The move

Well, Katie and I are back in Lewisburg! We flew home on May 19, with two very easy flights, and were met by Oma and Opa - Betty and Dick Steffensen. It was so nice to see them again! And it was nice to see the familiar landmarks as we made our way up the Susquehanna to Lewisburg.

Katie recognized the "big brown house" and has been great so far about helping me move back in (by not getting in the way, mostly). The movers came first thing Wednesday morning, so everything is here. Except Dave and Oliver, of course -- they left San Antonio by car Wednesday night and plan to be in Lewisburg by Saturday dinnertime.

I do plan to continue this blog, but I guess I'll have to change the header and the main photos -- stay tuned from Pennsylvania!

Lasts

We've been spending a lot of time in the past few weeks experiencing "lasts" - the last Kindermusik class, the last story hour at the library, the last hike at Government Canyon, the last visits to our respective churches, the last time we go to the zoo,the Witte Museum, SeaWorld, or the Riverwalk, the last time we see fighter jets or huge C-5s zoom over the apartment. It's fun to hear Katie say goodbye to places like the Children's Museum when I tell her this is our last visit!


It is bittersweet, of course, to drive downtown for the last time, sing with the Mastersingers for the last time, see our friends the Lysiaks for the last time, play with Kim and Luke for the last time, etc., etc. But we're going home with some wonderful memories and some new lifelong friends. And we're going HOME -- that's the key word.

And it will be great to remember where Katie learned so many new skills and interests, not the least of which will be amusement park rides -- check out what she says at the end of the "monkey ride" at SeaWorld.

Mother's Day

I had a very nice Mother's Day this year, even without breakfast in bed! Dave talked me into a 10-mile bike ride for women only that morning. It was hard, but I did it. Only my second real ride since before Katie was born, so that felt good. And then they fed us barbecue brisket for brunch - yum.

In the afternoon we went back to the Witte Museum to see some exhibits and enjoy jazz on the lawn with three women jazz singers (my kind of jazz). Katie asked if I was going to sing, too. What a great kid! And the staff had bunches of pink carnations for all the moms.

And for dinner we met our friends the Lysiaks at a Japanese restaurant with fabulous sushi. We ate too much and too late, but we all had a good time. I sure was glad I had done the bike ride in the morning!

South Padre Island, Apr. 24-26

The last weekend in April we drove down to the Texas Gulf Coast to South Padre Island. I had really wanted a beach vacation -- the Gulf is not the mid-Atlantic, and I wanted to see it for myself. Well, in April it is WINDY!! We ended up not doing much lounging around on the beach, partly because of the wind. But we did get out a few hours each day, where Dave (with a *little* help from Katie) made animal sand sculptures. This was his cat on the first day.



We actually spent more time looking at wildlife on this trip, mostly birds. There is a sea turtle rescue place across the road from our hotel. There is a "sealife center" in Port Isabel, the closest town on the mainland, which had aquaria of interesting sealife - Katie got to touch a sea urchin and help feed some fish (and we saw seahorses so small they were tinier than sea monkeys we used to grow). There was a birding/nature trail across the road from the hotel, too, where we saw all kinds of birds, including this unusual purple gallinule. We had to ask what it was. On the way home we stopped at Resaca de la Palma State Park, part of the World Birding Center (as is South Padre) -- we saw more cool birds to add to our bird book checklist. Maybe Katie will turn out to be a birder, who knows?

Peter Rabbit April 22

Katie and I went with Kim and Luke to see a local production of Peter Rabbit recently. It was billed as interactive, and it sure was! There was a narrator, and one actor to play Peter, and everyone else was pulled from the audience -- mostly kids. It was a little hokey, but cute, and the kids really got into it. Neither Katie nor Luke wanted to participate the first few times they were invited (Katie ran crying to Mommy this very first time), but by the end, Katie wouldn't stay off stage. I wonder what that will mean?

(L: Katie watches at first; R: her role in the pond - she was supposed to be a fish, but opted to be a duck with Quack-Quack Duck)


(L: Katie sneaks onstage to be with Luke in the "hedge"; R: Katie joined in on the last scene and stayed for the curtain call)

Viva Fiesta!

Fiesta is a huge deal in San Antonio. As best I can tell, it's nearly two weeks of big parties. There's really no other way to describe it, which is why, I now realize, nobody has been able to explain it all year -- even though we've been hearing about it all year. It's probably a lot of fun if you a) like big crowds, b) drink a lot, c) like to wear brightly colored, flashy clothes, and d) don't have little kids that need to go to bed early. Needless to say, we're not going to most of the Fiesta events -- which do all seem to revolve around eating (OK, we like that part), drinking, and music (we like that, too). Plus much of it is happening downtown, which means traffic and parking. Gee, I sound like such a crank! I guess I'll take our small-town Lewisburg Arts Festival any day (good luck this weekend, guys!)

But I wanted to try to do some of it and get into the Fiesta spirit this week. So on Saturday we took Katie to Fiesta de los Ninos (Kids' Fiesta, for those who don't speak any Spanish) at the old Kelly AFB. She loved the rides and all the bright colors. She also liked the "cascarones", which are colored eggshells full of confetti that you crack on people's heads. Here are Dave and Katie just after she broke one over his head.

And we went to Tamalefest, for the tamales of course. We did get a Fiesta medal there, another Fiesta tradition -- you collect or buy them and wear them during Fiesta. I think they show how many events you've gone to. Another big part of Fiesta is the "royalty" -- beauty pageants for the Fiesta queens, and big ceremonies to crown the kinds -- it's all wrapped up in long-time San Antonio clubs of one sort or another. I think it's like Mardi Gras krewes in New Orleans. Oh, and parades -- there are three, which we'll watch on TV. The Battle of Flowers parade on Friday afternoon is all the high school marching bands in the area; the parade day is a school and business holiday. Did I mention that Fiesta is a big deal here?

Dave's big part of Fiesta this year was the Fiesta Wildflower Ride -- he rode 66.5 miles on Sunday!! I was proud of him, and he was really happy to have done it. Not easy the day after all those tamales... Congratulations, Dave!

An eventful week for us - April 12-18

I went back to the pictures I took this week to figure out what to post, and realized how much we did this week! Of course Sunday was Easter, and Katie's first visit from the Easter Bunny. Rationing candy is turning out to be a bit of a trick. She definitely has her parents' sweet tooth, specifically chocolate. The flowers Katie is holding in this picture are from the UU church, where we also had flower communion.


Tuesday we went to a San Antonio Missions (minor league baseball) game with a bunch of Dave's colleagues. It was a beautiful sunny day with good hotdogs and a losing team. Oh, well. We all had fun. It felt like playing hooky (which all the engineers were doing, even if their managers were with us) -- nice feeling when you don't really have anything to play hooky from!

Wednesday night Dave and I had a real date, with a babysitter for Katie and everything. The highlight (OK, dinner was really good) was to see John Cleese speak at Trinity University. He spoke on creativity and how to cultivate it. He was interesting, and of course extremely funny. The best part was the last audience question: a young boy (10 or 11) came up to the mike and said "Would you autograph my killer rabbit slippers?" And Cleese did. It really broke up the audience. He's so amazing. We also thought it was cool that he thinks the best comedy writing right now is being done by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

And then Friday Katie and I went with our friends Kim and Luke to see a performance of "If You Give a Mouse A Cookie". It was really well done. The kids loved it, and there was a lot for the parents, too. Kim and I are thinking the kids might now be ready for the Peter Rabbit play we saw advertised...

It's also Fiesta time here, which means 11 days of huge parties, parades, etc., etc. throughout San Antonio. We're going to try to go to a few things that aren't downtown (avoiding the biggest crowds and traffic) -- so I'll post those later.