July 2023 in Review - This month has been a blur, and I’ve not kept track of my day-to-day activities. We have been to visit my family in Indiana, which felt more like vacation than it did visiting family. We had a wonderful time. Tom spent the majority of our time there with his cousins, while Rachel and Archie finally had the attention they think they deserve. We kept up our tradition of family art day, with this year’s theme being mythical hybrid animals (for instance, my dad made a fish with an eagle’s head). We also had a wonderful family dinner at my sister’s home, where my brother-in-law made tacos on a flattop, outdoor grill. Last weekend we made our first family trip to the beach; we went at 8:30AM, before it was too hot or crowded. While there we saw a pod of dolphins, numerous pelicans, and what I believe to be some variety of tern. This past Tuesday Tom and I went to Disneyland for the first time. We spent most of the day in Star Wars Land, where we rode Rise of the Resistance twice, met Boba Fett, and helped a rebel agent escape from Storm Troopers by telling them that we were part of her crew, working on a relief mission to bring food to hungry citizens of the galaxy. When we were asked for the operation code name, I replied, “Operation Rice and Beans.” Claire and I have been working on the particulars of Art Camp, and we are excited to see how it goes. There have been lots of good things happening in the background at St. Francis, and it has been a good time to rest and regroup.
