Lorena and I planned to go to Mexico for our 25th wedding anniversary (only we are a year and a half late). We are having a great time. We are going to do more, maybe in Monterrey, but this has been a super time just to be with family when there is no pressure. We miss Grandpa Lauro a LOT. We are at a place where we have all been together before–with Doug and Sheila, Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah and most of Lorena’s family. This is OUR place.
Month: June 2018
By complete accident, I have been in Mexico for at least part of this and the two previous World Cup’s. I am not that much of a soccer fan, but this is definitely and iconic event. Today, because of my delicate skin, I sat in the lobby next to the Starbucks, drank coffee and sparkling water and watch Argentina squeak past Nigeria (Argentina does not deserve to be where they are) and France play to a 0-0 tie with Denmark (what do you expect from France). Tomorrow morning it should be pretty fun here with Mexico playing Sweden. Definitely not a fan of Sweden and have great hopes for Mexico. Not knowing anything about soccer I just go by my most recent feelings about the countries playing and the people watching to help me to decide for whom to root. It is also kind of fun to be the foil for all who wish to pontificate about the intricacies of the game in general and this World Cup series in particular–EVERYONE here, including the little kids, knows more than me about this stuff. It is all professional wrestling to me (especially Argentina).
Lorena and I made it to Puerto Vallarta after two excellent flights from Portland to Phoenix and then on down to Mexico from there. Tio’s Jorge and Lauro, along with Grandma Conchita picked us up at the airport. Much to our surprise and great happiness, we found we were staying at the same place we stayed the times we went with Uncle Doug, Aunt Sheila, Grandpa Milo, and Grandma Sarah the two other times we vacationed in Puerto Vallarta. Of course, the very first thing we did when we got there was eat way to many hand made tamales brought on the plane from Monterrey. We all agreed the one true style of tamale comes from Monterrey. The picture is of Jorge’s family (L-R) Jorgito, Valeria, Mari, Brandito, and Jorge.
Kiwi gets up at 4:00 AM every morning to do the hard work of being irritating enough to wake us up and keep us awake long enough so that we can lock her into the laundry room to get just a little more sleep. At about 6:00 AM, one of us gets up and feeds her and lets her out of the laundry room. We get a brief reprieve until about about 10:00 AM when the process starts over again. We give her lunch at about 11:30 after which she harasses us to give her part of our lunch until we lock her into the laundry room again so we can have enough peace and quiet to enjoy our lunch. That peace and quiet really does not happen because she makes such a racket through the hollow core laundry room door. After lunch, she takes a nap for another couple hours because she knows she will have to start in again at 4:00 PM so we will feed her on schedule at 6:00. This is our life.
Lorena has really wanted a bigger wedding band for a long time. So for her 25th wedding anniversary, I got her one. Of course I am over a year and a half late if this is for our 25th, but who is counting. AND, Bonnie is holding down the fort for us here at home so we can go down to Puerto Vallarta to celebrate all of this with half of Lorena’s family. This is really only the first half of the celebration, because the real celebration needs to be in Monterrey with the entire family. Still, PV is a pretty nice place to celebrate and, thankfully, Grandma Conchita, Tio Lauro, and Tio Jorge and his family all like to celebrate the same way us by sitting around and eating too much.
We were very grateful to have Kelly come visit us for Father’s Day this weekend. She rode Amtrak down on Saturday morning. She even packed the new pink pantsuit she bought on Friday so she could model it for us. Lorena is getting better at taking pictures. You will notice in this shot, she cut off the feet instead of the head–that is a marked improvement.
We did all the normal stuff. We went to Denny’s for breakfast (Now that I get the really good Senior discount there!), then just hung out and ate Lorena’s Zoodle Kung Pao chicken for dinner and Kelly’s fresh peach galette. On Sunday, we went to McDonald’s for a breakfast Egg McMuffin and then to Burgerville, USA for a lettuce wrap burger and my free Father’s Day strawberry sundae. Fine dining is always a major feature of the time we spend together as a family! Christian called to wish me happy Father’s Day and schedule a trip up here for a week later this summer. All that was really nice.
We talked a LOT about a LOT of stuff. It is a hard thing to realize that your kids really do not need you so much anymore. It is pretty nice when you realize their decisions (social, moral, spiritual, and financial) are often better than the decisions you might have made for them if it were yours to make. The good, but kind of melancholic reality is that it became obvious several years ago that neither is it my choice nor do I have to worry too much about this.
I ordered one of the Intel RealSense 3d cameras several months ago. It arrived yesterday. It is not like I need a brand new project, but I got one anyway and it is a good one. The reality is that I will not be in a place to start doing anything on this for a couple of months due to the start of a new job, vacation and a bunch of other commitments. It is great to finally get my hands on one of these and I am really looking forward to making it work.
Lorena had a ball at the opera last night. It all sounded quite interesting. One innovation that is new to me, but probably not to anyone else in the world, is the digital sign above the stage that provides real time translation of the lyrics. It was so good of Rich and Julia to take her along. She has been listening to opera since she was a little girl, but this was only the second opera she has ever attended. Grandpa Lauro was a huge opera fan. She said the singing was just incredible, the costumes were amazing, it was a great opera (Faust) and she wants to go again soon.
Lorena went to the opera tonight with my brother-in-law Rich, Aunt Julia, and our beautiful niece Mariah. The opera is Faust and I KNOW they are having a great time. Kelly was supposed to go with them but had a work event so we asked if Lorena could go in her place. We are very grateful that they graciously said yes and Lorena is like a kid in a candy store. This is her second opera. She went to one other with her father, Grandpa Lauro, who was a huge, huge opera fan. We hope you have a great time.
We liked our new coffee maker so well we decided to buy two more for our guest bedrooms. The original machine makes both a carafe or a single cup (with a K-Cup or just ground coffee). The bedroom machines are pretty much just the single cup side of the one we got for the kitchen. We got them cheaper at Walmart.com than at Amazon and they got here in just a couple of days. We were very pleased all the way around.
I had purchased a bunch of K-Cups and have to admit they are very handy. I also found they are pretty cheap if you buy them from eBay or Walmart.com. I was thinking we would be grinding our coffee and making the single servings that way. I am sure we will try that out, but the K-Cups are way less hassle and, in the end, we throw away a lot less coffee by making it a single cup at a time.
Just a placeholder post to say I got a new job in Boston, MA with a medical device company doing VERY interesting work. I will have to travel a little less after the first few months and will not have to leave the country as often. It is VERY interesting work and even though I left on excellent terms with my previous company and loved working there, this was an opportunity I could not refuse. More later…
Kelly has gone to a new schedule where she works only four days every other week. That is a fine thing because she can take trips on her bi-weekly three day weekends. This week she flew to see her friend Sally in Washington D.C. She has sent a few pictures out–not nearly enough–that reminded me that there are some great things to celebrate that brings a tear to the eye for some of us in fly over country. This one is at the Lincoln Memorial. One that I especially appreciated was the Vietnam Memorial–not the wall so much even though I did appreciate it and found a name of a person whose brother I knew who had died, but the one of the soldiers with their combat gear.
It really is a wonderful place. I have never been to the Smithsonian, but I want to go some day. My problem is that every time I have had a chance to go, it was a choice between that and the National Art Gallery and I have always chosen the art.
Here are a few pictures from Lorena’s recent trip to visit Christian in Tempe. Notice all the clothes neatly ironed, folded, and stacked on Christian’s bed through the door. Lorena is genetically incapable of not putting things in order wherever she is. It is one of her superpowers. 
The one on the right shows her dropping Christian off at Cartel Coffee by the Arizona State campus. That and the closest Starbucks are his satellite offices.
The stack of water beside the sofa where Christian is playing the guitar is Lorena’s idea of a half day supply of water for one person in the Arizona summer. That is probably not too far from the truth.Christian continues to take classical guitar lessons from his Spanish instructor. I think it is a good diversion from his studies. He has finished 
all his classes now so all he has left is his comprehensives which he is scheduled to compete early in the fall and his dissertation. That is a lot, but the end is now in sight. A photo montage of Christian would not be complete if it did not include him reviewing some technical paper so that is why I added the last, after breakfast picture at Butters Pancakes. We are normally an IHOP family, but maybe that was too far away.
Hopefully, I will be able to make it down there myself again before too long. It is a really easy and fairly inexpensive trip to make. The airport is less than a half an hour away and right off the light rail line. Phoenix really is a paradise in the winter and it is easy to run up the hill to Flagstaff or Prescott for heat relief in the summer.
I thought I was going to have to miss the Wednesday night bible study last night to go pick up Lorena at the airport, but her plane went out an hour and a half late. On one level that was kind of bad, but it allowed me to go to a great Bible study on Isaiah 53-55. She was glad to be home, but even more excited for having gone to see Christian. They did a lot of stuff and hung out together and plan to do it again soon. I hope I can go, too. Also, she took a ton of pictures, but I will save them for a later post, hopefully, today.
We LOVE Anytime Fitness. We have been happy to maintain a membership there for a good number of years now. For the very first time, though, Lorena found one that did not have a Concept 2 rowing machine. She found an Anytime Fitness facility 15 minutes closer to Christian’s apartment than the one she normally visits, but it did not have the rowing machine so she had to drive the extra miles to get to a place where she could do her workout. We hope that is not a sign of things to come–that they have those rowing machines is a big part of the reason we joined up. They are so handy and generally so well equipped, we have never had a problem.
I flew to Boston on Thursday and flew home on Saturday morning. It was an interesting trip–everything about the Boston area was beautiful the entire time I was there. I sat beside a US Marine Corp veteran that served as a state legislator for the State of New Hampshire for 14 years. I love it that they have no general sales tax and no income tax, but are on fairly solid financial grounds. As for what will happen relative to the trip, everything is still up in the air as evaluations take place on both sides.
I thought this was a great picture of Lorena and Christian. They are headed to eat lunch. Word has it they are planning on a very big steak either for lunch or for super. They are looking pretty sharp and smug. I am not sure they are smug because they are going to get a steak or because they got all dressed up and made a selfie GIF.
Lorena is spending a few days with Christian and showed him to make our new Zucchini noodles, Kung Pao Chicken dish. I was out of town no the east coast a couple of days and am back now, holding down the fort with Kiwi. Kiwi was in a state of extreme high dudgeon. She really does not like to be left at home alone, even for a few hours. Also, it is good to be at home alone for a day or two at a time to help me realize how badly I need Lorena. The household just does not operate at all when she is not here. She is having a great time down with Christian and plans to do that more often–hopefully with me tagging along.