Nearing the Home Stretch

Well, Clemson did win that game against Florida State.  Tigertown is a very happy place this week.

Lynn and Eric drove down to Charleston Sunday (but not early; more like early afternoon). They were treated to dinner there by Liz (Whitley) and her husband Mark. (I can't recall their last name.) Anyway, add one more new food to Lynn's list of favorites: raw oysters!  She's a braver woman than I.  Over the next 18 hours they took a carriage ride, explored White Point gardens (aka Battery Park), found an amazing Asian food store where Lynn was able to buy the much prized American Ginseng for her mother, checked out The Citadel, took a childhood friend, John Vinson, out for lunch (it was his birthday), and dined with another Clemson friend, Josh Arant. They packed as much into a very short stay in Charleston as anybody could.

Harry and I missed the kids.  They returned in the wee small hours of Tuesday morning. Eric rose early enough to make it to a doctor's appt. while Lynn caught some ZZZZs.  In the afternoon, Lynn and I looked through tons of baby pictures of Eric and some of the rest of our small family. I gave her several duplicates she wanted. I think Lynn was surprised to see that Western (Caucasian) children change appearance much more as they grow up than do Asian children.  This is especially true of hair color, but also of hair texture and facial features. Eric had straight, very light brown (almost blond) hair as a little guy, but now it's very dark and curly (if he were to let it grow).

Then it was time to prepare one of Eric's favorite meals. While Eric and Lynn went to the fitness center for her to practice her swimming again, I fixed a pork tenderloin with a maple/mustard,/rosemary marinade that's served with sliced Granny Smith apples that have been sauteed dry and then finished with maple syrup.  I used my new rice maker again, this time for short-grain brown rice.  It came out perfectly. Steamed string beans rounded out the meal.  But the most special part was homemade Indian Pudding.  It bakes in the oven for 3 hours and makes the house smell wonderful.  Again, all parts of this dinner were given two thumbs up from Lynn.  Eric was in heaven.

A truly hilarious aspect of our dinner conversation involved our reading a diary I had kept just prior to Eric's birth, and the notebook Harry had kept during our Lamaze classes.  In true engineering fashion, he had taken copious, careful notes.  Ha!  The joke was on us!  Those notes bore no resemblance to what went on during labor, delivery, or after we brought Eric home.  So, we had a good laugh 33 years later.

As usual, Harry was off early this morning and I soon followed. I did my thing at CCDC and then stopped at a florist to have a small table arrangement made to take as a hostess gift when we go to Imtiaz and Mary Haque's home for dinner later today. Mary's nephew teaches in China too, and he'll be there, so it should be a great evening.

We're sadly counting the days now. Cramming in another dinner date on Friday at the home of one of Harry's Chinese colleagues. No specific family plans for the weekend, but maybe we can take that pontoon ride on the lake that we postponed. 

That's all for now.  Off to throw some laundry in the dryer and run some errands prior to my 5:30 church committee meeting before heading over to the Haques.  Making memories every day.