Surprise in Menlo Park

Displaying excellent organizational skills, Jake was able to orchestrate a fun and colorful surprise Birthday Party for Samantha.   With Mayumi as an accomplice, the party was a great success.  Below is the aftermath of "SURPRISE" after Samantha walked into her apartment.

There were balloons ....

lots of fun party-goers ...

pizza, Choco-Tacos, a beautiful dessert by Ryo ...

and lots of smiles.

The next day Jake gave us the Zillabyte presentation ...

and we got to see where Samantha hangs.

Throw in some fun times with Beth, a yummy milk shake from the Palo Alto Creamery and my own Zillabyte t-shirt

and you've got a Zilla-teriffic 48 hours.

Thanks, Jake for including us in all the fun.  

Happy (early) Birthday Samantha.

SRQ visit, Hope Shower, Sailing into the sunset

After attending Robin's wedding in Washington DC, SRQ came home for a visit.  She was mostly here to help her mother organize and host a baby shower for Hope Crow at SACII and Cheryl's house in Springfield.   It was fun to see lots of people we love.

Based on the photos, they apparently had a good party for Hope.   Sam, Andy and I helped set up for the party then bailed out to do some male bonding.  We started with a juicy burger at Galloway Station and then off to Saddlebrooke to view the building site Sam and Cheryl bought at auction the week before.  Nice view.

Except for Sam's LBC (little blue car) getting damaged ($2,338.68) by the neighbor's bad driving ...

it was a great trip.  Unfortunately, SRQ went home the next day.  

To fulfill one of Helen's life-long dreams, Friday night we joined fun friends Bill and Julie on Lake Perry for a sunset cruise on their 30 foot sail boat.    

  It was wonderful.  The weather was perfect.  Only 30 minutes from Topeka in time but worlds away in relaxation.  Thanks Bill and Julie ... it was a blast!

We waved goodbye to September as we sailed into the beautiful Kansas sunset.

It's not that boring!

OK, so maybe it is.

Yawn.

Huff 'n Puff Balloon Rally

Yesterday we had a date.  Yep, I took Helen to Lake Shawnee to spoil her with a paddle boat ride.  As luck would have it, the 16 year old girl in charge of paddle boat rental said her mother told her to close early as a really bad storm was coming.  Wrong!  Even so, our paddle boat adventure was quashed by some unknown mother who wanted her daughter to come home early.  

So, our date transformed into a quiet picnic on the shore.  Well ... not exactly quiet.  Our peaceful picnic table was surrounded by two shelter houses.  In one was a wedding shower.  In the other, a biker wedding.  The bride wore a traditional white wedding gown while the groom wore jeans and a Harley t-shirt.  My guess is that the groom selected the music.


From across the lake came the Huff 'n Puff Balloon Rally.  The view was amazing.  Multiple balloons gracefully floated toward us.  Some of them played "skip the basket on the lake" before they floated by. 

We enjoyed watching them float overhead.

Our paddle boat date transformed again.  Off to the Sports Center for some serious go-cart racing.  Helen and  I shared the almost empty track with a 7 year old girl riding tandem with her father.  The little girl waved to Helen every time she lapped her.  Helen (a/k/a the lead foot) was both amused and insulted.  

Life doesn't always follow your plans.  And sometimes that's a good thing.

Labor Day Weekend

After 30+ years, Helen and I decided to purge some (not all) of the stuff we've saved in one of our basement storage rooms.  It was a mess.

So was my work bench.

We spent 12 hours Sunday cleaning and trashing.  We took tons of stuff to the alley where the "alley pixies" whisked it all away.  Broken computers and old VCRs were gone in minutes.  Wicker baskets and old lamps took a couple of hours.  We found 30 years of old paint ...

  and tax records dating back to 1974.

Geesh ... why did we save all that stuff?  

On Labor Day we washed the convertible ...

had a quiet picnic in the park and drove to Crow Mountain Farm where Helen ignored the corn

and picked a flower.

So there you have it ... the exciting Labor Day Weekend with the Crows.

PS.  I almost didn't mention the discovery of my childhood bottle cap collection as I wasn't sure you could handle the additional excitement.

Truckin' to California

Samantha and Jake decided to move back to California.  They asked if we wanted to tag team drive 'N' ride as they truck half way across the USA in their giant rental truck hauling Harley Chan on the trailer ...

and followed by Jake's 4Runner.

"Sure," we said as we flew to Denver to start the multi-day drive across Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and Califrornia.  "But, we can't do the trip without Trucker hats."

The trip was a blast!  We got to stop in Salt Lake City and dine with a bunch of fun and loving Quists ...

and grab some hugs too ...

before heading across the deserts of Utah and Nevada.  Those of us in the 4Runner saw lots of this ...

followed by lots of this.

When we arrived in California, we got to spend an evening with Beth ...

and watch Samantha and Jake open their 1st Wedding Anniversary present.  It was fun.

 The next morning, Jake and Samantha moved into their new apartment in Menlo Park.  

Their new apartment is great!  It has huge rooms and a sunny wall of windows.

It even features a giant deck (being worked on here) that is big enough for Jake's future garden.  

Besides, it is only 4 blocks from Mayumi and 8 blocks from Samantha's old apartment in Palo Alto.  It almost felt like we had returned home.  Good job Jake and Samantha.  The sign down the street said it all ...

 Before returning to Kansas we got to see Jake's new work space at AOL

and shake hands with his Zillabyte co-founders.

Thanks Samantha and Jake for letting us join you on this big adventure.

It was a great Truckin' trip.

Samantha's smile

Over the last 30 years, Helen and I have taken hundreds (make that thousands) of pictures of Samantha.  In many of them, she is smiling.  I thought that we had captured every possible expression and angle of her smile.  Wrong.  Here is one provided by her dentist:

There ... now we've seen them all.

The Art of the Brick

The Mulvane Art Museum at Washburn University currently has a very unique exhibit.  Yes, I know it's hard to top the uniqueness of the 2009 Stickwork Art Exhibit (which is still there) ...

but this exhibit comes close.  It's called the The Art of the Brick.  Have you ever seen a 5 foot tall human hand made entirely of Legos?

Or giant Lego faces ... with eyelashes?

Odd ... yet fun.

Exhibition ends on September 18, 2011.