Sometime around 1968 CHEVRON transferred Gary from Florida to Northern Kentucky. (Northern Kentucky is a large region of many little towns, across the river from Cincinnati.) Marty also worked for CHEVRON. Gary asked me to help his wife, Susan, learn the area while house hunting. Happily they bought just a couple of blocks from our home. From that time on we became close friends.
They had a son, Doug, who was around 2 years old. I had a son the next year and then they had another son. Our three boys grew up together. We were transferred to the same places a couple of times. When in different towns we would vacation together. When apart we have used instant messaging, email and long long phone calls to stay in touch. We are now trying to teach Gary and Susan how to SKYPE for really fun phone calls.
Anyway, we have kept up. When Doug and Andrea married in Dallas, we went to the wedding. I must say the most fun wedding I have ever attended. Food, food, parties, live bands, wine, food, dancing, bubbles. When our son married in 2000 Susan, Gary, and Doug and his wife came to California for our event. We later found out Andrea was then pregnant with triplets.
Last night we met the triplets. The family is in the Bay Area for spring break. (Remember the storms I told you about? Still raining) They invited us to dinner last night. Doug asked us to pick a place, and we met at Tian Sing in San Francisco. The food is as good as it looks on the web site. We had a slowly paced meal with lots of dishes to choose from.
The triplets are 11 and in the 5th grade. They are charming, fun, and well behaved enough to let the adults catch up. They joined in the conversation some, but mostly listened. We had such fun talking about past happenings and finding out where we all are in our lives now. I was pleased to find out Doug reads my blog.
Some of the stories we told are worth a blog alone. And some we ran out of time and couldn't relive. Doug and another CHEVRON kid in our hot tub and then their race to catch a plane. The two families' trips to Disney World. The world famous Canasta parties, grass sledding on cardboard, Doug's dog snatching cookies from Erik's hand, the famous picking pears trip. We have had over 40 years of friendship and love between two clans. It was great to meet the third generation. With Facebook we are able to watch them grow up too.
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