A day in Hell

The baby girls 3 weeks apart

View of the lake

Our day  in Hell (update: this is a town in MI)was quite nice and a homecoming of sorts for me with different parts of my past coming together.

The Brownies: These three girls were the cutest 6 year olds. Now they are 33 year old women (or close to it..one might have a fall birthday with eight (8!!!) babies between them.

The Moms

The three Brownies are the bride and the two women right of her. This picture was from 2006 taken in  Palos Verdes. Shanna and the bride were roommates in LA.

So we had lots of kids running around with the two baby girls born this March and the rest boys ranging from 2 to 6. The six boys were equipped with life jackets in case they fell in. Oliver got a chance to apply what he learned in his swim class.The littlest boys kept to blow up swimming pools on the side of the lake.

The house in Hell: A beautiful 4300 sq foot home complete with numerous decks and balconies and a dock perched right on the lake with high end everything. House envy indeed. It belongs to the father (and his wife )of one of the women who was in from the western part of the state visiting. Shanna's other friend is in Ann Arbor this summer with her son visiting her mother. She normally lives in Paris. I knew the mom, who was invited also, from our girl scout days.

The hosts: I worked with both in different capacities. The wife went on that 400 mile bike tour with me many years ago(along with her then husband). We will resume our biking relationship especially as she is near a major trail. It was so good to catch up with her. It was as if we didn't have that big gap of time in between. Her husband is a cancer researcher working for a major Japanese company hot on developing new drugs. Learned about some promising ones in the pipeline. He is no longer in the lab but travels the world looking for promising anticancer drugs to develop and acquire.

A beautiful day spent drinking wine, eating BBQ and sitting in comfy chairs on the terrace holding Ms. Tess watching the boys play in the water while we grandparents caught up. the moms seemed to be enjoying themselves too.

Previous to yesterday, I was quite tired both physically and emotionally. I was throwing myself a pity party the other night..what a boring life I lead? does anyone even care to ask what I am doing? etc...but yesterday helped quite a bit. And later,  I visited a friend and had a nice evening catching up. Summer though is slipping away.

Ramy's grandfather died (at 105!) this week. Lots of visitations, viewings and a very long funeral over the past two days that the boys would not be able to handle so they have been here. Josh came over this morning to update us on his social life..some drama there. I just wish things were settled for him.