Meeting the Family

After spending the day catching up with Natalie, including a walk on the seawall and a drive around Galveston, we got ready for the family party. The drive to Houston took a bit over an hour, and ended in some confusion when we realized we did not have the unit number for Lynn's residence. It was starting to rain, too. We called, got the final directions (we were in the correct section of the condos), and got into the house before the rain really got going.

All the family were there. We got introductions (I would have failed the quiz, since there were too many people to remember that fast!), and settled in to get to know folks, admire the 100-year-old Christmas tree, and wait for dinner.

Before long, dinner was ready. It was a buffet, with baked potatoes, barbeque meat, vegetables, etc. Everything was good. There was plenty of good conversation.

After dinner, there was a white-elephant gift exchange. A few people seemed destined to never get a gift--whatever they opened got taken by the next person. I was the first person to pick, so would also be last!

A power-outage complicated the evening a bit. A neighbor brought over a generator (kind of surprising that people in this type of community would have one, much less two generators, but I guess with the hurricanes, maybe not so surprising).

Dad and I left to drive back to Galveston in the rain--a very nice party and great to meet these relatives. Dad was the oldest person there (a couple of people were close in age, I think).

Reunion--2nd Day on the Road

An early breakfast, and we were off. It was a beautiful day for driving, and all seemed well. We made pretty good time and agreed that we would not stop for long breaks today. We found a pastry shop for a lunch break--Paul's Pastry Shop--that fit the bill, and got food for the road plus some raisin pecan bread to take to Natalie's.

Our biggest problem today was the frequent road construction. We kept finding areas with reduced speeds, single lane, etc. We could have made much better time if they had given the road crews time off for the holiday.

We finally made it to Galveston about 8:30 p.m., after calling Natalie for assistance in finding the best route. We took a local road that seemed endless, but was much shorter than the alternative of going all the way to Houston.

Hooray!

Family Reunion--100th anniversary

My father's family has this artificial Christmas tree that will be 100 years old this year (believe it!). My great-grandmother bought it--a story in itself, and the family has been gathering at someone's home on Christmas eve each year to celebrate.

This year, I am taking my 88-year-old father to join the celebration for the first time. It will be an interesting trip, since we don't know many of the people who will be there (we have met some of them, but only once).

We are driving, for various reasons. We left early yesterday morning and made it to Birmingham about 8:00 last night. Other than one section of one-lane road due to construction, the driving was uneventful. We also hit two rush-hour periods (Knoxville and Chattanooga), nothing to compare to DC, though.

One of the key features of our first day on the road was visiting all the fast food restaurants. We had a late breakfast at Starbucks, a late lunch at Wendy's, and an early supper at McDonald's. The finish for the day was dessert at one of the chicken places after some quick shopping near our hotel. Unfortunately, the area was not walkable, so we had to drive--not what we wanted to do after being in the car for 12 hours!

Weather is dry, thank goodness, but colder than it should be this time of year. We will be (I hope) staying with my friend Natalie in Galveston tonight.

Nothing is ever easy

I had hired a young woman to help care for Daniel around the time school started this fall. She has been doing very well; they get along well. She has an interest in speech therapy, which is one of Daniel's areas of need, and has experience with kids with special needs. However, she has decided to return to school full time, instead of the online school, which turned out not to have the program she needed. So now we need to find someone new, again.

Traveling without leaving home

Sometimes you can have some of the benefits of travel while still enjoying the comforts of home. Getting to know people from other countries is, to me, a highlight of any trip. We just had a great experience hosting a woman from Moscow. She is a former journalist and has traveled to about 120 countries. She had many interesting stories to tell.

Her English was not the best, but we got along. It helped that we have a student living with us whose native language is Russian, though he was not here all the time. She came to Washington, D.C. because she wanted to see the museums, etc. and do some shopping. She more than accomplished both goals.

One of the things we enjoyed was her cooking. She insisted on making borscht the second day she was here. It was wonderful, but so much work! I think it took all day to make. Then she made Uzbekistan-style aush, which differs from the Tajikistan-style aush we have been eating compliments of our international student. Finally, she made a soup/stew that she described as a cousin of the other two dishes. More of the benefits of travel.

She made a good job of riding the bus and subway to get around, found a Russian-speaking guide for a tour of the Library of Congress, bought everything imaginable (but did not have enough space in the airline luggage allotment to take it all back to Russia; I guess that just means we have to go visit her).