Today is my birthday. Birthdays are always fun days, filled with celebration. For my gift, Heidi and the kids got me a great map of Trinidad. It was designed to look antique, and it is nicely framed. A wonderful gift.

Birthdays are also a time for reflection. Some thoughts:

I miss my Mom. 35 years ago today she brought me into this world. I know she's looking down on us, and is proud of me and my family, but I wish she were here.

Today would be my grandparent's 62nd Wedding Anniversary. I really miss them too.

Today is also the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Andrew. I remember distinctly being in my cubicle at work when I talked to my Dad in Miami. I can't recall if he called me or I called him, but he wished me a happy birthday and talked about what he was going through. I'd never heard my father scared before in my life, but he was certainly scared that day. When I eventually made it back there some time later, many of the familiar landmarks were gone or different. Houses had been renovated and repainted, many big trees were missing. Pretty big storm.

Mt. Vesuvius erupted on this day in AD 79 and buried Pompeii under tons of hot, suffocating ash. I guess my birthday is also Natural Disaster Day!

Anyways, it's off to basball tryouts for Alec. See ya!

Here comes the weekend, and none too soon either. It was a week from hell, work wise. Tomorrow is Heidi and my 11th Wedding Anniversary. We are going out to dinner tonight to celebrate, because we are going to a friend's 40th birthday party tomorrow night. We gave each other an original oil painting to commemorate the day. It's a pretty cool painting by a lady in Shreveport, LA, that Heidi knows through a friend. I'll try to digitize it and post a copy one of these days. (I am hoping to buy a digital camera soon)

Speaking of pictures, be sure to check out all the cruise pics Auntie Lauran posted in the Gallery, she's up to 103!

I failed to mention that we saw Eric and Rita from the cruise last weekend. They came in to visit a friend and we had them over for dinner on Saturday night, along with our friends Brett and Amy, and my cousin Patrick. It was fun, although not as wild as the cruise! Amy did have a little too much to drink which provided our entertainment at the end.

The kids start back at school next week, Erin and Alec anyway. They went and met their teachers yesterday, and seem excited to get started. I know Heidi sure is ready!

Due to the busy schedule at work, I haven't had the opportunity to blog very much this week, but I did wade into a discussion about the abortion issue on another site. You can find it here.

That's it for now. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

As promised, there are now some cruise pics in the Gallery, uploaded by my Aunt Lauran.