The parent-units of the Eastmond family have had a busy April, and May's not looking too relaxing either. It all began with a youth service project at the Bishop's Storehouse for ESE (see my blog), then Easter with Chad and Kristen and then Dave flew off to Germany the next day for a week's conference. While he was gone, I went up to Utah to see my parents, and see if Utah was holding up okay. It is. The next weekend Dave had a conference for UCToxics in Santa Cruz, where we worked (Dave at his conference and me correcting Research Papers--yes I lugged them all up in my suitcase) and dined on their delicious food.
Chaminade Resort above Santa Cruz
Gnarled Tree, from our walk in the forest
We arrrived home Sunday evening, then Dave headed off to Cinncinati the next day for a two-day governmental conference. Somewhere in here, our new furniture arrived: bed, two nightstands and a dresser. I banished the falling-apart Formica dresser to the garage and moved our old pine nightstand and dresser to the guest room. (We never had a proper bed before.)
The next weekend found us entertaining 12 people at a barbeque. One of his former graduate students was supposed to be getting married on Saturday, but a week before the wedding, it all fell apart (not his fault). We were already hosting his sister, husband and their daughter, and the rest of the family decided to keep their flights from Pennsylvania and come out anyway. So we offered to cook them a barbeque the night of the would-have-been-wedding and called it the Olaharsky Family Reunion. His father sounds like he was Rocky Balboa's cousin and I liked to hear him talk. We served Rachelle's Lemon Cake (with fresh strawberries), grilled salmon and chicken using Matthew's recipe (Lowry's Lemon-Pepper Marinade for 15 minutes before, grill lightly) and other fixings.
Then with the rest of you, we spent two nights watching "The Mormons" on TV, talking back to the screen and making occasional snide remark. Dave later watched part II, and was quite touched by the comments of the faithful Latter-day Saints in that episode. It's been interesting to have a larger community galvanized by this broadcast experience, with the historical, faithful and not-so-faithful all playing out together in our homes.
Well, I'm still grading papers, and Dave's still traveling here and there. We are happy for the good fortune of our children and their news. Here's for a happy May, the birthday month of my mother (on the 28th), and three of my grandchildren (Alex on the 8th, and Riley and Megan on the 9th). See below for more shots of Alex's birthday party--a fun event hosted by Kristen and Chad.
Andrew smiling as he takes a dip in his teensy little wading pool.
The Master Griller
We sing to the Birthday Boy, while he eyes the red frosting balloon.
Blowing out the candles. (The breeze helped.)
He ate through the red balloon glob, then back to the swimming.
Alex and his friend Kate try out the teensy wading pool.
Happy #3, Alex!
Behind my you may notice the uber-fast G5 Imac with a dual channel processor and 2 gigs of ram. It even spits cds out of it's vertical slot so they go rolling off the side of my desk. How awesome is that? Well, sorry for the short post, but time has become a much more scarce commodity as of late.
