Well, I went to Spring this weekend to celebrate an early Mother's Day (the folks are headed for Italy next weekend) and for a little Cinco de Mayo fiesta action. We had a nice time. We mostly just hung out by the pool, but we also went to the Cinco de Mayo celebration in the Woodlands (lots of gringos in the Woodlands, but they try) and had dinner at a nice Italian restaurant called Grotto in the Market Street Center shopping area (the whole Market Street Center phenomenon is kind of strange- it's essentially a shopping mall, but it's constructed out of a number of buildings which are designed and arranged to resemble a traditional town square- it's kind of an artificially created version of old time small town America [or at least what the average person envisions as such], existing in some kind of parallel reality where the down home townsfolk line up to eat at expensive restaurants and shop at upscale boutiques). Anyway, my meal was very good at Grotto, and afterward we walked over to the "town square" to listen to a pretty good salsa and merengue band for awhile. On the way out we stopped at Borders, and I bought The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

And here's a picture of Adriana and Jeff Peek's new child, Owen Jefferson Peek (a fine name for a southern gentleman, if ever there was one). Congrats to Jeff and Adriana! As you can tell from the picture, the child is obviously destined to be an Aggie.

Welcome to the world, Owen!

And farewell to my big ol' walnut tree. I loved you dearly, and though you dutifully provided shade to my house through many a scorching summer month, you've grown weary with age, and the branches that you keep dropping on my roof just keep getting bigger and bigger. With your brittleness and with the nasty storms that we keep having, in the end it was you or me, tree, which, in the end, means I must bid you a fond farewell!

Via con dios, you big ol' tree!! We'll miss ya!!