Wednesday, June 13, 2018

1978 Catherine's Letter -May 30

Tuesday May 30, 1978
Dear Mom, Dad, and Mary Virginia,

Hi!  It was good to talk to John on Friday but I am sorry that I missed talking to you, Mother.  Gerry had to take the car to get a new tire and I had to pick him up and take him to work so that is why I called earlier than usual.  This Friday I'll try closer to regular time.  I had wanted to ask you about pickling beets as someone gave Gerry about two dozen of them last week.  I followed the recipe in Joy of Cooking and Gerry says they are the best he has ever had so I guess I did OK.

We had a good weekend but very HOT.  Sunday we went to Big Basin and took a much longer (and very scenic) trail that we hadn't tried before.  It was almost a 6 hour hike (around 10 miles but alot of ups and downs); we had started around 10:30 when it was still fairly cool but around 1:00 it got super hot (in the 90's) plus it seemed like it was more uphill on the return journey but it may have been just that we were more tired.  I bought an old army backpack in which I carried the canteen, some food, diapers, etc.  After we returned to the picnic grounds we cooked some BBQ ribs and had quite a nice meal.  Monday we went on a picnic to Mt. Madonna but we gave our legs a rest by not doing anymore hiking.  Wendy held up very well although she seemed to have excess energy after we got home on Sunday and I had a hard time getting her to sleep.  Probably after being confined to the backpack all day she wanted to stretch her legs.  She can scoot around very well now.  In the kitchen or the bathroom she heads right for any open cupboard door and in the living room she likes the TV cord and the wastebasket.

This coming Sunday Newcomers Club is having a picnic which we are going to.  I went over to the house of Alice (one of the Newcomers who just moved here from New Jersey) last week.  She has a 7-year-old daughter.  I also met a woman who has two preschoolers, the youngest about two weeks younger than Wendy.  I have also joined Las Madres which is an organization of mothers of preschool children and is divided into sections according to the year your child was born.  So I am in the 77 group.  In addition to having monthly meetings in the evening they have three or four "park days" a month where the mothers and children go to different parks.  I haven't been to one yet since I just got the schedule and the next one is while Gerry's folks will be here but there is to be one the week following that which I hope to go to.  They also have other outings and occasional get-togethers for the whole family.

I'm going to have to go to the post office to get some stamps since all I have are 13¢ ones.  This postage increase sort of sneaked up.  I had headed there one day last week but I stopped at the library en route and by the time I got to the PO it was 2 minutes after 5 and they were closed.

Love,
Catherine, Gerry & Wendy

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