Happy Birthday, Dana

Many happy returns to our competent, clever, creative, smart tomboy daughter. It seems somehow appropriate that today she is helping Will get settled into his dorm closet room at Cal Poly. I wonder if any of those three bunk beds will ever be made up again after the mothers make them today before they say good-bye? The extra is a picture of the newly fledged college student.

On the day we moved here, Dana  made sure our bed was made before she left us exhausted and incoherent amidst piles of boxes. The next morning she arrived early to help us unpack. I have lost track of the number of bags of soil and rocks she has hauled for us. She has transformed our back patio from a bog with a pool that didn't work to a lovely garden with a fountain.

It would take me more time and space than I have to list the things we have done together…backpacking trips... graduate school interview trips…the carrying the famous mountaineer's boots across the alps trip... the time I drove up in the middle of the night when Peter was an infant and sick, Jim was out of town and Dana didn't know what to do. By the time I arrived, all was calm and Peter was asleep in her lap. We've helped each other through the hard times and enjoyed the happy times. The "Party Boat", the doggie graduation ceremony, the trips to the beach, the Christmas mornings and the Thanksgiving dinners are just a few of the things that come immediately to mind.

Here's to many more dinners, glasses of wine, dog walks and trips to the nursery., and many many happy returns, Dana. I hope you get to celebrate with a nice dinner….