A different kind of big day

This morning I skipped our final staff meeting to go to the family visitation and memorial service for Phyllis Gorno. During the hour or so of visitation with the family they had a Power point presentation of pictures of Phyllis. She was SUCH a beautiful woman and all the pictures were just brimming with warmth and life. It doesn't seem possible that she's gone, but of course we know she's more alive than ever. She was a hospital obstetrics nurse. Someone said that during her last days at Hospice she said she's going to Heaven to help take care of all the babies that are there! There were many testimonies from people of what Phyllis meant to them. It was really special. If you think of her husband Tim and their two daughters in the coming weeks, please pray for them. Phyllis's absence leaves a very big void.

I left the service before it was over in order to get to Olive Garden by 11:45 for our annual staff lunch. That's the last thing we do together each year. I think everyone was able to be there except our P.E. teacher and the speech therapist. It was a really fun time, as usual. The only thing I regret is that I can't sit with everyone. But there are just too many of us.

When I left Olive Garden I went to Walgreens to look for some very special flip flops for a very special person but they weren't to be found. I picked up Destiny from Frank and Abby's where she stayed for the day, then we went to Walmart to get her new summer pj's and a swim suit, as well as a new air mattress (ours started leaking air last year). And finally home. I was HOT and TIRED!! We had weather that was straight from the tropics today, and I was wearing my long black dress that I wore to the memorial service this morning. I could hardly wait to get home and take it off.

I'm so thankful to be staying home this evening. I don't even have to worry about starting Destiny's bedtime routine at 7 PM for a change. We're going camping with our church this weekend, so tomorrow I'll be working on preparations for that. Sounds like a nice change of pace.

As free as a bird

The most exciting thing of the entire school year happened this afternoon in the office! For several days the secretary has had to listen to something inside the wall between her office and the principal's office. At first it was scratching, so it could have been anything. But when it started singing, she knew it was a bird caught in there. Our hearts ached for that poor bird. If we did not somehow find a way to release it, it would stave to death inside that wall. So Mr. Kratz, the principal, obliged our concerns today and cut a hole in the wall of his office. Unfortunately, he cut it between the wrong studs, and the bird still couldn't get out. So he proceeded to cut a second hole as we breathlessly watched, imagining that bird flying straight at us when it got loose! Don't men just love doing a job with a bunch of females around giving their opinion about how to do it, along with some excited screaming? It's a wonder he didn't send us home!!

As soon as Mr. Kratz removed the square of drywall (with lots of female screaming as accompaniment!) our secretary and one of the teachers quickly held this garbage bag against the wall for the bird to fly into. But the poor bird must have thought that bag looked like death - he would not fly into it!

When the bird refused to go into the black garbage bag, they put a plastic clothes hamper (I have no idea why that was in the office!!) up against the wall and the bird flew right into it. Can you hear us screaming???

Next problem - how to get the clothes hamper away from the wall without the bird escaping into the office? Ah - a handy poster board to the rescue! Mr. Kratz slipped it down between the wall and the hamper, then picked everything up and carried it outside as we opened the doors for him!

The bird flew away so fast I didn't even get him in my picture. BUT, check it out - that IS the bird's shadow on this picture!! I guess he must have been feeling as free as a bird! Hee, hee.

When the students were dismissed at 11:30 today, Destiny went home with her classmate Fufu. She lives in a children's paradise - they have horses, a HUGE back yard with a pool, a kids' gym set, and children's four-wheelers! I kid you not, when I got there to pick her up, Destiny was riding all over the place in her swim suit and a helmet on that four-wheeler! It just cracked me up! She ignored my presence for as long as possible - she was having such a great time.

Destiny and her friend Fufu take one last dip in the pool. Can you imagine that Destiny didn't want to leave??!!

One more thing down

Today we had eighth grade graduation practice and I also had several of my regular Tuesday classes. I got a little bit of organizing done in my classroom. But there's a LOT more to do.

This evening was the graduation. The kids looked so awesome, all dressed up. Some of the girls looked like they were ready for a wedding! The graduating class sang God Is Able and The Fly Away Medley, each from previous choral festivals. I helped out with the tenor, but they had four part harmony - just eleven kids! I'm so proud of them. Of course, as usual, I played Pomp and Circumstance as they walked in at the beginning and out at the end.

So that's one more thing down. Tomorrow the kids have half a day - their last. But I will let Destiny go home with a classmate and I'll do more end-of-year work in my classroom in the afternoon.

The eleven graduates.

Friends and family mingling afterward.

A wonderful day

This was a wonderful day. We went to buy our flowers this morning and got them all planted and all the weeding and mowing done too. The weather was perfect - sunny and always a good breeze blowing. We were so dirty and hot and tired when we got finished.

After getting cleaned up and making hot dogs on the grill we went to the shop where Dick works so he could inspect the Explorer. I sat outside working on report card grades and watching Destiny. She was having the time of her life riding her two wheeler. We got it for her last September for her birthday and she rode it a few times at a nearby church parking lot with the training wheels on it. Then this spring she wanted them off and was practicing riding in the house (not very satisfactory, as you can imagine!) Last week she discovered she could ride a short distance in our yard where the hill isn't too steep. There is just no place here for her to ride. Our yard and the streets in our community are too hilly and there are too many intersections. So can you imagine her delight to be at Dick's shop this evening with an acre or more of flat pavement and no traffic because we were the only ones there? She just rode and rode and rode, singing the whole time in her high voice with plenty of vibrato!! It was just adorable.

And now, after such a productive day - guess what I still have to finish up? You guessed it - my report card grades. I'm as sick of doing them as you are of hearing about them. I promise this is the last you'll hear about them until November!!

Riding a two-wheeler - finally!

A stay-at-home weekend

This is an amazingly eventless weekend. I'm just putzing around, slowly getting different things done. Today I intended to finish up all paper grading and calculate all the report card grades, but it was so boring and since I knew I still have tomorrow, I didn't get finished. I'm so not in the mood for anymore school work.

Dick put up a tree swing for Destiny yesterday. It looks like such fun, I think I'm going to try it out. We're not allowed to have any children's swing sets here since it's an over 55 community, so the tree swing is better than nothing. She loves it.

We received the very sad news that our former pastor's wife, Phyllis Gorno, died after a battle with ovarian cancer. Our family is so very, very sad, as are many, many people. She was such a sweet, loving woman. They have one married daughter who lives in Texas and one in college. Please lift up a prayer for them at this very difficult time.

This past week Lisa and George and Sophie planned to spend their vacation week at a beach house. However, at the beginning of the week George was struck with a vicious stomach flu, and Lisa was beginning to feel like she was getting it too. So they packed up and returned home. They all got better and spent the rest of the week doing things closer to home. I posted some pictures below.

Lisa and George's lovely Mexican house. They just added the blue awnings at the windows. Yes, it looks like the house is several different shades, but that's just the way it looks when the sun shines on it brightly. It really is a bright Mexican orange.

Fun at the beach.

Visiting Busch Gardens.

Fishing in the pool!

Destiny's new tree swing.

Sheer delight!

Our "New" Car

OUR "NEW" CAR

As we raised our many children the most practical means of transportation was big Ford vans, which we would drive for many years. As the children became drivers we added VW Rabbits to our driveway. It was never hard to find our vehicles in a parking lot, because they didn't look like anybody else's.

That is, until 1995 when we got a gray Mercury Sable which looked amazingly like many other cars on the road. I was not known to be much of a car noticer, so I was in for a challenge!

One particular Saturday morning Dick and I had been to a doctor appointment and got finished just before twelve noon. I wanted to to go to the bank before they closed so we hurried to the nearest Fulton Bank which was in a little K-Mart strip mall. He pulled up to the curb in front of the bank, I jumped out and made a mad rush for the door, getting inside the door just before they locked it.

A few minutes later I came out of the bank and quickly jumped into the car that was at the curb where Dick had let me out. I was completely SHOCKED as I heard a strange man's voice saying, "Wrong car, Hon!"

"Oh my goodness, I am SO SORRY!" I exclaimed profusely as I even more quickly jumped back out of that car without as much as a glance at the man who had spoken. I turned around and saw Dick sitting in our car in a parking space facing the bank, with the BIGGEST grin in town. He had watched the whole thing with greatest amusement. I sheepishly walked over and got into our car, still without looking at the man in the wrong car. Dick told me it was an older man who had probably enjoyed having a younger woman hopping into his car! (I hate to admit it, but the wrong car was not a Mercury Sable; in fact, it wasn't even gray - it was brown.)

Pictures from Idaho

As I mentioned last week, I would have dearly loved to travel to Idaho with my sisters Mary Ellen and Doris for my sister Barb's daughter Jill's wedding on Saturday. But because of my Spring Program last Friday it was absolutely impossible. In addition to those two sisters, my sister Betty from New Hampshire also traveled to Idaho for the wedding as did our sister Janet's son Scott Peifer and family from California. I've been told they had an absolutely wonderful time together, which I have no problem imagining. Our sister Rose in Atlanta expressed my sentiments exactly when she said in an email that she can hardly stand it that funny things were probably happening and she wasn't there to be a part of them! I'm so afraid of missing something when we sisters are together that when I need to go to the bathroom I tell them not to talk about anything interesting until I get back!!

I have posted a lot of pictures below that were sent to me by my sister Doris and nephew Scott. They will be most interesting to members of the Witmer family. But the scenery will be interesting to all.

Jill and Travis say "I do."

Travis and Jill. They look like they're thinking, "What have we done???" I'm sure they weren't thinking that!!

Barb and John Brubaker, parents of the bride.

Lovely Barb with her beautiful daughters Andrea and Jill.