Celebrating Our 32nd Anniversary

I told Doug several weeks ago that there was only one thing that I would have changed about our wedding. I loved everything about it, but if I knew then what I know now, I would have picked a different month. I did not realize until my children started school that May would become our family's busiest month of the year next to December.  End of year picnics, spring sports finals, music programs, graduations, First Communion, and Confirmation took up a lot of our days in May. Adding in Mother's Day and Cal's birthday as well as multiple awards programs when the Heinisch children got older, left Doug and I with no time to celebrate our wedding anniversary. 

At first, we would find a day in May to go out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary.  Over time, however, a card and maybe small gift was plenty for the two of us.  Some years, we even forgo that tradition as it seemed forced as we tried to squeeze in a little bit of time for just the two of us with our family's crazy May schedule. I thought that I would be upset about the lack of anniversary celebrations, but in the end neither Doug nor I cared. We had worked hard every day to build a nice life with our family.  A celebration in honor of that wasn't needed for us to be happy.

With no one at home this year, Doug and I decided to celebrate differently. We booked a night at Port Orleans Riverside and spent the evening celebrating at Disney World.  It was so much fun.  We went to Hollywood Studios for several hours before traveling back to Riverside to hang out in the piano bar.  From there we walked over to the French Quarter for beignets for dessert before heading back to our room.  Nick and Meg stopped by to say hello before they left for Magic Kingdom and then again before leaving for home.  It was a lot of fun and a great way to celebrate our 32nd anniversary.

Happy Birthday Cal

Cal turned 27 today and although we couldn't be there to celebrate in person, our family did send him multiple texts throughout the day along with social media posts and phone calls.  I was a little bummed that the gift Cameron and I sent him last week got delayed in the mail, but I knew that he would enjoy extending his celebration one more day.  Brett's present was delayed as well, but thankfully the Rubber Soul album that Meg and Nick got him arrived today and he enjoyed listening to that as he worked from home. Maggie sent us pictures later in the evening of Cal at his birthday dinner.  She had made reservations at a restaurant where they turned Winston Churchill's elevator into a private booth.  Cal loved it and enjoyed the seafood menu immensely.  

I was very happy for Cal today.  His twenty-seven years have been a blessing to our family.  There have been some challenging times that he has had to persevere through, but along the way there has also been so much fun and love.  I am extremely proud of the hard work that he has put into his relationship with Maggie and at Plante Moran.  Although I miss having him work from home, I am so glad that he has built such a wonderful life for himself in Chicago.  I can't wait to see him next month in the Keys.  It should be a fantastic time and a great way to celebrate his 27th birthday in person.  

Greece Bound

After a dozen hours and several countries, Cameron finally landed in Alexandroupolis.  I was nervous about his study abroad trip, but once I found out that he was situated in Greece, I decided that I would no longer worry about it.  Cameron makes good decision and would be sharing this experience with two of his roommates along with a dozen other honor students at IU and his college professor who grew up in the area.

Cameron sent pictures of the view from his hotel room as soon as he unpacked. I thought the scenery was absolutely beautiful. Turkey was just beyond the river, but I had stopped worrying about him "accidentally hiking into that country" long ago.  On his first day, Cameron was able to spend some time exploring the town, trying different Greek delicacies, buying his first legal beer and shopping.  He had purchased the perfect gift for Brett by the time he headed back to the hotel and had plans for more souvenir buying later.  I will miss talking to him while he is traveling but am really looking forward to hearing all about his adventures when he returns in June.  

Cleaning Out the Memory Tubs

While Meg was here last weekend, she spent some time going through the four memory tubs that she had stored here. Since I did not have as much storage space in our Florida home as I did in Syracuse, I was glad to hear that she planned to take them with her once she got move into her new home in Baldwin Park.  I enjoyed listening to her talk about all of the items that she had stored over the years.  Some were instantly put in the trash bag as she couldn't believe that she kept them in the first place.  Others provoked precious memories that would last a lifetime.  I was also glad to hear that she planned to keep a lot of the baby clothes in the hopes that someday her daughter or niece would be able to wear them. Since they had only been worn by one child, most were still in great shape, and the dresses were adorable.

Meg left the sorted tubs here until her next trip to Ocala.  Since Doug was going to stay with her one night, I offered to reorganize them and send them with him.  She appreciated the help, and I was pleased to see that I could now fit everything into three tubs for her.  Meg sent me a picture later in the evening.  She had been vacuum sealed a lot of her clothes and used the same process to store many of the items in the memory tubs.  It was funny to see Lucy vacuum sealed, but I was glad that she made the "keep" list and that everything fit nicely in Meg's storage unit. 

Cal's Day in Syracuse

When Cal found out that Maggie was going to go to a baby shower in St. Louis this weekend, he decided that it would be the perfect time to visit grandma and grandpa. They agreed 100%.  Cal drove out this morning and met Grandpa at Black Squirrel golf course in Goshen where they enjoyed 18 holes together.  Normally, they would have played at Maxwelton, but the course was closed due to a golf tournament. Grandpa ended up beating Cal, but he didn’t mind as he had a lot of fun.

After golf, they went back to meet Grandma for lunch and also enjoyed watching Jeopardy together. While Cal was there, he even got to open up his birthday gift a little bit early. I was really glad to hear that all went well and that they had a fun day together. I appreciate that my children still enjoy visiting their grandparents. I know that I loved hanging out with mine, and I am glad that they have carried on that tradition.

Bananas and Peppers

One of the best parts about moving to Florida has been learning about the state’s vegetation and what grows best in the warm humid climate. Since we have been here, we have tried growing a lot of different outdoor plants. We have had success with some like the pineapple, bromeliads and poinsettias. Others haven’t done as well as we hoped, but are still hanging in there like our hibiscus plant.

Recently, Doug and I added two new plants to the backyard. We purchased a banana plant and a jalapeño pepper. We had had banana plants when moved here, but they were in the ground and the cold weather killed them easily. We decided this time to keep the banana plant in a pot, so that we could move it indoors when the temperature dropped below 40° next winter. We hoped that the pepper would do a little bit better than our tomato plant. The snails seem to have stunted the tomatoes growth, so hopefully we can keep the mollusks away from the peppers. The other thing that we did this past week was move the lemon tree onto the rocks by the bromeliads, hoping the flowers would finally pollinate and we would have our first lemon. The good news for us this was that we finally saw a lime growing on our lime tree. Not only did it look healthy, but there were a few other small ones that had started taking shape as well.

I do not know what we will try to grow next. Meg and Nick got a basil plant to put out on their deck that seems to be thriving, so maybe we will try something like that. No matter what comes next, it has been a lot of fun experimenting with gardening in Florida.

New Chairs

I have absolutely loved our new kitchen table. The glass has been a lot easier to clean than I thought it would be, and the pineapple brings up some great conversations, especially now that I know that it’s significance in the Mormon culture. What I don't love about our new table and chair is the seat cushions. The color was extremely boring, and I really wanted to update them. I wasn’t quite sure how to do it, however, as the seats were round and the metal chairs were super heavy. Because of those two factors, I didn’t know if it would be easy to take the seats off and cover it like I did our dining room chairs in Syracuse.

This week, I decided to give it a try. First, I figured out how to take the seats off, so I could learn how to recover them. Then, Doug and I looked for fabric. He suggested finding a pattern for three of the chairs and a plain color for the fourth.  It took a couple of stores, but we did find fabric that we liked. The hard part came next when I worked on recovering the chairs. The round seats made the material pucker, so I had to staple and unstaple the fabric to the underneath of the chairs as I worked my way around each one slowly. The shortest time it took to recover one of the chairs was 45 minutes, while the longest I worked on one was two hours. Thankfully, there was no deadline, and in the end, I was able to recover all four of the chairs.  I love the new look and am very glad to have that project checked off of my list.