Sunday, October 20, 2019 a music rabbit hole

As long as I'm gong down a music rabbit hole, I read that Ginger Baker died last week. Baker was the drummer for Cream and then Blind Faith. He was the first great rock-n-roll drummer I really got to know and was the first "superstar" drummer  He was the first drmmeri saw use two kick bass drums. He could do more with his feet than a lot of drummers could do with their hands. 

He had a pretty ragged tough life. I think a lot of people were surprised he lived as long as he did. So another one from that era gone. 

Saturday, October19, 2019 A Hurricane memory

I'm not sure why this popped up now. but it did so...

A while back I wrote that with no Internet, no electricity, no radio, one of the things we all craved was music. Even when stores like Wal-mart opened again, there wero little portable battery-operated CD/radios available. I finally ordered one from Amazon.

When it came, Elaine was still in the States, I was here taking care of the animals and getting whatever work done I could. This was the first song I played on my new CD player. And I played it over and over and over. I just need that reminder that There wer epeoplewho had it worse than I did and that we all need to help each other. There was so much good that surrounded us after the hurricane. This was both a reminder to pass it on and to be grateful. As if I needed reminders for either.

The other things I wanted to hear right away were the orginal cast albums of Les Miz and Phantom of the Opera.

Then I stared playing my "Waiting for the Hurricane" mix CDs. Boy, did those have new meanings!

The past few weeks have been largely full of our nephew Ben, driving back and forth to San Juan. Some day soon I will post the saga of our adventure on Tuesday. For now, you'll just have to wait for it.

Thanks for reading.

Thursday, October 10, 2019

Mother Ocean has been beautiful this week. Hope the surfers are having fun.

The colors have been incretible!

I have a couple of days with limited morning commitments. May a request a few days without waves so I can go dive or at least snorkel?

Saturday, October 5, 2019 Sara and Katie's wedding

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Last weekend we made a flying trip to Michigan for our daughter Sara's wedding. (That's Sara on the right with her bride Katie.}

It was everything a wedding should be: fun, joyous, people coming together, full of laughter and love!

Aside from the beautiful wedding, the best thing for me was having all our kids together in one place  for the first time since our oldest, John David, graduated from high school. (he turned 40 earlier this week so you can do the math.)

 (Three important people are missing from this photo: the other bride, who was off doing something important, and William and Kai who were off playing and couldn't be bothered.)

Siblings were together for the first time in years.

Cousins met cousins they didn't know they had.

Kids (Kai and Kennedy) met uncles (Jason) and aunts (Hannah) they've never seen. And, we finally got to meet Hannah, our other soon-to-be daughter-in-law and soon-to-be mother of our newest grandchild.

Between travel, rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, the wedding, reception, and more travel, we manage short visits with our good friends Nancy and Gwen

and our "adopted" daughter Katie, her wife Elizabeth, and out "grandaughter" Emmory.

We missed so many people we'd hoped to see. Our original plan was to go to Cincinnati for my 50th high school reunion then on to Cleveland for a visit with Amy and the grands, then a leisurely tip to Michigan with lots of time for visits and finally a relaxed weekend at the wedding. That whole plan fell apart and turned into a flying five-day trip, with two of those being travel days. To all those we messed, we are so sorry. We'll try again next time.

All in all it was an amazing wonderful love-filled weekend. We are so grateful.

Congratulations Sara and Katie!