There are Legacies and there Are Legacies

Another Transplant

At the beginning of June, my mom moved from Missouri to Sun City. We are so happy to have her with us down here. All of her relatives have now moved away from Missouri, so there is no remaining family connection there. Here in the Austin area, she has  a son and daughter-in-law, two granddaughters, a grandson-in-law, a great granddaughter and a niece and nephew-in-law. In short there is a significant family support group here. If only we could get our son and his family and my sister here, the circle would be complete.

I think mom likes her new place. It has just the right amount of space for her and to accommodate a visitor (like my sister, who is here now for a few days). Her place is about a mile from us--easy access, but not too close that we are a bother.

She's still getting settled and adjusting to Texas. Any move like this (mom lived all her life in Missouri except during and just after WWII) is stressful and it has been a challenge for her. She also moved during the hottest June since 1854. The average high temperature was 99.5. But I have to tell you that with the low humidity from noon on, it doesn't seem worse to me than KC or Chicago in the summer. Plus, the air is clean.

We're very happy mom is here and we hope she feels the same.

Another Fun Wedding

The middle of June, we went to Portland for our nephew's wedding (Susan's side--that's where all the nephews and nieces are). It was our second trip to the northwest in a month. All in all, I think I liked Portland better than Seattle, although with such short trips, it's hard to tell. Portland seemed more dynamic with a vibrant downtown. We got to see the famous rose garden and it compared well to the ones we have seen in Victoria and Ireland. (Gino--I've got about 200 shots of roses to send you.) 

Portland has a very well planned mass transit system and we were able to get around with ease. Ironically, we rented a car in Portland where we didn't need one and didn't rent one in Seattle where we did. Oh well, live and learn.

The wedding (on Friday the 13th, no less--the anniversary of the couple's first date) gave us a chance to see some of Susan's family that we haven't seen for years. Some of them grew up while we weren't looking. Susan's oldest nephew has gotten married since we last saw him. It's his second marriage and he acquired a couple of daughters in the match. This is a big deal for his mom and dad, because their sons have produced no girls up to now (of course they had four boys, so they can hardly complain).  Susan's youngest brother's kids are almost the same ages as ours (we just stopped two births sooner than they did). Their second son, who also lives in Portland, has two boys that we had never seen before. They are the spitting image of their father as a child and close enough in age that they are sometimes mistaken for twins. Their father and our daughter Christine were often mistaken for twins when they were younger.

Here are some sample photos from the trip. First, the bride and groom:

Our oldest nephew, his wife, his two boys and her two girls:

Second oldest with his wife and two boys (the boys are all decked out for the wedding):

The youngest nephew with his girl friend.

And finally, Susan's brother and sister-in-law:

Susan's oldest brother and his wife were also there:

 There was a lot of other family present, too. It was really great to see everyone, even for so short a time.

Oh yes, the roses. We must have some pictures of the roses. Here's a small sample:

You can see that they had some very unusual colors as well as some very unusual blossoms. I had never seen purple roses before.