I know I put up an image like this yesterday, but I went out onto the deck and decided to take another that was zoomed in a little more. We are VERY much looking forward to moving up there. We just got notice from the kids about when they will arrive for Thanksgiving and we are very excited to both see them and show them the improvements to our new places!
I am grateful for my family. Grandma Conchita and Tío Lynn bought a steak and are bringing it over to grill and listen to the election results. We are ALL Trumpistas tonight! The dynamic down here in Mexico is VERY interesting. With Trump putting pressure on Presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum to stop the human and drug trafficking of the cartels or he will impose huge tariffs on Mexican imports, she is in a really tight spot because no one has a lot of control over the cartel. If the tariffs don’t work Trump says he will send the Marines which changes the equation dramatically. Interesting times.
Lorena and I got married in Monterrey 32 years ago today, not too far from where we are living now in San Pedro. It was one of the very best decision I ever made and am more thankful than ever that Lorena was willing to marry me. We are going to go out and celebrate tomorrow night.
Lynn grilled steak, lamb, and hot dogs for the whole family at a party thrown for me on our terrace. It was an amazing evening. Everyone sang “La mañanitas” before I blew out the candles on the cake at the right which is a mango cake, my favorite by far. The only way the party could have possibly been better is if Kelly and Christian would have been there. I am thankful to be here with my Mexican family and particularly thankful on my 69th birthday to have time with Grandma Conchita at this stage of our lives.
The plans for the house we hope to construct, God willing, came three weeks late, but very nicely the arrived the morning of my birthday. We love the plans. We are not going to do much celebrating today, but have plans for our Pad Thai cooking class on Friday, a big family blowout (not unlike those of Grandpa Milo) on Saturday with lots of meat (Cordero a la Griega, chuleton, Mexican hot dogs, etc.), and a visit to Aló Café early, maybe Sunday afternoon. We heard from both of the kids and lots of friends so it has been a very nice day so far!
Lorena spent the night with Grandma Conchita last night so they could get up early to get ready for a bridal shower for the bride-to-be of one of Lorena’s youngest cousins. They had a great time, met some new people from the bride’s side of the family, saw Lorena’s Tío Abel, ate some good food, and are all a twitter about going to the wedding itself with the whole family, including Kelly and Christian over Thanksgiving weekend.
Christian’s birthday is past, but I have thought about it a lot of the last few days. It is a gift to have him as my son. It is not so much that he is so accomplished although few attain to the heights he has achieved at a young age (Summa Cum Laude Honors Applied Mathematics BS at 18, PhD in a VERY mathy aspect of Electrical Engineering–information theory, probability, and statistics–at age 23, 100% research appointment at MIT at 24, etc.), but that he is kind and not aggrandizing in the least. He got his PhD five years before I got mine and was instrumental in helping me with my publications, dissertation, and dissertation defense. He did stuff like help me get going on LaTeX, assure my equations were consistent, and all kinds of moral support. He attended both my dissertation defense and my graduation. The picture above was taken after my graduation last December. He always shows up. A gift.
One of the best days of my life was when Christian was born. He continues to be a gift that keeps on giving. It is hard to describe what has done, what he is doing, and who he has become. It is not necessarily talent and intelligence that got him to where he is, but attitude and work ethic. A book came out when Christian was 12 years old about doing hard things. I suppose the premise of the book was not so bad, but it did not seem like the two guys that wrote it had done anything that was truly hard. It was more about pushing an agenda, bragging about things just about anyone with a modicum of ability could do, and building a platform to pontificate. Christian actually DID hard things and he did them quietly in a way that contributed rather than sought self-aggrandization. He still operates that way. Few really knows the effort that was required to get to where he is and do what he does.
I am proud he is my son.
Tío Lauro got back home from his family vacation to Veracruz on Saturday. He picked up Grandma Conchita after meeting and we all went to El Gran Pastor for cabrito. Lauro ordered a half cabrito for the table and we were only able to eat about half of that. After lunch, we went to a very high-end grocery store named CityMarket, then went to our favorite coffee house in San Pedro, Café Punta del Cielo. Can hardly wait to take Uncle Doug there. On the way home, we stopped by a jam-full CostCo to buy a counter-top oven, and finished the night hanging out and talking at the apartment. We hope he comes back a lot.
I am very grateful to my brother because he reminded me and reminded me until I got the Living Trust, Last Wills and Testaments, Financial Powers of Attorney, and Medical Powers of Attorney completed, signed, and notarized before we head down to Mexico for a (relatively) short stint. It was just not that hard. We have the hard copy version of all these documents in a safe place along with soft copies for everyone involved. Our good friends, James and Janet Coker were kind to take the time to witness a bazillion signatures and their son, Brad’s, administrator notarized them for us. To top it off, it gave us an excuse to take James and Jan to Baked for lunch. It has been a busy, but amazing couple of days.
I am sorry that I am not with Lorena and the kids in New York City right now. This is Lorena’s first time there and she is ecstatic, mostly because of the kids, but also because New York City, for all its foibles and failures, is a magnificent place. The did a lot of things today, but the highlight was almost certainly the visit to MOMA and the spectacular Starry Night painting by Vincent Van Gogh which she has no seen, in person, and I have not. I cannot wait to go there myself. Tomorrow, Keith McNally’s equally spectacular Pastis Restaurant is on the schedule and it is killing me that I cannot be there.
This is the view from the top of Christian’s apartment building in Brooklyn, New York. Lorena flew in this afternoon to spend the week with him. Kelly is taking the train up from Washington, D.C. for the weekend. I am so sad that I cannot be there, too, but I have a business trip to Boston–that actually should be a phenomenal time with the Thrive Bioscience team. Honestly, it is very exciting to me that the kids have taken their own paths and are living in places that, while I might not have chosen to live, are spectacular, storied places. It is a chaotic time, not only in terms of the lives of our children, but in the world writ large. The kids are doing the best they know to do and, I believe, loving Christ and trying to do what God gives them to do.
This view is from the same location as the first image. My Finnish great grandparents arrived in America and were receive on Ellis Island (the island in the image) in the late 1800’s. This is a powerful image and one that evokes a sense of gratitude in me. God put me at the time and place that was in accord with His plan. And now Christian lives within view of where they arrive. I am humbled before God.
Lorena and I are thankful for our fathers. From our view, they had out-sized impacts on the world in which they lived as manifested by how much they are missed now that they are gone. They were flawed like anyone else, but we are especially grateful for their attitudes and understanding of Jesus Christ and our responsibility toward Him and Him alone. We believe those qualities of our fathers equipped us to handle the challenges and disappointments we have encountered of late in our own times and places in a way that does not allow the bad, even evil that plagues our world to rob us of our joy. Thank you Grandpa Lauro and Grandpa Milo.
Lorena made reservations and took me to Mesero’s in Clearfork, Fort Worth this afternoon for an early Father’s Day celebration. It is our favorite Mexican restaurant in Fort Worth (so far) and kind of our go-to place for special events. It is only a very pleasant thirty minute drive. We have decided we need to start doing this more often. I had the chicken enchiladas with Mole and Lorena had tacos de carne asada. The never get it wrong.
This post is just a marker to remember that Kelly and Christian have been gone from home, paying their own way and making their own lives, for ten years now. They both left at the same time at ages 18 and 20 with Bachelors degrees in hand, heading off to graduate school. We are wildly proud of them. They are both scientists at elite national university research laboratories, but more importantly, they still love and serve the God of all creation and Jesus, Lord of Lords and King of Kings.
I have one brother named Doug. He has been an amazingly good brother. He was the first of five while I was the second. Doug turned 70 today. The shortness of life started to hit me when I was starting to finish my PhD and it is kind of a shock that we are now at a place that seemed such a long way off just not too long ago. I am very grateful for my brother. We have not always agreed on everything, but we have always gotten along fine. It is an unbelievable joy, now that we are old, to reconnect as we both move into retirement and realize that we have so much in common and enjoy talking through it all. We plan to work at getting together much more often. My hope is that I can get together with all my amazing siblings again at our house for my 70th birthday whether that be in Texas or Mexico.
We are trying to sell our current house. We have been here over three years now and I was thinking there were fewer memories and events of note that we lived in this house than previous ones. Now that we will need to move in a short amount of time, we are feeling some nostalgia. We have had Thanksgivings with the kids, Lorena has learned to grow flowers in Texas (see the spectacular one in the image on the left), we have enjoyed watching rabbits, huge hares and Golden Eagles, and birds learning to fly (see the image at the top of baby birds sitting and flying on and off a porch beam, long horns, burrows, many, many cows, fantastically beautiful fields of Indian Paintbrush and Bluebonnets, and much more. We will very much miss this place if we ever sell it.
There is nothing quite like the Oregon coast with its rugged terrain and spectacular ocean views. I took this panorama shot while Lorena and I were there, but it was not the best site to do that sort of thing. Still, it makes me nostalgic looking at it. This is what I remember from family trips as a small boy.
Lorena and I flew to Oregon to get together with all my siblings to celebrate my older brother, Doug’s, 70th birthday. We met together at a resort at Depoe Bay, Oregon. I am very, very grateful for my siblings. They hosted me at the hotel and at my sister Julia’s house when we returned to Portland. We spent the whole time eating and talking about psychology and God. Of course, we are coming from different places on stuff, but are in agreement on more than that on which we disagree. Most of all, we talked and listened to each other in good will. We have decided to get together like this every year or two. I hope we can do the next one in our house Texas or Mexico.
Lorena and I had quite an amazing Mother’s Day yesterday. Both the kids called and we had long, interesting talks with them about life, plans, frustrations, and ambitions. Maybe there is no better Mother’s Day present than to have confidence your kids are on the right track with God. Lorena decided she wanted a steak for dinner so we drove into Granbury, had some baked chicken for lunch, and bought a steak. The dinner was the real deal, evidenced by our post-meal torpidity. Lorena plans to drive back into Granbury sometime today to switch the city water and electrical services over from the previous owner to us. It seems like we have moved from a potential path to an actual path on our plan to build the house even though selling our current house is a pretty big hurdle.
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