It's been a very long time since I posted (sorry!) so I have lots of things to update.

Last week I was in the Netherlands and Spain, and it was a good trip though exhausting. I was travelling with Gordon, Ash, and Johan. Ash, Gordon and I did a dinner cruise in Amsterdam on Tuesday night and it was really nice. Johan lives there, so he's seen it all before I'm sure. The city has lots of canals that wind through the old part of the city, and it was great to see the city from that viewpoint. Here's one of my favorite pictures.

And here we are ready to go on the cruise.

We were in Madrid Wednesday and Thursday, and got a lot of work done as well as going out for tapas on Thursday night. That was a lot of fun. Ash's briefcase was stolen, complete with laptop and tons of other stuff, and he went through withdrawal without his PC. We were teasing him that he was like Data on StarTrek, and we got him to pose as Data with his power switch off.

It's beautiful weather here, sunny and up to 84 today. That is 20 degrees warmer than the usual, and I'm happy for it. Sandals and shorts in April in Chicago - yay! I plan to spend an hour this afternoon in the garden planting snap peas, english peas, beets, radishes and carrots. The lettuce seeds I planted last week aren't up yet, but any day now.

Lani, I know you've been down visiting Mom & Dad, and I'm jealous. We're planning on going for Memorial Day weekend, but I wish we could all be there together!

A couple of weeks ago Don flew to Florida to visit his brother, Dennis, and when he was flying back he took this picture for you, Mom. Recognize it? It's lovely Douglas, Georgia!

And I have to show you this. Don took a picture of one of his instruments, because he had a hell of a tail wind and got the plane up to 203 knots. He was very impressed, and I thought it was funny that he took a picture to prove it! I guess it's kind of boring flying long distances by yourself.

And here's Captain Dennis running the boat. Don went with him to work for a couple of days, and other than that they hung out, played golf, and I heard about a few bars too (big surprise!)

We do have a bit of sad news. Kitty Bad Girl had surgery two weeks ago to remove a lump on her leg, and it turns out it was malignant. Her prognosis is "guarded", and they told us we could remove the lymph nodes on her leg but there's no guarantee that would be do anything for her and I don't want her to have to go through that. We'll just watch her. For now, she's as snotty as ever.

And in our never-ending housekeeper saga, we lost another one. I have to tell you, I'm just done. We went last weekend and got Steve a bike, and he's going to bike to school the rest of the year. I may be ready to face it again in the fall, since he can't bike year round in the dark and cold, but I'm going to be Scarlett O'Hara and worry about that tomorrow. For now, we are on our own!

Hope all is well - and now that I've actually posted, please write back!