Kelly's Birthday Party

We've all done it...
I just wrote a whole entry and then accidentally deleted it looking for a link.
Kelly and Maureen (in the picture with us) occupy a special place in our hearts...
We became friends with them when we rented a little farmhouse in Sebastopol from them. They renovated it to live in themselves until they could build a second home for themselves next door. When that was finished they rented the farmhouse to us.
We all spent weekends in Sebastopol and went back to Berkeley and San Francisco during the week.
In between we became great friends.
I could go on and on about what interesting and wonderful people they are...in fact I already did...but the bare outline will have to suffice now.

When we were evacuated from our house during the fires in October 2017, Maureen was one of the first people to call us and ask how we were. At that point we didn't really know. The farmhouse was rented to somebody else, but she offered us their house in Sebastopol. We lived there for two weeks, far longer than anybody dreamed initially. They came up on the weekend with a big picnic lunch and even though we had vacated their bedroom for them, they wisely chose not to stay with Dana, Jim, Peter OilMan and me and three dogs....

Today was a big birthday party for Kelly at their house. There were tons of kids, a band on the porch, a taco truck in the driveway, a cookie and cupcake bar and a canoe, one of Kelly's many 'toys' filled with ice and drinks. We wandered down the driveway to see if the owl box OilMan built with Peter was still there, and talked to the next door neighbor, Domingo and his wife who still remembered us. 

We eventually found a sheltered spot to eat lunch, for it was cold there...the sun never really made it out, and we were reminded of a persistent wind which always blew in from the coast through a gap in the hills but we had an interesting conversation with a group of people who shared our picnic table next to the barn.

We finally succumbed to the chill, inappropriately dressed as we were, and took our leave, but we told Kelly and Maureen that if their current tenant ever moves out, we might just want to move back in again.... 

Happy Birthday, Kelly...may you live long and continue to prosper. Your friendship and generosity have given us many happy memories.