August, our anniversary month, is always significant for me, especially this year; we celebrated our golden anniversary. I dreamed about reaching our fiftieth year goal. Ideas filled my brain with ways to celebrate our special day. E arlier in the year, back in February, we told our kids we do not want a fancy celebration. Parties with plaques of rhyming verses with gold wedding bands attached don’t define us, but family in an informal venue with a simple menu is who we are to a tee. The early summer brush fires put the kibosh on planning a picnic for the event when forests closed down in surrounding mountains. Our daughter, Amy, loves to plan a party and she devised a lovely gathering. She and her husband took us out to dinner along with Tom’s cousin and wife from New Mexico who surprised us with a weekend visit. Tom’s cousin, our best man at our wedding, has a wonderful sense of humor. We laughed as we reminisced ho...