Been Gone a Few Days

I've just spent the last 4 days where I grew up, in the San Francisco South Bay Area.  I was at my one of my sister's homes.  We've had a couple of rough weeks in our family.

On August 22nd, my brother-in-law, Ron, lost his 8 year battle with leukemia.  The very next day, Ed & I had to put down our 14 year old Lab Mix, Dusty.  These were very sad days...

But, this weekend was time to celebrate Ron's life with family & friends.  As is the way with our family, we gathered as many of us who loved Ron as we could find, and ate, drank, told stories, looked at photos and an amazing memorial video, put together by one member of his girl's basketball team.  Many tears were shed, and laughs were had.  Healing has begun.

The bro-in-law in whose home we stayed is a wonderful gardener.  I have taken loads of pictures of his garden to show you in a couple of days.  I wanted to leave you with a photo of the table in their backyard pavilion.  This greeted us as we arrived.  Don't know why, but the color in the table cloth & place mats looks brown. It is really more purple.  I just loved his creativity!  What do you think?

P.S. Please excuse his cigar...bleech!  I didn't even see it until I looked at the photo..