HRC presented with The Gold Rose Award

Tonight The Junior League of Topeka presented HRC with their highest honor ... The Gold Rose Award. Very coveted, it is only presented to a special few who have demonstrated leadership skills and otherwise made a significant contribution to the community. You can watch her acceptance speech here.

Here she is with The Gold Rose Award and some gold roses. Yea Helen!

Samantha and Jake come and go

SRC and JRQ move from Hawaii. They stop here for SRC's 10 year Topeka High School reunion but unfortunately, they both catch colds and are only able to attend the first night.

We have a peaceful and uneventful week during which JRQ is able to launch his unbelievably cool Japanese language website Kanjibrain. As they feel better, we have dinner with George (who spent the summer in Florida and Paraguay) and Cristina (who spent the summer in Spain) and the Gs.

Helen also organizes a dinner for young neighbors.

We then kiss them good bye as they fly to Fukuoka, Japan where they are each enrolled in a 2 month long Japanese immersion language class. Here they are with driver Les Paul as they head to the airport at 3:45 AM this morning.

さよならと安全の旅

Monica comes and goes

After staying with us for 3 weeks, Monica, here from Idaho to help care for her granddaughter, flies to Houston to help care for her father as he recovers from heart surgery and subsequent strokes. Keep smiling.

Beans, beans and more beans

On the way home from Omaha, I stopped by Crow Mountain Farm. Check out the soybeans.

DWC meets Tony in Omaha

Tony invites DWC to join him in Omaha for golf, baseball and golf. We start with the Quarry Oaks Golf Course that offered fabulous scenery.

After golf, we walk downtown Omaha ...

and even walk over the Missouri River

all the way to Iowa.

Since this is the last year for Rosenblatt Stadium, we tour it and watch the Omaha Royals get beat. That is Tony in the white shirt.

Sunday morning is golf at Iron Horse Golf Club before heading home.

On the way home, I stop at the Strategic Air & Space Museum where I see the greatest airplane ever built ... the SR71.

Thanks Tony for a great trip.

Free advice

If you go to the Rich Hippie Store to buy some chocolate covered almonds, DO NOT leave them in the trunk of your car while you play golf. This advice should be heeded even if it is an especially mild August in Kansas.

So there you have it.

Sweater in August

The Kansas August has been so mild this year that when we joined Tom and Lisa for dinner tonight on their patio, HRC wore her sweater.

Check out the 4 different types of tomatoes that Tom and Lisa bought at the Farmer's Market this morning.

Happy August in Kansas - 54 degrees expected tonight.

Dinner with Jana and Carey

Even though we don't see them often, we have a special bond with our dear friends Jana and Carey. At dinner tonight we talked (and ate) for hours. We've been friends for more than 3 decades. Now THAT is special.

Matt from St. Louis

Here is Matt, a PhD candidate in history from Washington University in St. Louis.

Through a friend, we learned that Matt needed a place to stay while he does research at the Kansas History Museum. After a couple of weeks with us, Matt heads home tomorrow. Good luck Matt!

DWC goes to Hawaii

DWC visits SRC and JRQ in Hawaii.

The next 8 days are non-stop adventures from South Point on The Big Island to The North Shore on Oahu. No doubt that SRC and JRQ live in paradise. Here they are in their backyard:

This trip saw JRQ, SRC and DWC all taking pictures ... maybe 1,000 or so total. It is really hard to pick favorites. If you want to see more pictures from this fantastic trip, you can go to my web album here. Aloha.