Family Mellmann

This household is on serious "vacation mode".  Patrick has completed his freshman year school obligations, culminating in his Airman Certificate.  Katherine is enjoying lots of time chatting with her friends, playing games with them, and watching videos.  Joerg is conquering the high seas in his video game, and I have been frittering away my day exploring creative ways to share photos and organize my deck herb garden now that the seeds I planted are turning into plants that want to be pottted.  It has been truly lovely!  To make it even more perfect, it's raining outside which takes away any guilt over not being in the garden pulling weeds.  :) This is my little "herb garden" sitting on the deck near the grill.  All those little seed starts are ready for a larger home, preferably above ankle height for easier harvesting. And, with a little luck, below should be a slideshow of some of the flowers in my garden this year.  Let's see if I learned anything today

Parades are canceled.  Fireworks are canceled.  Group gatherings are still discouraged.  So how do you celebrate the birth of a nation when all the usual celebratory methods are unavailable?  Good question.  I don't have the answer. However, conveniently enough, Patrick provided us with an opportunity to celebrate the 4th of July AND his new title, "Airman".  Airman Certificate is what it says on the piece of paper that makes him an official (private) pilot.  It is the first, and arguably most gargantuan, step that takes him from being (just) a freshman in college to being a commercial pilot. COVID-19 put a sizable pause in his training, but once the most rigid part of quarantine was over, he was able to get back in the sky...when the weather cooperated.  Then it was fly, fly, fly, and study, study, study all through May and June.  When he came home from flying (what we thought was a routine practice flight) we learned that his flight was actually the long-awaited (and st