Happy 100th Helen!

Today, March 20, 2011, would have been Helen's 100th birthday. She was 17 when her mother built Foxcroft in 1928, and she started as a freshman at the University of Iowa. Here they are in 1929:



To celebrate we invited Ann, Helen's cousin, over for dinner. It had been far too long since she had been here, she didn't come at Thanksgiving because due to my Dad being hospitalized we didn't have a celebration. At Christmas time Ann was not feeling well so she wasn't here for that get together either.

We had our "Irish" dinner of corned beef and cabbage. After eating the girls excused themselves and Lisa, Ann and I visited for quite a while.



Ann said it still felt like home here at Foxcroft, and it should, considering that not only had she visited here her entire life, but had lived her for two and half years as Helen's caretaker before her passing in December of 2004. Ann had many reminisces about Helen and Bess.

We made a special cake for tonight, from one of Helen's cookbooks: Walnut cake with caramel icing.



The walnuts we used were from the black walnut tree in the backyard. Here is a picture of Helen posing with the tree in 1932, above the recipe:

Goodbye Princess Pink...

...Hello Hootenanny!



Younger daughter has been begging for two years to re-paint her bedroom. Her most persistent line of reasoning is that she chose her room color when she was 4, and that now she has reached the ripe old age of 9 a change is in order.

We relented and decided that spring break was a good time to do this, so we started clearing her room out Friday night and on Saturday I set to work. "Hootenanny" is the color of green she chose. She painted the smiley face herself.



Here we are conferring after finishing the test wall and starting to turn the corner. Since the original paint was relatively new I merely cleaned the walls and re-coated rather than clean, prime then re-coat.



This photo gives a chance to show off her cast. Due to a buckle fracture in her left radius she gets to wear that for a month.


And here she is sleeping this morning with the cat standing guard.

Other major spring break projects to follow!