Teasers

April, we hardly knew ye.  Went by so fast.  At times, you seemed like August; now, though, we're back to March. 

But, I'm not complaining.  The grass is green, so green in fact that I did my first mow.  We have made headway on some of our spring clean-up projects, like our annual brushpile burn, and raking out the flower beds. You'll have to come visit to check out my latest project, though. It has to do with a bridge.

In the midst of all this, we went down to Washington, ostensibly to meet with one of our Gabon friends for a baseball game in Baltimore.  But, the day before we were to leave here, he wrote and said his mother had passed away, and, he was in the hospital with heart issues.  Hard to argue with either of those.  We were tempted to skip out altogether – the tickets were cheap, since Baltimore, as good as they are playing this year, still can't fill the stadium.  But we had committed to helping out Andrew with Simon as Margaret had to go to Denver for work.  (Check out this photo of Margaret and who she ran into in Denver, our old neighbor from Lagos.)

So, we scrambled and salvaged the weekend.  First the game. Jeff and Melodie took us up on our offer and braved rush hour traffic to get to the game.  They warned us that Melodie had been sick, but she was better by game time. She might have relapsed though since it was so cold; our seats must have been in a wind tunnel.  Still it was fun, even though the Red Sox lost; we caught up on a lot of news, that is only fit to print in the Not for Pop's Weekly Letter version.  Let's just say there were photos that Melodie wouldn't let us see. You'll have to go to the Poconos to get the scoop.

And we had a fun time with Simon, and Andrew, too. Simon had a bit of a cold over the weekend, but then he rallied in time for day care on Monday.  He did relapse by Wednesday and looked like one pretty miserable child, as he stayed home for the next three days.  I'm sorry, but even when they're sick, little kids look cute.

We were able to check in on three sets of DC friends and go to our old church in Bethesda, squeezing in a walk through the azaleas with Simon at the Arboretum.

There's more news for the Not for the Weekly Letter, but I can give you some hints. Annie and Sankhar have packed up their apartment in Oakland and are on the road north as we speak.  There's news from Illinois, or, should I say, Michigan as well. 

I'm not sure if this is for the weekly letter, but no one told me otherwise. Joe and Leonor, or more appropriately, Luisa, had a health scare this week, where Luisa ended up in the hospital. Joe's note to us was not so cryptic – something about her stopping breathing.  Joe used to do the same as a toddler when he would get upset, as was the case this time with Luisa, but this sounded like she took it frighteningly further. Anyway, after several days of tests, including an MRI, all is well.  Which begs the question – how do you give a toddler an MRI?  Joe is planning on staying an extra day before returning to DC this week. Glad that all is better. And how about this photo of a budding Shakespeare lover?

Speaking of William, his birthday was April 23.  So was Peter's.  Happy days also to John Boyle and Elliot (today!!). Johnny celebrated by going on a Caribbean cruise and Colleen and Laura joined them as well. No news from Stonington yet, but Patrick's baby is due any moment now.

We checked in with David and Paula to relay the news of the baseball game. They are well, but still tired. Meanwhile, it looks from Facebook that Tina and Oliver went on a hiking/camping excursion. Too cold?  Not for those ninjas.   

Mary had a shingles shot, which gave her flu-like symptoms for a day, but better than shingles.  We are both pushing back on colds, taking a lot of Airborne, Zicam and garlic and ginger. The last one doesn't do much for your breath, but it does seem to work. 

And so, we're racing into May and then summer. Have a great week, month.  Love from up here.