Valentine gifts, feet and pillows

Our Valentine's Day included nice Valentine gifts ....

a nice visit with Oma and a pair of Valentine feet ....

and some nice Valentine pillows.

Sweet.

SRQ talks about women in technology

Iridescent invites Samantha to the Mountain View Googleplex to speak at their Technovation Challenge so she can share her experiences and inspire young women about career opportunities in technology.

Good job Samantha!

64th Wedding Anniversary

On January 30, 2012, my parents celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary.  Yep ... 64 years of marriage.  Here is their wedding photo from 1948:

They met at Union Station in Kansas City.

To help them celebrate, Helen and I took them to Kansas City for a couple of days.  Luckily, SACII and Nancy were able to join us. We all enjoyed visiting the now refurbished Union Station and dining at Pierponts, the fancy restaurant inside:

We also watched as Dad reenacted their first conversation at the train station

and his offer to drive Mother home to Topeka.  But first, they stopped for dinner at the (now closed) Terrace Grill

(old photo courtesy of Card Cow.com)

inside the Muehlebach Hotel (now a Marriott Hotel) followed by Dad's now famous claim that he couldn't remember where he parked the car.  Sure, Dad.  Whatever.  To this day, Mother refers to herself as a "Train Station Pick-Up."

Thanks Dad and Mother for getting married.  Mega thanks for having 2 sons.  Thanks also for being such great parents and role models.

Love you.

Happy 64th Anniversary.

AFS weekend

Last weekend the Topeka AFS Chapter hosted high school exchange students from all around Kansas for a weekend retreat.  We got to host 3 students that are currently living in Wichita.  Portugal, Italy and Germany were all represented.   With our dear friend from South Korea who is here for her second exchange year at Topeka High School, we lined them all up for a photo.

Saturday night we gathered more exchange students, some local students and some weekend host parents for a casual pizza dinner.

Brazil, Ukraine and Chile were also represented.  It was very international.  The yummy frozen yogurt dessert was very American.

New Topekans

Helen's job allows her an opportunity to meet all kinds of interesting people as they move to Topeka.  She loves it.  Last weekend Helen organized a dinner party for people who had moved to Topeka in 2011.  The New Topekans' Dinner Party included people from Florida, New York, Colorado, Iowa and Arizona.  It was fun.

Welcome to Topeka.

60 years old ....

With the help of family and friends, last Friday I celebrated my 60th birthday.  Let me say that again ...

I CELEBRATED MY 60TH BIRTHDAY!  

Apparently 60 is the universal pivot point of the downhill slide as the day before my birthday, I got this solicitation in the mail:

Shrugging this off, my loving family took me to The North Star for a good old fashioned Kansas steak dinner.  

It was great.

I'll let you know about the Funeral Assistance Program.

Until then ... I think 60 is a blast.

Oma turns 83

Tonight we helped Oma celebrate her 83rd birthday.  We had an extra nice visit reflecting on all the people Oma has touched in her life.  We could not count them all.  We celebrated with strawberry ice cream and yummy German chocolate.  Here is 83 year old Oma with her (almost 60 year old) daughter ....

and here is a flashback photo (circa 1989) of Oma as she's reads to Melissa and Samantha.

I think (?) Oma was about 60 years old in this photo.

Very interesting.

35 years ... and counting

Thanks to SRQ and JRQ, we were able to spend our 35th wedding anniversary in exotic Nassau, the capital city of The Commonwealth of The Bahamas.  They provided us with 5 wonderful days at the Sheraton on Cable Beach.  Here is the view from our 9th floor balcony.

Can you say spectacular?

We arrived on January 1st and got to vicariously enjoy the annual Junkanoo celebration (a cross between Mardi Gras and Carnival) that started at midnight and ended at noon the next day.   Here is the parade at about 2 am.

 Groups of hundreds compete for prizes.  The competition is fierce.  As luck would have it, we got to witness the awards presentation (and celebration) at the City Park which was across the street from the The Fish Fry ... an eclectic collection of funky locally owned restaurants. We ate there twice and can strongly recommend Oh Andros where we made new friends

and ate the best Spicy Grilled Grouper (with peas and rice) ever!  The guava duff was spectacular too.  Oh yes, Helen is still talking about Sky Juice. 

We also walked historic downtown Nassau, visited the 214 year old public library (and museum) ...

gawked at massive cruise ships 

and walked the giant bridge to Paradise Island for a short visit to Atlantis.

But mostly, we got to enjoy the super friendly nature of the Bahamian people, soak up their culture ...

and do nothing ... except for enjoying each other and 35 years of marriage.

Happy Anniversary Helen.

Christmas Holiday 2011

Christmas 2011 got off to a swinging start when Dan and Helen Claus surprisingly showed up in our front yard.  

Somebody added Big Red Glasses on Helen Claus.

It is one more chapter in the ongoing spar with Nameless Neighbor who insists that our classic wreaths are inadequate Christmas decorations.  

Neighborhood mischief intensified when Nameless Neighbor's house of 8,614 blue bulbs was visited by the Red Bulb Vandal.  We thought about it, but didn't do it.

Family fun started when Mark and Daya arrived from Minnesota followed by Samantha and Jake flying in from California via Utah.  We sang Christmas Carols on the Circle ...

and spent hours wrapping Christmas presents.  This year we got to enjoy Jake Art on some of the packages.

Christmas Eve dinner was two ginormous pots of soup ... prepared by a svelte Mark ...

and a mega massive ham (named Pam) that was prepared by Chef Jacob.

(Photo courtesy of SRQ)

Andy, Donna, Baby Hope, the Gs, Nancy, SACII and Cheryl, Bev and Family, Carolyn, the Qs, Mark and Daya all joined us for Christmas Eve Dinner.

So did Abbie and Bobbie but they were too late for the group photo.  A fun time was had by all ...

but, Samantha's Cousinette Baby Hope stole the show.

Christmas morning Helen made California Eggs Crackle

as we waited for Melissa, Roby, Anna and Camden to arrive.   Then, we posed for our traditional group photo

and dug into the presents.

  It was a blast!  The girls followed our Guy Gift theme with Girl Bling 

and a crowd pleasing Hat Show.

Unfortunately, Oma and Nancy left before the photo shoot started but we did get the annual "kid" photo ...

and lots of other photos as well.

Merry Christmas 2011.

Happy New Year 2012.

AFS and Christmas Tree

For the last 13 years, we have hosted the AFS Holiday Party.  As is the past, the high-schoolers told of a special holiday they celebrate at home and ... they brought a desert commonly enjoyed in their country.  Lucky for me, this year was a chocolate extravaganza!.

After considerable coaxing, they agreed to pose with their host brothers and/or sisters.  

Once SACII's birthday had passed ... it was OK to put up our Christmas tree.  With no Jonas to help, I selected a small table-top version this year.

It smells wonderful!

PS.  The Potwin neighborhood war wages on about Tommy and our wreaths.  More on that to follow.