Peggy and I had so much fun hosting clients at the season opening game for LSU last night. Fun night, beautiful weather, great time.

Today Peggy and her siblings had to make the choice that every child or spouse dreads. Except Peggy is the only child here with her mother. We admitted Peggy’s mother, Mary, into hospice tonight.

As I have discussed before, Peggy’s mother has severe Alzheimer’s and we moved her here to Baton Rouge last January to be close to her. Today she had a stroke. As Peggy said, no more trips to the hospital, no more tests she doesn’t understand, we’re just going to make her comfortable.

Mary has been telling us for the past few years that she is ready to see Jesus. We are asking our friends to pray that happens soon. That is really hard to ask for someone you love, but she has truly fought the good fight through Alzheimer’s disease. She deserves the victory.

Peggy has worked so hard to make her Mama comfortable since this journey began. The countless trips to Dallas before the move to Baton Rouge. Taking her to all of her doctor appointments and meeting with the staff at the care facilities. Fighting for her VA benefits when it felt like she was banging her head against the wall.

She would tell you tonight that it is nothing compared to what her mother has done for her. And the decision she made tonight was about making her Mama comfortable until the end.

I am always proud of my beautiful wife.

I cannot think of a time I have been prouder than tonight.

When we came to Austin we made the decision to downsize and find a really nice apartment to live in. We spent a lot of time searching. For some reason there are apartment owners who do not want to lease to people with multiple pets. Having a dog and two cats eliminated about 75% of the potential places to live.

Once you narrow the search down to places that will take pets, it gets easier to figure it out. This place has been perfect. It backs up to a nature preserve and sits right on the Colorado River. Our back deck overlooks the nature preserve. We sit out on the deck and watch the wildlife moving along the fence line. The funniest thing is watching the turkeys scale the fence and come take a walk on our side. Not particularly graceful, but always enjoyable viewing.

We moved in to our apartment in October, and the weather cooled much quicker than normal. This weekend in Austin has just been beautiful. After hiking and sightseeing yesterday, it got warm enough after our walk to go down to the pool for the first time. We have utilized the hot tub on a few occasions, but this was our first foray into the pool.

It was delightful. The water is still cool so it is a very refreshing change from the nearly ninety degree air temperature. It’s a little too cool for Peggy so she mostly just gets in up to her knees. Of course, that is also true for most of the summer, too.

We have really enjoyed it here. The management company has been very accommodating. We are pretty sure we have a very high-priced call girl living upstairs from us, but other than stiletto heels at weird hours of the night we have not been disturbed by her trade. The property is perfect for dogs, and Peggy and Allie love to walk down to the river. The cats have even adjusted to mostly just being out on the back deck, though Sandy does enjoy going for walkabouts on the roof line.

If we move to Baton Rouge we know we are not going to find anything like this. It’s just another thing to consider as we move through these next couple of weeks. This place is fantastic.

We’re going to enjoy it while we can.

This was our first Christmas in Austin, and our first Christmas since 1986 living in an apartment. Now, the apartment we live in today is nothing like the apartment where we lived in 1986, but the statement is accurate.

Because it is just us for Christmas I asked Peggy not to go all out on the Christmas decorating. The living room in the apartment is a nice size, but one entire wall is windows so all of the furniture is along the other two walls. I really did not want to have a tree, even a Christmas tree, blocking the beautiful view; you know, the reason we got the apartment in the first place.

Peggy surprised me by being OK with the request. We have always had another small tree that has a bear climbing it that is my favorite Christmas decoration. Peggy decided to make the Christmas bear our only Christmas tree this year. It was perfect!

One other advantage of the Christmas Bear — no cats have climbed the Christmas tree this year, nor have we heard the late night excitement of knocking ornaments off the tree and chasing them around the house. Actually, I kind of miss both events, so I may insist on a tree next year…

We ran up to Dallas to see Peggy’s mother, and we are going to Louisiana and Mississippi to see my family between Christmas and New Year’s, so we really just wanted a quiet Christmas time at home. As soon as we get back from Louisiana we have folks coming to visit for New Year’s, so keeping it quiet seemed like a good idea.

I hope each of you has a wonderful and blessed Christmas season!

Today is Peggy’s birthday!

“Jersey Boys” was incredible on Thursday night, and we saw Bill Cosby last night. He just sat in a chair in his Temple sweatshirt and talked for two hours. And we laughed for two hours. No production quality whatsoever, but still a great show.

This morning we got up and went to breakfast on the Miracle Mile. The weather is cool and perfect, so we ate outside. We got tickled because the couple next to us was obviously still out from last night. And highly flammable judging from the smell.

We will spend the day walking around the Strip and looking at all of the Christmas decorations. That is one of Peggy’s favorite things to do — Vegas hotels do the Christmas decoration thing right. And it makes sense, too. I mean, what says “celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior” better than gambling, drunken debauchery and overeating? Go Vegas!

Tonight is the real birthday present for Peggy, though. We are going to see Justin Timberlake in concert at the MGM Grand Garden Arena with 17,000 of our closest friends. I told her about it this morning while we were at breakfast and she is very excited. I am excited, too, but I am too cool to show it.

We didn’t get great seats, but just being in the arena and seeing it live will be a great time.

Sorry “Jersey Boys” and Bill Cosby, I got a different reaction when I told her where we were going tonight. Don’t take it personally.

Peggy had to go to Dallas this week, so she came to Austin on her way back south so we can find a place to live.

We have found our new home. It is a two-bedroom apartment in a beautiful property right on the Colorado River that overlooks a nature preserve. It is much smaller than our house, but that’s the point. What we realized is that it’s exactly the same size as the downstairs in our current house in Katy. Since we never go upstairs we shouldn’t miss the square footage…

Even more importantly, since Peggy came from Dallas it became apparent to her how much shorter her drives to see her mother are going to be once we move here for real. She knew Austin was closer to Dallas, but it really had not occurred to her how much easier the drive will be until this trip.

I will go and put down a deposit this week and we will begin the process of moving in a couple of weeks. We are changing the floors in the apartment to hardwoods, so the management company asked for two weeks to get the floors done and then to get the apartment cleaned and ready for us.

That works out perfectly because we have accepted an offer on our house and the buyer wants to close on October 9! Very exciting stuff. Closing so quickly would not have been possible if we were trying to buy a house in Austin, but moving into an apartment makes it much easier for us to get out of the house quickly.

So, we are hanging out at the lake and doing a little celebrating. This is a great place to celebrate.

Peggy will head back to Katy tonight. I will miss her, but it is a lot easier knowing that she will be back for keeps in just a couple of weeks. It’s getting real!

Memorial Day is a great time for a Family Reunion.

I have an aunt who owns one of the historic homes outside of Vicksburg, Mississippi. We had a family reunion at her home several years ago. Now there are fewer of us to reunite, so my sister decided to do it again this year. My aunt was onboard, so we spent Saturday in Vicksburg.

This reunion was different. All of the kids are older, so part of the fun of the reunion was watching the next generation interact with each other. My son and my sister’s kids see each other quite a bit, but they do not see my cousins’ kids very often. I am still close to my cousins, but since we live in Texas and they live in Louisiana our kids just didn’t see that much of each other when they were growing up. It was great seeing them hang out together and enjoy each other. And Peggy got to spend time with Mike, which is always a good thing.

And, of course, us old folks had a great time visiting and rehashing old family stories and memories.

I love to watch my father interact with the rest of the family. He has become the patriarch of the family as the oldest surviving relative, and it is fun to hear his generation telling stories on each other from their youth. It is a highlight any time we get them all together. My father turned 80 this year, so it becomes more apparent each time we get together that we need to do it while we can. My sister lives in Vicksburg so she was the primary planner. She did a great job.

When the reunion was over, Peggy and I made the drive back down to Lake Charles to spend the holiday weekend. Her cup was full from our son’s presence at the reunion, so we just went down to hang out and relax. She will be heading back to Dallas to visit her mother this week, so I wanted her to have some real down time this weekend.

This is the easiest place for us to go for a quick weekend to get away. Peggy loves to come here, so I love to come here. Frankly, if she loved to go somewhere else that would quickly become my favorite place to go. I just want her to be able to have fun and recharge.

Now, back to the daily grind…

Spending a relaxing week in Lake Charles may not sound like a perfect vacation to you, but it is working out pretty well for us.

We started the whole Mother’s Day trip tradition when my son went to college because Peggy didn’t want to sit around feeling unhappy that she wasn’t seeing her son for Mother’s Day. Mother’s Day always falls during finals week, so he was not able to come home when he was in college. We have kept it going because he still doesn’t want to travel from Baton Rouge to Katy for the weekend.

Today the tradition continued in the best way possible — I arranged with Mike to show up today and surprise his Mama for Mother’s Day.

Mike typically travels with an entourage — I’m pretty sure he just doesn’t like driving around by himself — but I asked him to come to Lake Charles by himself. No friends (we know all of them), no girlfriend (since she is not a follower of this blog I will tell you that she is not “the one”), just him.

He is a good boy and he loves his Mama. He also knows what she has been through this past year with her own Mama. And I bought gas for him. So he made the drive over from Baton Rouge and arrived early.

Actually, the hardest thing about the morning was convincing Peggy that we did not need to go down to the pool just yet. Fortunately it was overcast this morning so she was OK with waiting a little while to go down.

She and Mike have a very special relationship. He is an only child, and Peggy came home from work when he was in the first grade to spend more time with him. They have spent a lot of time together and fun typically ensues. Today was no different.

I won’t say it was the best Mother’s Day ever, but I have a feeling it was the best one since 2007.

Happy Mother’s Day!