Happy 17th Birthday, Cathy!

Today is Ken's granddaughter's 17th birthday. She's in California, so we won't see her, but we are sending her birthday wishes across the miles. She celebrated early by going to one of her favorite places, Disneyland, with her mom.

Today was another hot and humid one. We had thought about biking down to the state park but decided to save that for a cooler day. Judy came by with a mirror from our Texas room. It was a sickly yellow, and she took it home and painted it black. It's much more dramatic now. She said that Shonas uses black as an accent color.

This evening we went to Darryl's C-1 concept dance. We've been having three squares, but tonight there were five. More dancers are returning to the RGV, including Dick and Mary Ann. Steve and Jan were there. They danced this morning and of course have been working hard to get things straightened out at their place. We heard more about the tire blowout, which apparently did more damage than we thought at first. Steve said the tire must have actually exploded. The inside of the rig was littered with gravel and bits of tire rubber everywhere, and they think they probably have some suspension damage too.

Glenn and Char came too. Since we left them in Paris, TX, they've been to Ohio for the Heartland weekend and out to California for Romney's Hemet weekend. Ron and Margie were there too, and Ron sent us a newsy email message. We had hoped to see them in the RGV this winter, but they've changed their plans. They've booked an RV caravan to Alaska next summer.

Ken got the grill set up, and tonight I grilled a whole chicken. It came out moist and delicious--and the kitchen wasn't heated up by the oven. Good deal.

I've declared war on ants. We've had little tiny ants, just a few at a time, for the last few weeks. They show up around the kitchen sink. Yesterday they made it into a container of cereal, which I had to toss, so today I pulled out everything under the sink, cleaned, and sprayed ant poison and put down a trap designed for sugar ants. Then I pulled all the drawers of the pantry, emptied and cleaned them, and checked all the contents for ants. Before replacing the drawers, I put a trap and some spray in the back of the cabinet. Ditto for the cabinets above. So you can imagine how frustrating it was to come home from the dance tonight and find some ants on an empty salad dressing bottle on the counter.

We have been having trouble with our Verizon modem recently. It seems to work okay if I put it in my laptop, but regularly drops the signal when it's in the router. Grrr.