Momma's birthday

We had a lovely time in Texas and Louisiana. This is a photo of my mom who was celebrating her 90th birthday and her "baby" brother who is in his 80s.

A great time was had by all. All of her children, four of her grandchildren and three great-grandchildren made it. Her brother, a son and daughter-in-law and some very close friends made it a special day. Two of the grandkids made a special trip to see her before the party since they couldn't make the actual day.

MF brought her three little ones to the party and they were really, really good. I was happy since three of my children were there. And nothing makes me happier than being around my own kids.

 I was worried about the weather since it was in the 100s the whole time. But I'd forgotten how protected you are in Texas and Louisiana. You basically go from air conditioned car to air conditioned mall or supermarket and then back again to your air conditioned house.

I keep asking myself why I live in Pennsylvania since so many of the people I love are in Texas and Louisiana. It's a good question to ask and we certainly have plans to go back "home" after Michael retires.
  We also got to visit MF and family and see our two other children in Texas. Our son threw us a small party at his house so that we could visit with some old friends. And we also attended the church congregation we used to belong to in Denton. Ward boundaries have changed a lot but we saw many people we knew from old Denton days.
Morgan's pool was a lot of fun. The kids have specialty dives including "the Egyptian", "the Pencil" and "the Princess." Too cute!

Glad to be home though as there is much to do here and a Pennsylvania summer is something everyone should be able to experience at least once.

Out of Commission

I've been not working up to speed for a quite a few months now. The almost constant migraine headaches really put a crimp in my style. But I'm trying a new med now which seems to be working a lowering the number and severity of them. Now I have a whole backlog of things that weren't getting done. So I have a lot of catching up to do.

The weather here has been crazy but what's new? Seems like the whole US is having issues. Here it was very hot for folks who don't have air conditioning (meaning me!)  And then yesterday I had multiple errands to run while there were flash floods all around.

And I'm still enjoying writing for the newspaper. It's really fun to start a new career and to have to learn so much so quickly. 

But in spite of the hot weather, it's still beautiful and green here. Summers are my favorite time of year in Pennsylvania.

And the Rocket's Red Glare

A very fuzzy photo of my grandgirls having fun at Knoebels on their recent visit. I wanted to convey excitement because that's what the Fourth is like around here. Last night there were three major fireworks shows going on. It was fantastic, noisy and somewhat sobering. It must have sounded like that to folks who lived near Gettysburg during the battle.

One set of fireworks is visible from our front lawn. So we put on some bug spray, set up our lawn chairs and enjoyed the show in the comfort of our own yard. The guy who does the fireworks is called Pizza Paul and he runs a local---can you guess?---pizza restaurant. But he lives for fireworks. He does these on Back Mountain and then he does the big fireworks for the city of Wilkes-Barre.

No worries about burn bans here although the fireworks can get rained out. And the weather yesterday was perfect. A little hot for the locals perhaps (high 80s) but the temperatures soon dropped. And by the time we went to Sonic for dinner last night with the top down on Michael's convertible, it was in the 70s again.

I have an assignment on Monday night to cover the festivities in Pringle, the smallest incorporated city or town in Pennsylvania according to my buddy, Tom Mooney, who knows these things. It's one half square mile with a whopping 991 residents. And they too put on their own fireworks show with the city of Wilkes-Barre's fireworks visible in the distance.

There will be eleven, count them, eleven different fireworks displays in this little valley over the next three days. And this in a metropolitan area smaller than my hometown of Shreveport.

What can I say? These folks love to party and they do it with a bang!

Whirlwind Tour

That's what a two-week visit from the grandkids feels like--a whirlwind tour in a rock band. And I'm the rock star. I've never felt so in demand. Lots of cooking, book reading and even roller coaster riding made for a very busy two weeks. We had a great time and the kids were very sweet. MF and NL were considerate guests and very cooperative ones.

Grammie had to pitch in and ride one day a lot at a county fair since the kids' dad was riding the big rides. I got to ride an elephant ride, a circus train ride and also got to squeeze myself into the kiddie trapeze ride so that the baby could ride too. I also went down a giant slide with the baby.  Michael was at work that day so it was Grammie to the rescue as MF is expecting and couldn't do any rides. Knoebels is an awesome amusement park, but I got really excited by the sleazy sights and sounds of an old-time carnival. Took me right back to my youth. I was a bit disturbed though when the carnie told me that I had broken his merry-go-round since it was my horse that didn't want to work.

We found out at that fair that the girls aren't afraid of any animals at all no matter how big and were willing to offer their little hands out full of feed to an amazing variety of nibblers.

Since I don't post pix of the little ones, my photos are rather limited. We did go to Steamtown in Scranton so there's a photo of something we saw there. Michael and MF's oldest took the shop tour. We also went to a cute county fair, the library several times, the most amazing library book sale ever, and parks. The visitors also went to see Cars II and the Crayola Factory without moi so that I could do a little writing and catching up.I really liked the day when MF and I took the kiddos to the downtown book sale, spent oodles of time in the downtown children's library and then went to the farmer's market where we bought lunch and lots of good vegetables and fruits for supper. The kids snarfed up amazing things including beet greens and Swiss chard.


Michael did not get to take off as many days as planned because of a huge project at work that had to be done. But he got to go to Knoebel's with us and he spent a lot of time with the kids. He enjoyed playing with the oldest in a game of pitch and catch. He and Vivi enjoyed joke books and he and the baby read books. Little E had everyone read books to her. MF's middle child was my constant companion in the kitchen and even in the garden where she learned to weed and deadhead flowers. She made rhubarb pudding, cupcakes, Jello-O, salad, you name it. She's amazingly enthusiastic about helping. The little one just did her charming thing and drank gallons and gallons of milk. For folks who buy a two quarts of milk to last a week, we had some adjustments to make there.

We got another unexpected play day because MF and company had a flight canceled.

Today I had a huge editing job to do and no Internet. My cable modem had died. Luckily, the tech came in the early afternoon and she was extremely helpful, even making sure that our digital picture frame was working properly with the new modem. The kids really enjoyed the frame and were excited to see themselves appear on the frame on the same day we did an activity. They also liked seeing pictures of their cousins in Utah whom they haven't seen for a long time.

We had a great time. And we'll see them again soon as we are headed to Texas and Louisiana soon to celebrate my mom's 90th birthday.

Knoebels

Knoebels is just one of those things you have to experience. I couldn't begin to explain. So click on the link, visit their website or find some other way of getting an idea of what it's like to go back into the past to one of the "real" amusement parks your parents, grandparents or even great-grandparents went to.

Son-in-law NL took extra duty because our daughter MF is expecting our precious grandbaby number 10 and so wasn't riding much. And Michael and I aren't as good as this as we used to be. But we were there to lend a hand when an adult was needed to accompany V or E who were both raring to go. Michael adored riding the sail plane which took him back to days spent at the amusement park on Pontchartrain Beach. He even remembers the price of this ride back in the day. Evidently you have a lot of control over your plane as you manipulate the wing. He and V had a quiet ride. NL and baby E had a rollicking ride and grandson ML flew solo and did great. I had the thrill of doing a smaller roller coast with V. It packed a surprising wallop and she enjoyed every minute of it.

Our grandson ML is just over 48 inches so could ride almost everything by himself. V is just in the middle and could enjoy both grownup rides and ones for the "yiddle" kids. E was up for everything and rode a lot of  kiddie rides but also went on some of the biggest rides. She is pretty tall for her age so I'm pretty sure she was one of the few two-year-olds on the big rides. Her dad taught her to raise her arms to heighten her experience on "The Whip." But I think her absolute favorite was the kiddie fire trucks with a bell to ring and a steering wheel to turn.


First photo is of son-in-law and grandson in the battle of the bumper boats. Then Michael in his sail plane. V is in there but we could only see her on the upswing! The last ride is called the "Italian Trapeze" was a particular favorite of all the grandkids and the colors on this old Italian ride just knocked my eyes out. Plus as  the thing telescopes out to gain height, lurid copies of naked Renaissance goddesses come into view. It's like an enormous hallucinogenic birthday cake.

It was a beautiful day at the park. The weather was just perfect, everyone there was having fun, I heard almost no one yelling at a kid (very unusual for a theme or amusement park) and except for an abundance of visible upper-arm tattoos on hairy male arms, all was beautiful. The food is even superior at this park with good healthy options alongside the requisite funnel cakes and pickles on a stick.

Sorry Texas, Pennsylvania wins.

Mystery PA location

Moi at Dairy Barn opening

Callas on the slate in our side yard

Waterfall at Ohiopyle

Random view on our way to Ohio

The callas Michael bought me to replace the Mother's Day ones I killed

So sorry, Texas. But big news flash. Pennsylvania wins hands-down on natural beauty. Here are a few photos from our recent trip and of the yard after we got home. There's really not much contest. 

When we first moved here we had no idea where we might retire, and we talked about how beautiful it was here and when the first summer came, we decided to enjoy every minute of it as it was so gloriously moderate in temperature and so very green.

Now we know that Texas will be our home when Michael retires, but we also talk wistfully about how nice it would be to keep this house so that we could come here for the summers. 

Not all of these photos are in PA, but enough of them are that I think you can see what I mean about wanting to be here forever.

The mystery location is that beautiful Frank Lloyd Wright home we visited. We're not allowed to post photos of it, but I think we can safely post this one as no one is going to recognize it.

The Dairy Barn photo is obviously in Ohio but all the rest I think are in PA. Not quite sure about the view as we crossed through Maryland and Kentucky to get to Ohio. 

We hope the weather will cooperate when our grandkids, daughter and son-in-law arrive on Tuesday. We've had some uncharacteristically scorching days. Michael has actually had to water a few times!

Naomi does it again

If you know my Naomi, you know that she has been excelling all over the place for a long time. She outdid herself at Quilt National though.

Naomi took one of the best prizes "Most Innovative Use of the Medium" and, just as importantly, sold her quilt to a collector who will appreciate it and take very good care of it. These photos are large files so be sure and click on them to see all the details. Be sure and check out her blog which has many more details: Killerbee Designs

Here's Naomi and her quilt:

And since it's hard to get a good idea of what it looks like without standing right in front of it, here's a closeup:

Besides going to Quilt National and being the proudest set of parents there, we also went to Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece.
Believe this or not, we're not allowed to post photos of Fallingwater on a website without permission. So if you want to see photos, just drop me an email and I'll send some on! It's a cliche but it was an experience of a lifetime.


 We did get to see the Falls at Ohiopyle and no photo restrictions there. So here's a photo of that wonderful place. People were swimming, kayaking and whitewater rafting. Very cool!

And then back home again to see that the iris are still blooming and the rhododendrons are gorgeous as well. We're having a terrific heat wave. Not too bad if you're in Texas, but up here with air conditioning only in our bedroom, it's a bit more serious.

We're glad to be back and have just a few days to prepare for the next big event, MF and family come for a visit!