May Celebrations: Matthew's PhD and Mother's Day

On the first weekend in May, we celebrated Matthew’s birthday, belatedly, and his completion of his PhD. Mark and I were able to attend the Zoom meeting to hear his defense of his dissertation. We were proud, to say the least, of his relaxed manner and his eloquent explanations, and what’s more of the years of hard, excellent work to arrive at this point. We were ready to celebrate with Elizabeth and Andrew when they arrived for the weekend. Jack and Benjamin were in high spirits as usual, and so happy to be in Austin with their Uncle Matthew. The very next weekend was Mother’s Day. We got together in Houston for brunch on Saturday and then swimming at our apartment pool and movie-watching in Hanover’s screening room. On Sunday we viewed the Matisse exhibit at Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts downtown. It was Jack and Benjamin’s first visit to an art museum, but Jack had learned about Matisse, and other artists like Georgia O’Keeffe and Piet Mondrian, at pre-school last fall. The boys got into Kusama’s lights installation, the colored tunnels, and the audio guides. I think it made them feel “official.”