Back to School

Tomorrow morning Joe and Ellie start back to school. Where has the summer gone? It seems like just yesterday they were boarding a plane for the UK, but that seemed to fly by, especially since I had the opportunity to join them for a few days (let's call it a working holiday). I was on my way to Tel Aviv via London for a business meeting and managed to divert myself to the West Midlands for five days. I arrived on a Saturday morning from Atlanta via Paris to Birmingham and then had a delightful evening with my Kate's brother Julian, his wife Sarah and their three children; Grace, Abby and George. (Pictures are being posted) A bit too much wine and some very early scotch made Sunday a bit of a blur, but I managed to hang on and we visited some friends and drank a couple more glasses of wine before I called it a day. Monday through Wednesday were filled with short visits here and there to say hello to old friends while I occupied Michael's office (that's Kate's Dad) and spent multiple hours each day preparing for the latter part of the week. Still, all in all it was fun and London was a whirlwind for two days before flying off to Israel on the Saturday. Another five days there and I arrived back in Atlanta the morning after Kate and the kids returned, which explains why they were standing at the top of the escalator at 6:15 a.m. waiting patiently for Dad to arrive. Seems they had all been up since about 4:00 a.m. anyway, so why not meet Dad at the Airport. We headed off for the Landmark Diner and breakfast and then home, a quick shower and I headed off for the office where I spent most of the day. I am getting rather good at getting off planes after long trips and working. It's not my favorite activity, but sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do!

We were then joined my son Patrick and his two kids (Ashley and Patrick the 3rd, affectionately known as PJ) and they spent two weeks with us before heading back to Northern Virgina. He took our Joe and Ellie with him and then Kate drove to pick them up, spend some time with Jim and Becky (my brother and his wife) and then off to Ohio for a visit to Grandma and my sister Mary and her family. Kate definitely got some windscreen time on that trip!

They all arrived safely on Monday afternoon and this past week was another 50+ hour ordeal although I can't say it wasn't productive. As summer winds down we are beginning to see activity start to increase and hopefully that will spell a good September/October from a sales perspective.

Anyway, that is the really quick update. School starts tomorrow and life will get back to some semblance of normality, or at least that is our hope. Meanwhile the world is crashing down around our shoulders and with this latest hot spot in Eastern Europe I'm very concerned about things. But I'll hold those concerns for the moment and just share some photo's from our 2008 Summer.