Summer 2013

I guess summer vacation is over so I have run out of excuses to update the blog.  That plus the fact that I am getting tired of my daughter complaining about seeing nothing but the Leiden Marathon for 6 months.  So what did we do this summer you ask.  The short answer is nothing too exciting.  I'll try and stretch this into a couple of posts with lots of dog pictures for filler.

The summer started with a visit from Kate.  In early June she finished her second year at Med School and had to take her written board examination.  It was one of those tests where her life was pretty much burrowing into a carrell at the library and studying full-time for over a month.  She came up for air once in a while, but not often.  She took the exam on June 10 and two days later was on a plane to Amsterdam.  It would have been 1 day but she had a mountain of laundry to do after a month of ignoring it.  And no, don't think that just because she took a big test that she's done.  It's just a big test after their two years of class room work.  There is lots more medical schooling ahead of her. 

When Kate arrived Grant was taking his finals which included significantly less studying and no visits to the carrells at all.  Regardless, she and Lori thought it best to leave so they took off for 5 days of relaxing, eating, touring and drinking fine wines in the Loire Valley, France.  It would be nice to post some photos of their trip along with some pithy commentary.  But, alas, my repeated invitations for a guest posting have been unanswered.  So all you get is a stock photo of a Loire Valley Chateaux.  

After the girls returned to Holland, Doug flew over from the US.  He and Kate spent a few days in London (again, no pictures or commentary) to visit Doug's haunts from when he did a summer session there.  

We celebrated Doug's birthday -- he chose the ever popular Tuxedo Cake.  

At the end of the visit, Kate and Grant returned to the US together.  Kate began her two years of clinical rotations (no more summer vacations for her) and Grant visited Don and Joan for several weeks.  So Lori and I had the summer in Europe with no kids!   Think again.   Her work travel schedule seemed to peak right then (somewhat suspiciously I might add) so we ended up with a only a weekend in Europe with no kids.  And Graber and I had lots of quality time.  

Grant & Kate before they left for the US.   At the beginning of the summer, Grant always gets a haircut that will last all summer.  

At the end of the summer, Lori, Grant & I had our annual trip to Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt for a week of very hot weather, warm water and fantastic scuba diving.  Not many shark sightings this year, but we did see a manta ray.  As you remember, things were (and continue to be) a little unsettled in Egypt, so the resort was about half full.  And not many of those were European. But we felt safe, the staff was great and we had a fun week.  The week after we returned the Dutch government put out a security warning, all flights to/from Egypt were cancelled and they really haven't restarted since.  Lucky timing on our part.   Bad luck for some really nice people who make their living off of tourism.   

The lifeguard at the beach had to carry towels to his station.  Looks like he's done this before.  

He never dropped one

After our dive at Ras Mohammed, a pod of 15 dolphins played around the boat for 10 minutes.  

In September (which is still summer by my calendar) my Uncle Ralph and Aunt Barb finished up a Rhine River cruise in Amsterdam.  I hadn't seen them since Lori & I were married (30 years this year -- see future blog posting); it was great to catch up.  They lived in Germany in the 50's so it was interesting to hear their stories of Europe back in the day

Ralph, Barb and I in the lounge of their cruise ship.  

A filler photo of the dog.

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