is that the fish or is that the magic of Albert's cooking? We also enjoyed Rebecca's yummy quiche, coffee cake, and cheese grits. How can she do all that cooking on top of the amazing spread she put out on Friday night?! I love being related to talented cooks. I'll be picking out all the finest restaurants when reunion is in Maine in 2009. ;-)

4/26/08 What "The Boys" Do For Fun

So what do the spouses of e-cousins do at a family reunion while the girls are at the spa? Typically there either weren't any spouses or was just one so that person would either hang out with the aunts and uncles or just kind of disappear for a while. But lately, we've got more spouses! Last year and the year before, a golf outing was planned. This year there were 3 of them and they went fishing. Here are photos of the three of them and their catch.

4/26/08 dinner and desert

After our exciting and fun Riverfront Cruise, we came back to the neighborhood and had dinner at The Gold Coast Grill. Yummmmmmm!! And we had spectacular service, too! Afterwards we had ice cream at Kilwin's next door. For some folks, this was not their first experience at this great chocolate and ice cream shop. Then some of us walked back to the hotel while others drove/rode. What a great ending to a great day.

4/26/08 more elusive KMO

Here's more photos of KMO taking photos. See Dad and Twyla in the background?

4/26/08 after the cruise

I hung out with Mommy. We found this friendly fellow "hanging around". My what big teeth you have!

Here are the only siblings that made it to this reunion (of the sibling generation that is)--Daddy and Twyla.

Here are the newest members of the family: Flicka and Stinker with their "mom".

4/26/08 The elusive Karen

After the cruise, we hung around the Riverfront area for a while just to take in all the sights. Nancy, Dale, Bing, and Katy took in the local beverages. ;-) Karen loves to evade the camera so I found her here and took as many shots as I could with the assistance of the ever-helpful Dale.

4/26/08 Family fun

The prior posting was about the sights on the Riverfront Cruise, this one's about the best part . . . the fun family folks on the cruise. Check out Albert in most of the photos . . . he's checking on everyone making sure they're having a good time, asking if they need anything. The tray in his hand is from the refreshments he brought up from the concession stand below deck. He's ready to make another trip if anyone needs him to. What a host!

4/26/08 sights on the riverfront

We took a 90 minute cruise down The New River which is the longest deep river or the shortest long river . . . something like that. It reaches depths of 45-100 feet but is only 2.9 miles long. We had a guide who pointed out sights along the way. I took a lot of photos but I'm not sure I'll remember what is what. Just know that this is a teeny tiny portion of what we saw.

This little yellow house with a yellow boat out in front is the house of the mayor. It's an older home from "a different era" and was modest and cute, I thought. There were many mega-mansions along the way that had no lawns because the house took up the whole lot. I preferred these cute, older, "original" homes.

This yacht was built in Italy and cost over 29 million dollars.

Cool! We got to see the draw bridge draw. There were 3 sailboats, 2 coming at us and 1 behind us, that had masts so tall they had to raise the draw bridge.

This one's for Steve. This is the 28 million dollar home and the 11 million dollar yacht of the commissioner of the NBA.

This was the very first house in Fort Lauderdale. It's now a museum.

4/26/08 Riverfront Cruise

I didn't know this until after the cruise, but apparently Mother read about this in AAA and suggested it to Rebecca who got the whole rest of the family interested. So we all went. It was really fun. It was a gorgeous day and the area down by the riverfront is very nice. More fun!

Hurry! You don't want to miss the boat! (Valet parking was full and we were cutting it pretty close to our 4:30 departure time. We had 3 cars full of people. Fortunately, the 3 drivers made it in time to catch the boat.)

4/26/08 Spa Day

Aaaah, Spa Day!! This e-Cousin tradition is how old now? hmmmm. I need to track down this history. We first became the "e-cousins" before the reunion that Rebecca hosted in 2000. She had been emailing all the family members about details for the reunion but eventually just emailed the girl cousins "because you're the only ones replying". That group helped design the reunion shirts via email and after lots of plotting, planning, and virtual laughing, we started emailing about other things besides shirts. We've been emailing ever since and it's fabulous. We get quick updates on soccer schedules and vacation plans and what's going on at work. Then when we get to reunions we can talk about the big things 'cuz we're all caught up on the little things. The 2001 reunion at Uncle Vernon's in Los Osos, CA was the first spa day just for the e-cousins. And we've been doing them ever since!