Great day-after-birthday day. I rolled out of bed at around 8:30 to find the house still full of kids.. about 8 of Gabe’s friends had spent the night and about 4 of Max’s had too.. though no one really looked like they had slept…

Gabe’s posse had decided to attempt the same river raft expedition that Devon and friends had done yesterday. They put a slightly different twist on it by lashing the canoe and the kayak to the raft to form a catamaran of sorts.. They shlepped the stuff down to the river in pieces than tied the crafts together.. they had 9 kids on board It was pretty funny to see.    They managed to make Richmond in just over 2 hours.. not too bad with the low/slow  water.  Might be because they had a cooler of Red Bull with them ?

    Around midday I caught up with my friend Sandy who was down in Houston for our 30^th High School reunion. She gave me a quick run down of who showed up… hair quantities and color.. and a few stories about folks.. She had been my proxy for the event and handed out some info including this blog and the SamStones website.  I’ve already heard from my friend Mer  which is very cool. Sandy is going to bring me the email list from the event  I’m looking forward to connecting up with a few old friends  I want to tell them about our lives up here.. about Diane, my kids.. about Sam.. . about Vermont.. it’s so very different than where I grew up. 

    After I talked to Sandy I went out to help Diane, Scott , Mary working in  the gardens. We spent several hours mulching which is a job I love.. It gives you an instant sense of accomplishment.

Diane has opted for much for flowers than vegetables this year.. and already the yard  is alive with color. The flowers are so bright and life affirming. I love it.. Here are some of the flowers she already has growing here:

   Late afternoon we all decided to do one more family thing for Gabe’s birthday. We all piled in the car and headed out for a dinner and a movie. First we stopped at Moe’s Burritos to harass our friend and roommate Mary ..  really like Moe’s.. .. everyone there is  programmed to say “Welcome to Moe’s” whenever anyone comes in the shop..  You can mess with them by standing there opeening and closing the door.  Mary looked quite professional rolling those burritos (burriti ?)

After a good dinner we headed next store to Starbucks to see  Elsa.

It’s fun having both of our good friends working so close so that we can torment them both. 

From there we headed  to the Majestic to catch Shrek III. It was really wonderful.. technically it’s amazing to see how far computer graphics has come.. I spent the whole time staring at the texture of things like Shrek’s shirt, trees and clouds just amazed at the compute effort required to do that.. I loved the pot.. but won’t give it away.. One thing I will say is that this movie has a new character , Merlin, voiced by Eric Idle from Monty Python… Merlin is me… even down to the Birkenstocks with socks (though I rarely do that anymore)

   We got back home in time for a little light up Frisbee

then we all headed off to bed.. everyone was exhausted.. I think none of us got more than 5 hours of sleep over the last several nights.. It’s nice to be this tired… It was a great long birthday weekend for Gabe.

Happy birthday my son. gnite all !

 

-js

 

ps.. Phoebe  P. got curious about the recurring theme of the nautical star in Meghan’s guitar, Kyle’s tattoo and her own drawn on Tattoo from Staurday… Sh figures that anything that’s occurring that often has some meaning.. Here’s what she dug up.

 

…  the nautical star tattoo…  would be a symbol of guidance. Now as time has passed the nautical stars represent the direction of one’s life, for those of us who are not sailors but still need guidance.  Some say that if the nautical star is pointed upwards they have a higher outlook on life and so on.  The meaning of the Nautical star is to create your own path, but use the stars as a guide when you are lost or scared.

 

I like that meanng