April 20, 2013. Canyon Lake, Texas. A dinner.

It was an ordinary seeming dinner.  I cooked the frozen lasagna while Samantha and Allison set the table.  The salad was brought to them by a friend.   And the bread sticks were left over from a spaghetti dinner brought and cooked by a friend.  We ate at the kitchen table.  Even though it was an ordinary dinner, the meal had a festive quality, perhaps because yesterday evening, David returned from a business trip to London, England.  And Ken and I had returned from the ranch.  It was a homecoming of sorts and it was lovely.

After dinner, Sarah and Abigail cleaned the kitchen, while Alison and Samantha cleared the table, all without asking.  Poor Suzanne is still on crutches so standing is difficult.   The girls have been helpful.   After our lively dinner conversation,  where David talked about the food he ate in London, the adults stayed at the table and one by one, when the chores were completed, the girls joined us in our conversation.   I don't know how we started talking about the girls when they were little, but we did.  We talked about Sarah wanting to return Abigail after a few days because she took up too much time.  And I told of Sarah at 2 always organizing and arranging the chairs on the deck at the lake.  At Suzanne's suggestion, we purchased very heavy deck furniture, just so Sarah could not move them.  And Abigail did not like it with the twins arrived and dominating the whole house.  It was fun and it was funny and what turned from a simple, ordinary dinner into an event to cherish, for both old and young.