Thursday, July 01, 2004

I have a new favorite book

I read The Time Traveler's Wife while I was on vacation. What a fabulous book. I can see why it's been spending so much time on these bestseller lists. It's one of those books that make me gnash my teeth with envy. Why didn't *I* come up with that? She deals with time travel, in the context of a love story, not as science fiction. It's just wonderful, engrossing and all that good stuff.

Monday, June 28, 2004

We're back from our trip. It was very restorative in all ways.

We started out in Minneapolis. Eric was very good on the plane. However, I don't think I'll do another flight where he doesn't have his own seat. It's just too hard. We spent the first night at my uncle's house amid their clutter. But they are very loving and open people so we felt very welcome and wanted. They live inches from one of Minnesota's 10,000 lakes and we were able to go for a spin in my uncle's boat. Rich rode on the jet ski and he fell off. My uncle's house is in a fabulous location. The back walls are almost all glass and they have an un-obstructed view of the lake. However, the walls are covered in teak wood paneling and the floors have orangey carpeting. It is straight out of the 1950's. The formal living area has some type of stone floors, but they look like linoleum because of the flecked pattern on them.

the following morning we headed up to Laporte Minnesota about 200 miles northwestish. Once again Eric was a trooper for most of the trip. We stopped for lunch at a diner about an hour South of my aunt's house. He ate cheerios and I ate some very tasty strawberry pie with extra coolwhip. YUM!! We got to my aunt's house around 3, and my father's oldest sister was there as well. She was with her daughter Jennifer (who is 5 months pregnant) and her husband. Everybody was so good to Eric. My aunt Donna (Dad's youngest sister) had two miniature horses. They were SO cute.

We spent a lovely relaxing week there. We stayed at a cabin about a mile from my aunt's house. I got a pedicure at a salon in Walker, Minnesota called "The Razor's Edge." It was one of the nicest pedicures ever. The woman really took her time and said it was her favorite thing to do. She was five months pregnant and still working hard. I didn't realize until later that she was. I hope those chemicals they use for nails don't hurt her baby.

Eric was a superstar. He crabbed for his sleep in the middle of some fun moments and we had to leave. But my GOD he's a good baby.

After our week at the Cry of the Loon Lodge we headed back down to Minneapolis. We got to visit with the Kemper family. My friend Emily Schwartz now Kemper happened to be in Minneapolis from Houston at the same time we were there. The big news is that Eric had is first kiss with Emily's daughter Fronia. It was very cute. At two, she knows how to give a hug and a kiss, and she did and a lightbulb flashed above Eric's head and he grabbed her back and touched her cheek with his lips. Of course we had put all the cameras away by then. But it was still fun.

There's some huge news coming here next week. But I don't want to post it in case it falls into the wrong eyes...