Saturday was so much fun. We had a really good - if restrained (due to the fact that we were driving a few towns away) time at the Derby Party and an absolute blast at Laurel and Pat's party here in town which started off with quite a bang - a Tiki Torch fell and started a blaze on their back deck which Frank tried to douse - with wine! Hilarious - quite literally adding fuel to the fire. Fortunately he then grabbed a fire extinguisher and put it out, but there was quite a commotion which funnily enough added to the night. Was a great great time with a really fun group of people. We ended up staying way beyond every one else. We had a ton of laughs. Laurel and Patrick are such nice people and really easygoing hosts.

Yesterday we worked in our yard all day long and it looks great. Was exhausted last night, but managed to get a walk up to Gracie's in for the first ice cream cone of the Spring season.

Scrambling to get ready to go away.

So annoying. The last few posts I made vaporized into thin air. Let's try again.

Last night we went to John's First Friday gallery opening of some of his Silk Road photographs taken on the Turkish Armenian border. They're indescribably beautiful and his printing is masterful. John is a real artist and constantly amazes me. After the opening, we all went to a great little Turkish place on 2nd and Vine and had a meal and a bunch of drinks, watched bellydancers and congratulated John on his work. A truly nice night. It's extremely heartwarming to see someone you love accomplish something wonderful and I thoroughly enjoyed feting him.

It's a big party day here - but not at our house thank heaven. I am still recovering from the kick ass home brew party we had a few weeks ago with about seventy people in attendance. The weather was perfect and we had people allover the house, on the front porch and gathered around a huge bonfire in our yard. We had a great mix of ages and peple of all sorts. People really seem to like coming to our parties - they are really freewheeling. Anyway, today we've got a Kentucky Derby Party at Billy and Susan's with some of the suspects from last night and tonight we have a Cinco de Mayo shindig and Laurel and Patrick's house a stone's throw away from our house so we'll end up walking home from there.

Tomorrow, we'll be in recovery mode and start getting ready for our trip on Tuesday.