Hooray for the Family!

Friday, the 25th, was supposed to be Mom's and Dad's 70th Anniversary. Instead it was 2 months since Dad passed away. We wanted to do something for Mom to keep her from being sad and lonely on that day. ShayBabe from SLC was able to get a great airfare and flew into Denver so I drove Mom up to Mike's home in Wheatridge. On Friday evening Carl and Robyn arranged for dinner in a private room at DiCicco's Italian Restaurant in Olde Towne Arvada.

DiCicco's is located in the historic one room grade school that was built in 1882. It has been restored and added on to to make a great commercial building across from the central Plaza on Old Wadsworth.

We ate yummy Italian food, drank Cabernet Sauvignon and reminisced and laughed and had a great time. I guess it was our version of an old fashioned wake. We were the last group out of the establishment except for the Manager and some clean up staff in the kitchen. They treated us royally and we sure appreciate them. Our waitress even turned out to be a college student from Canon City.

After a long period of very cold and snowy weather it was up into the 50s this weekend. Lindsay and Derek were working on new wiring for Mikey's hot tub, Kaylee was making "soup" on the picnic table on the deck, the black labs played in the snow that still covered the shaded back yard, and Mandykins had a blast playing with baby Sean.

Mom and I drove home on Saturday evening and brought Mandy with us to spend a couple of weeks. Since she goes to school online, she will be able to continue her school work on our computer. She hopes to do more work on the photo memory quilt she started last summer.

Today Mandy and I drove Amber to Colorado Springs for her first orientation meeting as a Youth Ambassador for People to People. We got to meet the other students that will be traveling with Amber next summer to the Mediterannean, and received valuable advice from parents of previous Youth Ambassadors on things like what and how to pack and carrying international Visa cards so they don't have to carry cash or exchange a lot of currency. Amber has already started some of her home work and will begin online study about the countries she will visit on. She will have to do well on quizzes and reports in order to get high school and even college credits. We're really excited and I'll be telling you more about her trip in the near future.