Skip to main content

Kate's Big Weekend



This weekend was one big celebration for two occasions relating to Kate.  One was her 30th birthday.  The other was very good news concerning a very scary medical situation.  

I’ll leave it to Kate to provide details about that if she wishes; I’ll say there were lots of tears, and prayers, and sleepless nights leading up to a revelation Thursday morning that the indicators that had precipitated the fears amounted to a false alarm.  So the celebration of Kate’s birthday was a release of a great deal of stress and worry, and we all partied accordingly late into the night and into the early hours of Sunday (apologies to our neighbors; the weather was beautiful and we were out on the deck till about one a.m.).

Friday afternoon our daughter Eileen and Donna cooked and Saturday we decorated and prepared for a surprise party at our house.  Eileen kept Kate occupied by going for pedicures and drinks while about 30 of Kate’s friends arrived. 


Kate’s outgoing, positive demeanor and sense of humor has attracted a lot of friends—friends from St. Louis School, where she used to be the music teacher; friends from Clemens Crossing Elementary School, where she currently teaches music; friends from college; friends from Choral Arts; friends from her volunteer work; and many other friends she has made. 



Donna drove the project, setting the theme (Mexican), tracking down and inviting the guests, drawing up the menu, shopping, cooking, decorating and pretty much everything else.  Eileen helped tremendously.  Eileen’s husband Andrew expertly manned the bar, making Margaritas and keeping the beverages flowing (and making a beer run when the Coronas ran low). 



The morning after
Sunday afternoon the family continued the festivities by meeting at Eileen’s and Andrew’s place in Baltimore, then walking to Canton Dockside for crabs.  Sunday evening, back in Columbia, Donna and I collapsed in front of the TV, exhausted from a wonderful, joyous weekend.



Today it’s back to reality and the challenges we continue to face.  But the reminder of the remarkable gift our family is, and the importance of cherishing each other, will surely stay with us.  Happy birthday, Kate!  We love you!










Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Afri-freaking-ca!

Donna and I recently took the trip of a lifetime, a safari in Tanzania on Africa’s central east coast. We visited Tarangire National Park, with multiple herds of elephants; Ngorongoro Conservation Area, which features the renowned Ngorongoro crater; and Serengeti National Park. Serengeti, like Ngorongoro, is a UNESCO World Heritage site; it is home to some 1.5 million migratory wildebeest, 400,000 zebra, 3,000 lions, and many other herbivores and predators. After much research, we booked our 10-day excursion through Micato Safaris . It was a great choice. We were pampered with luxurious accommodations, incredibly up-close animal sightings, and vast amounts of fascinating information. It was a life-changing experience that greatly exceeded our most optimistic hopes. We arrived in Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro International Airport after a 10,000-mile, 26-hour journey, and were greeted by our remarkable tour director, Joseph Mushi, and a driver. We hopped into the rugged Toyota Land Cruiser,
Post a Comment
Read more

Getting Lost in a Good Book (or 21)

I’ve always been a reader, from my childhood on, and the allure of getting lost in a good book has never released its grip on me. Since my retirement in June 2022, I’ve been reading a lot. Here are some of my favorite books from the past year; let me know your thoughts about these or others! Fiction 100 Years of Solitude , Gabriel García Márquez – Márquez’s fantastical epic about the Colombian Buendia family is one of the greatest books I’ve read. Cold Mountain , Charles Frazier – Outstanding literary novel about a wounded Civil War soldier’s desertion and return to home. Beautifully written prose. Age of Vice , Deepti Kapoor – Great fictional account of a poor Indian boy’s introduction to the Indian mafia, his rise and fall within, and his ultimate redemption. The Slope of Memory ,  Jos é  Geraldo Vieira – A cerebral tale of a Brazilian writer that is like a mashup of a D.H. Laurence novel and the philosophical dialectic of Plato’s Republic (but much more entertaining than I’m
Post a Comment
Read more

OBX

In recent years we’ve rented houses on New Jersey’s Long Beach Island for a week and hosted our kids and their families. This year, we decided to try something new: Donna and I rented a house on North Carolina’s Outer Banks for a week to kick off summer with our children and their families. It was one of the best family vacations we’ve had. The weather was fantastic the entire week. The ocean water was so warm that even Donna got in. The beach was composed of soft, powdery sand and the waves were mostly calm. Skittish ghost crabs, with their pincers up and their eyes atop periscope-like stalks, would partially emerge from their hiding holes in the sand, cautiously sidestep a couple feet, then dart to another hole. Patrols of pelicans, rarely seen at LBI, were ubiquitous, and we saw dolphins arching just past the breakers nearly every day. The house Donna had found – she has a knack for finding great vacation houses – was perfect. Oceanfront with private beach access. Pool. Seven be
Post a Comment
Read more