Sunday, June 5, 2011

Wonder-filled Whirlwind Weekend

Old West End Festival and our old homestead at 2448 Robinwood (yellow & green with distinctive porch railing, and interior with fabulous woodwork). Below the collage: Josh and Kyle's tent; Philip's 4th at Wildwood park; matriarch Roz and our family.


This was a great post-PCV weekend. The adventures are piling up faster than in Ukraine!

First the kids and I went to the Old West End (OWE) Festival and visited our family home at 2448 Robinwood, where Elissa and Michelle grew up. The house looks better than ever, inside and out, and the flowers and gardens I planted over 25 years ago are still flourishing. The people who live there now (there have been several different owners and occupants over the years) love it as much as we did, and they were glad to let us take a tour. The OWE festival began in the late 1960s when the neighborhood of fabulous Victorian homes was rebounding from hard times. The festival showcases the OWE’s historic architecture and pride of place. A walk down memory lane for me, and lots of lawn sales for the kids.

That night Josh and Kyle spent the night at my place. They built a great fort in the living room, with every sheet, blanket and chair we could gather together. They stayed up late, but what the heck! It was a great adventure.

On Sunday we all went to Wildwood Park, one of Toledo’s great Metroparks, for Philip’s 4th birthday party. It was a beautiful sunny day, not quite as hot as on Saturday. Friends from Philip’s pre-school and church and lots of family members on all sides gathered to enjoy pizza, cake, sing happy birthday and give him lots of presents. Boy did he have fun with that, helped by his cousin Aiden, whose birthday is coming up next month. Good thing, because those presents were fantastic! Mama Julia, my firstborn grandchild, did a great job of organizing the party, and keeping track of who gave what to Philip. What a party planner, to her mom’s (my daughter’s) delight, because an organizer Elissa is not! Creative and talented and wonderful, but not an organizer, as she freely admits. The family joke is that Julia inherited that gene from her Nana, and it skips generations.

And speaking of generations, with Roz Soldinger present, the 94-year-old family matriarch, we were five generations gathered to celebrate the birthday of the youngest, newest generation. A diverse, extended family united by the joy of Philip's 4th birthday. That's amazing!


1 comment:

Marlan Warren said...

Hi: My name is Marlan and Roz Soldinger is my mother's sister. We have been out of touch for years, and I was just looking around on the Internet to find out how she is doing. Glad to see she was still up and enjoying life in 2011. I'm tracing our family tree on my mother's side and wondering if she could tell me where their parents came from. All the best to her and you.

Don't get out the popcorn yet: The Wheels of Justice Grind Slowly

"Delay, Delay, Delay: From pre-trial motions to negotiations over security, the master of legal stalling has many tactics in his arsena...