This and That

Tuesday, July 26, 2016
I just looked back and realize I've not written in a few days.  I guess that is because we've fallen into a very relaxed routine that includes a couple of walks a day to reach our 10,000 steps, reading and playing games on the computer, and enjoying meals together  Last Friday night, Matt and Michelle Reidesel drove out to Wing Lauk's in Waterford where we met them for a great Chinese dinner and plenty of conversation.  It was so good to see them!

Then on Saturday, we enjoyed a good part of the day at Dean and Beth's place in Huntington Woods. Jason was enjoying one last day of total freedom before heading off to camp with his Cross Country Team for a week of team building and lots of running practice so we didn't see much of him.  Beth wanted to make a trip to COSTCO and take advantage of our membership so we had the fun of walking through with her and watching the cart get fuller and fuller.  Now she'll be stocked up till we return with her next season :-)

One thing Dean asked us to get was a fresh fillet of salmon so he could fix that for dinner.  He loves cooking and we enjoy great meals on visits like this.  He went out to his garden and picked lots of fresh basil to make pesto to put on some spaghetti noodles.  That along with a fresh salad that included tomatoes from the garden and brussel sprouts made for a top notch meal.  We had seen a key lime pie while walking through COSTCO so we purchased it and everyone enjoyed a slice for dessert.

While Dean was cooking, Beth and I spent time going through all of our pictures from Branson and figuring out which ones we should try and get into a Shutterfly book of our fun together.  We got them transferred over and now I'll attack putting it together.

Sunday morning Jason was off to camp.  There was a bit of a glitch though.  Just about an hour after they set off, Beth and Dean received a phone call ensuring them the kids were all ok but the bus had broken down and a car had run into it.  Now that is not the kind of call any parent wants to get and certainly didn't make the trip any fun for the kids and coaches either.

Then, today, I had the fun of lunch out with a teacher friend (who also had boys in elementary school classes with our kids), Jeanne Daigle, and one of our students with whom we have spent a good deal of time, Regina Heindryckx.  Regina attended adult education classes for several years at Clinton where we both taught and ultimately received her high school diploma there.  She was originally from Kenya where she met and married a GM executive who was helping create a new factory.  It was fascinating working with her and learning all about her early life living in a hut and cooking over a fire plus walking miles to fill gourds with water and carry them back home on her head.  Today she was telling us it has been 42 years since she and Walter met.  How life has changed for her over the years. Now she has a darling little granddaughter.  Of course, we enjoyed seeing pictures of her during our time together.

Our favorite meeting spot has been Peabody's on Woodward in Birmingham.  It is about equidistant from all our homes  and we've come to enjoy the fantastic Swiss Onion AuGratin soup they serve. We each savored our last bowls of that treat which we've never found anywhere else.  I now have the assigned job of trying to find a new place where we can meet from now on - hopefully at least once more before we move on from here.

Meanwhile, Ken was out and noticed that a ballooner had dropped his hot air balloon in the grassy area just below us so he caught a couple of pictures of it.