A great visit in Albertville

May 4, 2008
Albertville, AL

We wrapped up a great week with family in Albertville and prepared to head out on the road again.

With Annette's help, we finished off most of the painting projects with excellent results. She did the face of the three exterior doors and I tackled the front door frame and columns. We went through almost a roll of "painter's tape" to mask off things, because there were a lot of angles and corners involved. They still have some touch up work to do inside, but the majority of the work outside will simply involve a power washer. Since it was pretty breezy all week, I didn't get to spray paint the gas lines and meter on the outside, but Rick can handle that I'm sure.

With help from Rick's father-in-law and his miter saw, Rick and I were able to salvage the door that was hung backwards and turn it around. After removing the molding, we quickly discovered why it was subject to "seasonal deflection" with summer humidity: the door frame wasn't attached to the wall studs! The builder had simply used the molding to "bridge the gap" and put in extra nails and staples before holding the whole thing together with caulk and glue. We shimmed it properly and installed new trim casing, and it looks and works great.

We had a chance to get some culture while we were visiting as well. Erik is all over music and theater activities, and was participating in a show at the local community theater in Guntersville, so we had a chance to see their performance. He's just turned 16 and is doing quite well. The show was an original production of a musical with "USO" as the theme and music from the 30s and 40s. They saluted local veterans as part of the show, and Erik wore Rick's old Air Force uniform, had a solo on the Air Force anthem, and acknowledged his parents' combined 16 years of service. He did a fabulous job and it was a very good show. He's won a part in a production of "The Sound of Music" later in the year.

We also had a chance to attend a concert by a local group with which Annette performs at the college where she teaches. It's an orchestra of about 40 local people of all ages that get together and put on short concerts several times a year. Annette plays the flute in the wind section (it's mostly a wind ensemble with a little percussion mixed in) and they put on a nice short program of about 6 selections on Sunday afternoon.

Alyson finished up her first year of college during the week, so Rick drove down to Mobile (~5 hours) on Thursday afternoon to check her out of her dorm room for the summer. They packed up two cars full of "stuff" and drove home on Friday. It was good to see her (we thought we might miss her on this trip) and hear about how well she's doing. Of course, we took the opportunity when Rick was away to plan a "fish night" for dinner (Rick and Alyson won't eat fish), and made macadamia nut-crusted mahi-mahi with curried couscous. The fish came out great, as usual, and I made too much couscous, also as usual. It came out a little more spicy than usual, but was very good (if I do say so myself) just the same.

In fact, we ate pretty well all week (no real surprise there, right?). Rick made pasta one night and we made ribs with fries and baked beans another night. Since we had some steaks in the freezer and I had a couple of recipes for "Mexican steaks" that I wanted to try, we did that one night. Half were pan-seared with a chipotle-based rub and half were grilled with a red wine/port wine reduction made with peppers and onions. I also made a corn side dish with ginger, serranos (kitchen tip: don't rub your face after cutting up serrano peppers), and cilantro. We also helped Rick clean out some old partial bottles from the liquor cabinet with margaritas one night and Tom Collins and gin-and-tonics another night. It's just a small service that we provide.

There were several visits with Mom during the week, and she had a few "good days" and a few "bad days". They've adjusted (reduced) her medications so she's more alert and seemed to have a better appetite, but she's still suffering from some panic attacks brought on by the Alzheimer's. All in all, she's doing better than I expected, so that was a good thing.

All in all, it was a great week...