This weekend

This weekend was fun and rewarding! Saturday, I got an e-mail from Lenore (my cousin Leonard's daughter-in-law, wife of Uncle Len's grandson David)asking questions about people and dates for pictures she was trying to scrapbook for Uncle Len's memorial service Friday. When Uncle Len moved out of his house in 2004, my cousin Leonard had taken all of Uncle Len's old pictures intending to work with Lenore on identifying who was who and when the pics were taken. Since Leonard hadn't had time to work with her, she wrote me describing the people in the pictures and what they were wearing. By finding comparable pictures in the heritage album I had done, I was able to give her dates of pictures and what the occasions were. This just reinforces what a valuable and rewarding hobby scrapbooking is!

We didn't go to church Sunday morning since we weren't sure what time Csilla and the girls were going to be arriving. Once they got here, Taylor couldn't wait to show me her new scrapbooking case that she had gotten for her birthday! Prior to this, her scrapbooking stuff was in an old laptop computer case. Now it's all organized in a wheeled bag that so far she is able to pull. If it gets much heavier, she may have trouble balancing herself and the case. Many of her birthday gifts from her party on Saturday were also scrapbook related. We gave her a Creative Memories 12 inch straight edge cutter (Taylor was so cute - when we were packing up her stuff she asked if she was going to leave her straight edge trimmer here - I said no it was hers to take home - she said she didn't want to because Ashley might take it and get hurt! Csilla and I assured her it would be kept in the box so Ashley would have trouble getting to it). We scrapped for about 1-1/2 hours, completing the pages from her 7th birthday party last year.

One of the reasons Csilla and the girls came over here was because Taylor wanted to go to the beach. So after scrapbooking, we headed to the beach. We had a great time! The gulf water is 88 degrees and yesterday there were gentle waves. Taylor was in the water for the entire 3 hours we were there. She said "this beach is better than Daytona and New Smyrna beaches (beaches on the Atlantic side) combined!" We had been to this beach with them 3 other times, but Taylor was too young to remember. Ashley was so tired she fell asleep in my arms (I was sitting in a chair on the beach). After holding her for about 45 minutes my arm was sound asleep so I laid her down on a towel on the sand. She slept for about 1-1/2 hours. We finally managed to "drag" Taylor out of the water and headed home. After a dinner of Publix fried chicken, mac and cheese and a tossed salad, we celebrated Taylor's b'day with an ice cream cake. It was a great day! We live so close to the beach, but except for sunsets, we have only been to the beach to swim once since we moved down here!

Today is going to be a quiet day - it's cloudy and threatening to rain, so we'll probably just hang out here at home and maybe go grocery shopping. I also need to spend time studying for Thursday's Bible study.

Fall Schedule Starts

Well, I can tell it's the week after Labor Day - our fall schedule has kicked in big time! Saturday, Eric and Sarah called and asked if they could come over Labor Day for swimming and scrapbooking. We had nothing special planned so we said come on over. They got here about 3:30 and stayed until 10:00. We had a good time swimming and then got some scrapbooking done. Tuesday we relaxed and then Wednesday Aunti Vi called and said she didn't feel up to going shopping so could we pick up her groceries. So we did and then we went down and visited with her for a little while. By the time we got home, we only had an hour before we had to leave for choir. After choir, we picked up a pizza. Once home, we ate and then watched the introductory video session for "Jesus the One and Only."

Thursday morning we headed for church about 8:45 to get set up for Bible study which started at 9:30. We had 7 ladies there and 4 were absent (they told me they were going to be gone). The first session is always a little shorter since we don't have homework to discuss so we finished about 11:15. We got home and ate lunch and relaxed until it was time to head for church again at 5:45 for the evening session. We had 8 ladies in the evening session - what was so exciting is 2 of the ladies found the Bible study on Beth's website (www.lproof.org)! 3 other ladies are "non-Bethelites" who heard about the study "through the grapevine." We had a great time sharing and finished about 8:15. After a busy day, I got home and collapsed!

Today was scrapbooking day - afternoon at the senior center and then tonight at church. There are two faithful ladies at the senior center and it's fun helping them organize their photos and give them ideas for their scrapbooks. Their main objective is to get the photos in a scrapbook and labeled with who are in the pictures. One of the ladies is a retired missionary from the Ivory Coast. She wants to do 4 scrapbooks - one of her life growing up, one of her going to Africa, one of her life in Africa and then one of her retirement and return in 1999. She has many hundreds of pictures that she is organizing. The other lady is single and wants to get her heritage pictures in albums for her nephews. She is concerned because she has been given the responsibility to identify every one in the pictures and get them in a scrapbook. She's feeling frustrated and overwhelmed right now because she has so many pictures. I have tried to reassure her that she's on the right track and she can't expect to get everything done overnight. Tonight the only one who showed up at church was the retired missionary. She brought more pictures and we talked about what ones to include in what album. She left about 8:00 so it was a relatively early night.

Tomorrow nothing is planned. I'm figuring on using the day to catch up on stuff that I've let go this week. Sunday, Csilla and the girls are coming over to celebrate Taylor's birthday with us. Rick has a woodworking demonstration so he won't be coming. Csilla is planning on arriving about 11:00 which will give us a chance to go to church. As soon as they get here, Taylor wants to do some scrapbooking with me. After that Taylor wants to go to the beach. Csilla is planning on heading home about 6:00. It will be a full day but fun.

Monday and Tuesday, I'm going to need to do some heavy cramming for Bible study next week. Besides tomorrow those are the only 2 days I have this week to prep. Wednesday is shopping and choir as well as Leonard and Ruth and their daughter Karen arriving. Thursday is Bible study morning and evening. Friday is Uncle Len's memorial service. That brings us to Saturday which right now is open. I think we'll probably use it to recover from the previous 4 days!

Sad (but rejoicing) days

Uncle Len died Tuesday morning at 9:55 AM. I am sad that he's gone, but know I will see him again. He was so ready to go. For the last year or so he just wanted to go to sleep and not wake up.

Leonard and his daughter Cheryl flew down yesterday to start cleaning out Uncle Len's room at The Shores. They are mainly going through his file cabinet and shredding stuff as well as going through his clothes and deciding what can be given to Goodwill and what just needs to be thrown away. They will finish cleaning out his room when they're down here in two weeks for his memorial service. We've enjoyed spending time with Leonard and Cheryl the last two days. We've gone out to dinner together and enjoyed sharing our memories of Uncle Len.

Other than that, nothing much is going on. Wednesday night was choir. Kevin feels we are ready to start singing this Sunday. We'll see how it goes.

I've managed to get the scrapbook pages for Discovery Cove done. It is so nice to look back at the pictures and remember the good time we had.

I've started studying (prepping) for Bible study which starts next Thursday. Praise the Lord we have 20 ladies signed up - 10 in the morning session (9:30 - 12:00) and 10 in the evening session (6:30 - 9:00). Each time I've facilitated a Bible study, the numbers increase. This is the largest group so far. I think the Lord knew that if I started out with a total of 20, I would have backed out!!! He's been gradually increasing the numbers allowing me to feel comfortable in a role that is DEFINITELY outside my comfort zone. All credit and praise belongs to the Lord!!

Busy, busy days!

The last several days have been busy to say the least! Thursday evening we went out to dinner with Aunti Vi and my cousin Leonard. Uncle Len is so bad that he was not able to go with us. On top of his other problems, he fell getting from the wheelchair to the bed and needed 8 stitches in his shin. I truly hope the Lord calls him home soon as he has no quality of life whatsoever. After dinner Thursday night we stopped in to see him and he looked so confused and bewildered like he didn't even know where he was.

Friday morning we got up and hoped to catch Leonard before he left, but he was long gone. I know he was anxious to get down and spend some time with his dad before flying back north.

Friday night, Connie and Jesse and Sarah and Eric came over. We grilled hamburgers and just had some good fellowship. We were going to do some scrapbooking, but wound up just visiting which was fun too.

Saturday, Sarah and I headed up to Tampa to the Celebrate Tampa Crop sponsored by Creative Memories. We had a really good time cropping and visiting. We got there about 10:30 and left about 4:00. Sarah got a number of pages done (including one she had been struggling with on how to lay it out) and I got 8 pages done. It was fun to be with 1,000 women who share your passion for scrapbooking. Rick and Csilla and the girls were here when I got home so we had a good visit with them. They left about 2:00 today. After they left, we laid down for our Sunday afternoon nap.

So far, this week appears to be quieter, but we'll see ---

Unexpected guest

My cousin Leonard flew down to visit his dad today. He had not arranged for a room at The Shores before coming down figuring he could get one once he landed. Unfortunately, The Shores is undergoing construction (they're replacing all of the windows in the building with hurricane resistant windows) and all of the guest rooms are being used by "displaced residents" (the residents have to move out of their rooms for 2 weeks while the windows in their rooms are being replaced). He was sitting outside The Shores when we got there to pick up Aunti Vi to take her shopping. He said he would get a hotel room (there is a Holiday Inn near The Shores), but we offered our guest room which he accepted. So, we have a house guest until Friday morning when he flies back north.

It was good to be back in choir tonight. Our new minister of worship is using a different style of music than we have done in the past. It will take a some getting used to. There were 34 people out tonight which for the first rehearsal is great!

We had a really good time with Carolyn and Rog the beginning of the week. We drove over to Orlando on Monday arriving there about 2:30. We checked in (sort of - our room wasn't ready yet) and picked Rog up and went to find gas (Carolyn is here for a week long seminar and training for the Veteran's Administration). After we got gas, we headed to Disney. Rog really didn't want to pay for a day at Disney since we would only have about 2 hours before we had to be back at the hotel to pick up Carolyn so we did about the only free thing you can do at Disney - we took a monorail ride. Since parking is included with our annual passes, we parked at EPCOT and then hopped the monorail to the TTC (ticket and transportation center). We asked to sit up in the cab with the pilot since Rog had never ridden up front. Unfortunately, there was a family waiting to ride up front on the way back to EPCOT, but at least he had a chance to experience riding up front one way. He really enjoyed it - gives you a different view of the monorail.

When we got back to the hotel, we finished checking in and went to find our room. The original suite (I never asked for a suite!) they had set aside for us still wasn't ready, so the desk clerk found 2 other suites that "would do". She asked if we wanted a room with a view overlooking the pool (which was huge and had 2 waterfalls, a lazy river, and several slides) or a room with no view (there is not a bad view from any room in the hotel!). We asked what the difference was between the 2 rooms and she said the room with no view was bigger. She showed us pictures of the 2 rooms and we opted for the room with the view. We went up to the suite and walked in and about fell over. The suite was 1/2 the size of our house!!!! If that was the "smaller" room how big was the room with no view!!!! Anyway, we put our luggage in the room and headed down to meet Carolyn and Rog for dinner. We ate at Smokey Bones and then headed back to the hotel. Carolyn and Rog came up to our "room" and they had the same reaction "our room isn't this big, our room doesn't have a kitchenette, our room doesn't have a sofa, coffee table, conference center, etc." We don't know why we were given a suite, but I was going to check the bill the next day to make sure the rate was what I had reserved on the internet (it was!). We played cards ("Shove It") until about 10:00 and then Carolyn and Rog headed up to their room(we were on the 10th floor they were on the 18th).

Tuesday, we got up and met Rog for breakfast at the hotel (because our room wasn't ready when promised, we got vouchers for breakfast worth $18.00 each!). After eating we headed for Sea World and spent the day there. It was HOT!!!!! The only people who go out on a 95 degree August day in Florida are tourists! We Floridians know to stay in and go from our air-conditioned house, to our air-conditioned car to our air-conditioned restaurant/store, etc.!!! But because Rog wanted to go we did. We had a good time in spite of the heat. Several of the shows and exhibits are in air-conditioned buildings, so we were able to escape the oppressive central Florida heat. We got back to the hotel about 5:00, picked Carolyn up and headed to Giordano's for stuffed pizza. It was delicious. After eating, we headed back to the
hotel to play cards again. Since we had checked out of our room in the morning, we found a spot in the lobby where we could play. We played until about 9:00 and then said good-bye and headed back to Bradenton. We got home about 11:00.

Tomorrow, nothing much is doing. We're going to go out to dinner with Aunti Vi and Leonard. With being gone for the better part of 2 weeks, there is lots to catch up on. The yard needs tending and the house definitely needs attention!!!!

Well, I'll sign off. It's time for bed -

Trip north and other things

We had a wonderful trip north. We left Florida Thursday morning August 9th and drove through to my folks in Tennessee. We spent that night with them and then headed to Aurora to our son's house Friday morning, arriving in Aurora about 7:00 PM. We had a wonderful visit with them Friday evening and all day Saturday. James is getting so big and grown up. I can't believe he's starting 2nd grade already. Tyler is Tyler - not still for more than 30 seconds! He is in preschool 3 days a week and La says he loves it. La and I went to Archiver's scrapbook store - didn't spend a lot, but it was fun! We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and too soon it was time to head to Indiana and visit with our daughter-in-law and grandsons there. David is over 6' tall and not done growing yet! His daddy was 6'4" and his uncle is up there also so David is going to be tall! Jonathan is also getting tall. He's just a tad bit shorter than I am (5'6") and the way he was eating I wouldn't be surprised if he's coming into a growth spurt! David is now a freshman in high school (unbelievable!) and Jonathan is in 5th grade (it doesn't seem possible!). Edith and I also went to the new Archiver's in Fort Wayne. It was fun and again I didn't spend a lot, but they had some stuff I haven't seen here in Florida. Too soon our visit was over!

Tuesday morning it was time to head south. On our way down, we stopped for lunch at friends who had moved from Bradenton to Fishers. We had a good visit with them and then left to head south to Tennessee. We met my folks at the IHOP in Cookeville and had dinner there. After dinner we drove to Crossville. We visited for a while and then headed for bed. Wednesday we just hung out at the house as it was too warm to do anything else. We watched the weather and saw that Tennessee and Georgia were in the throes of a record breaking heat wave. On our way north, we knew it was warm, but we had no idea how warm (106 degrees in Atlanta). According to the weather forecast the heat wave was going to continue so we made the decision to drive overnight (Wednesday into Thursday) to make it easier on the car and also us. However, we didn't know how we would fare since it has been a VERY long time since we had driven overnight (like 30+ years). However, the trip absolutely flew by. The temps were in the 70's and there was NO traffic. Each rest area we passed had many, many semis parked and also every truck stop was maxed out with semis. We can't imagine how many trucks would have been on the road if we had driven during the day. We got home about 6:30 AM and headed for bed. We didn't even unpack the car!

Since we got home, we've taken it easy catching up on sleep, mail, laundry, etc. It was great to go north and see everyone, but it was also wonderful to get home and get back to normal.

Uncle Len is back in his room at The Shores. They bought him a hospital bed - he is still not walking. We haven't seen him or Aunti Vi yet. We'll probably not get down there until our normal visit on Wednesday. Tomorrow is church and then Monday and Tuesday we're heading to Disney and Sea World with friends from the upper penninsula of Michigan who are down for the week. Wednesday we'll take Aunti Vi shopping and then choir starts Wednesday night (we've been off since May). Saturday Sarah and I are going to an all day crop party at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa. We went last year and had a really good time. Rick and Csilla are coming over next weekend. We haven't seen them since the end of June so it will be fun.

This is a long post, but I think it brings us up to the current time.

Nothing Much Happening

It's been 2 weeks since I last wrote anything. The reason - life has been blissfully calm and quiet. Our Daniel Bible study finished last Thursday and now I'm preparing for the fall Bible study "Jesus the One and Only." It is a terrific study on the life of Christ. We'll start September 6th and finish November 16th. We're going to offer both morning and evening sessions (9:30 AM - 11:30 AM and 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM). We're praying for the Lord to put just who He wants in the study. The bulletin announcement is going in this weekend and will be run all month.

In the last 3 days, we've had about 6 inches of most welcome rain. A tropical low was just off the Tampa coast and kept sending heavy rainbands over us. We had to drain the pool for the first time in about 18 months. It has been so dry down here so the rain was most welcome.

Aunti Vi had a doctor's appointment last Friday. The doctor was very pleased with her condition and didn't put her on any other medications. After her last visit the doctor wrote "the less we do for this patient, the better she does!" We took her shopping on Wednesday and she "wilted" about 1/2 way down the first aisle. We had run several other errands before shopping and she does get tired easily. However, for an almost 97 year old, she's doing great!

Uncle Len is not doing well at all. We stopped by to see him and I talked to the physical therapist. He said Uncle Len will stand between the parallel bars but will not take any steps at all. He said he has pretty much plateaued and they don't think they can take him any further. I don't think he'll ever get back to his room in assisted living, but we'll see. He still has private care, and they may let him back based on that. He is also receiving oxygen 24/7.

Tomorrow I begin "teaching" scrapbook classes at the senior center. I haven't heard how many have signed up so we'll go and play it by ear. Tomorrow night is the monthly crop party at church. It's always fun to get together and see others have gotten done since our last crop.

That brings us up to date. Next week we're heading north, so I don't know when I'll be posting again.