Birthdays and Mother's Day

May is a busy month in the Diller family, with semester wrap-up, two birthdays, Mother's Day, our wedding anniversary. Sometimes it gets a little challenging to give each event the attention it deserves, but I appear to be just barely holding things together, as my dear wife mentions in her most excellent post which describes today's activities. Click on over to read and see. I won't duplicate the effort.
I do want to describe Friday and yesterday a little bit. Friday from 2-5:30 found me in RLM writing furiously on an 8X8" square desk in an attempt to convince my Gas Dynamics professor (incidentally also a member of my dissertation committee member whom I will need to look in the eye regularly for the next couple of years) that I deserve an A in his class. This had to be one of the more grueling exams of my career, and I left the room with shoulders transmuted to glowing hot iron and unable to see through my red-rimmed eyes. I think that's enough said about that, I'm trying to forget it now...
Friday, as I've mentioned before, is my birthday. Not that this is a huge deal to me (I've decided to hold steady at 33 or 34 for the next few years), but one does wish to enjoy some quality time with one's family, and exams have a way of taking one's energy away. But I've said enough about that. My dear wife cooked up a wonderful dinner, after which certain gifts were given. Hannah definitely knows how to give according to the desires of the receiver, and accordingly found for me two books, Chatter: Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping, written by a former classmate of hers, and Battle of Wits, a history of code making and breaking in WWII, both of which I have begun to enjoy already.
Saturday (after I awoke and took Caroline with me to vote in the Austin City Council elections) found us in McKinney Roughs, a park run by the LCRA, where we retreated for some much needed R&R. They run a program called Acorn Eaters for kids, and we dropped Ian off there to participate in that and then proceeded to run into nearby Bastrop to find drugs for Hannah's migraine. 4 Advils and 1 Benedryl later, I was walking the trails with Eliza and Caroline. There is a tremendous amount of interesting flora and fauna in the Texas countryside, and I've attempted to show some below in the slide show.

Moving at the pace of a 4-1/2 and a 2 year old, we made our way along one of the trails. Eliza had an unfortunate encounter with a paper wasp, which the lady in the visitor's center was able to treat with a sting wipe and ice. Lizey showed the remarkable resilience of a child and was back on her feet before too much longer. Thus, we made our way through a small piece of the preserve, using our new camera liberally, and just enjoying the cool breeze and low-stress environment.
We ended the very pleasant day at my parents' property in Elgin with dinner and ice-cream in honor of Hannah and my birthdays. Let's all sigh together in satisfaction and contentment. :-)