Josh Renaud

Aniversario

This weekend Yoli and I celebrated our fifth anniversary. Ours is a little atypical ... the celebration spreads out over 3 days since that's how we got married. Day One, the wedding ceremony in Bolivia; Day Two, the flight back to the U.S.; Day Three, the actual legal marriage in Coral Gables, Fla. and the start of our honeymoon.

It's always fun to remember those times and laugh about all the visa paperwork, the way I massively sunburned my legs the day before the Bolivian ceremony, and how cold it was during our honeymoon at Clearwater Lake in Piedmont, Mo.

Five years later we've got our own house, two beautiful girls and another baby on the way, good jobs that we enjoy, and family and friends we love.

It's probably appropriate that our anniversary is always so close to Thanksgiving. Indeed we have so much to be thankful for.

Repurposing

Yoli has found a use for our sun room in the winter time: walk-in cooler for cakes and pies. If you go in there on the right day of the week, it's almost like being in the Wonka factory.

The book fairy

Most of you know that we are a very reading-oriented family. We have a mamá who works at the library and a papá who works at the newspaper. Our house has many, many books, as well as two girls who love to read and be read to.

These same girls also are very hard on their books, Ludi especially. She loves to rip and tear and pull things. That's why it's handy to have a mamá who has been trained in the art of book repair.

Still hanging on up there

'Twas a beautiful day ... perhaps the last beautiful day of the year. I knew I had to take advantage of it, so I embarked on a mow-n'-rake. Took about two hours or so, but I got about 90% of the leaves. It felt good getting it accomplished.

But one look up into our trees afterward was almost enough to quash that feeling of joy. There are bags of leaves yet to fall.

New plates

There wasn't much of a wait at the Ferguson License Office. I was in and out in about 10 minutes. Sweet!

Jadzia got a kick out of seeing me put on the new plates.For the record, I'm not a fan of the new design. What a missed opportunity.