FUN, FULL Sunday!

Yesterday morning at Houserville we forewarned our praise team members that when church was over we would be leaving like we're visitors.  Haha!  I'm always disappointed when visitors leave when we're doing our "exit music" and I don't get a chance to talk with them.  But yesterday we were on a mission, and we really did need to hit the road as soon as we were done playing.  We had a very important lunch to attend in Lancaster County.

But first of all,  for my readers who did not know us in the 70's, I need to introduce Michelle.  When Lisa was just a year old we met Michelle and her dad when they started coming to our church.  Michelle was in kindergarten at the time.   Eventually her dad became the bass player for our music groups - first of all The Witmer Trio, then The Freedom Singers.  And Michelle kind of became our girl.  He'd bring her to our house every morning on his way to work and she'd go to Manheim Christian Day School from our house, and then after school she'd come to our house till he picked her up.  They often ate dinner with us.  In fact, they became part of the extended Witmer and Stauffer families.  When she was a teenager our paths went different directions, but we always have stayed in touch. even after their move to Texas in 1995.    

Here's a beautiful picture of Michelle (9) and Lisa (5) dressed up for my sister Barb's wedding in June 1978.

Yesterday's very important lunch date was to see Michelle during her week's visit in Lancaster County. She was getting together with some of her Manheim Christian Day School classmates for lunch, and we crashed the party!

 Pictured in this photo are Diane (Smith) Beaston, Leslie Moyer, Nevin Musser, Dick and I, Larry Zeiset, Marc Neff, and Michelle Cruz.  (Isn't that a cool frame?  While we were driving yesterday I found a photo editing app on my phone that I really like.)

And here we are with our Texas girl.  Believe it or not, she's the mother of four children ages 12 - 25!  What a beauty!  We had the most delightful time together, but not nearly long enough.

From there we drove to Sam and Sammy's.  (Two weeks of training down for Jenn, three more to go.)  This time the guys planted three knockout roses and some lilies that we dug out from our place.  The lilies were not happy about moving, so they look pretty droopy.  But hopefully they'll get over it and give some nice flowers this summer.

Sammy and I had fun blowing bubbles with this huge wand, drawing on the chalkboard, and just hanging outside with the guys. 

When it was time for us to go, Dick put him on my seat of the truck.  Oh my!  He thought he was going along and was just as pleased as could be!  Sometime you will, Sammy!  It occurred to me that he's the age that Destiny was when I took her with me to Sweden to visit Miki.  I was one brave grandma!!  

And then it was time to say our goodbyes, again all too soon.   We drove to Reading and picked up Destiny.  She'll be spending the week with us and going "Stauffer camping" with us next weekend.  I love how her hair can finally go into its natural curls since there's not so much weight from the length.  

And now I need to get to work so there's time for us to have some fun later.  Happy Monday to all!

It's SUMMER!!

It's summer!  How I love summer!  Of course it helps that we live in a small house with central air and in a place that tends to cool off at night so we can often open up windows on all sides to let the fresh breezes in.  But I also love GREEN and flowers and annual family outings and not bothering with coats and gloves and socks and cooking outside and eating outside and going to the pool with grandchildren..... Is that a long enough run-on sentence??  OH!  And the long days!  That's the best thing of all.  These ARE the longest days right now, so I'm trying to savor every bright early morning and every light evening.  And I want to look for that super moon this evening too.

These are some GREEN pictures I took one evening last week as I sat on the side porch and Dick was mowing.

One morning last week we had HEAVY rain for just 15-20 minutes.  When I looked outside I saw a river coming across the street from the neighbors (whose house is on slightly higher ground than ours) right down past our house, past our shed, and on down the little hill behind our house to the next houses below.  Crazy!  

We have a Saturday at home to get stuff done and then a VERY full Sunday coming up.  

Dear families who need our prayers

This day started off with a one-two punch.  Dick was at one computer, I was at the other.  I had just read a very sad update from my friend Elta about her husband Jay's battle with brain cancer, and then Dick said,  "Pat Johnson died."  He was reading the Lancasteronline obituaries.  Ugh.  Cancer.  I just want to scream.  

Pat and I have not seen each other for a number of years, but from September 1992 until June 1999 we were together almost every Thursday morning to pray together for our kids and for Manheim Central High School.  Our group was called Moms in Touch, part of a national organization.  Oh, I loved Pat so much.  Our hearts were so united in our love for our kids and our faith in God and the power of prayer.  Here we are in 1994, Pat and I standing in the back, Fran Stauffer, Janet Gish, and Ann Ginder sitting down.  

One day in April I had a strong urge to get in touch with Pat.  I looked for her on Facebook without any luck.  That Saturday, while at the Manheim Christian Day School benefit auction,  I learned from another former Moms in Touch friend that Pat was fighting cancer and treatments were no longer working.  I was sad beyond belief.  I wrote to her, and had a few updates since then, and now she's gone.  I remember that we had heard someone say that a mother's prayers are not confined by the length of her life.  They are still in effect even after she's gone.  We were comforted by that thought back then, and I'm even more comforted by it now.   And tonight I pray for her kids - Brian, Amy, and Maribeth, as I did so many times when they were in high school.  And for her husband Dave.  And for her Mom Polly, who has lost so many loved ones.  Pour out your comfort and healing, Lord!

And the other situation that's weighing heavily on my heart tonight.  Jay and Elta.  Jay and Dick grew up together as neighbor boys and buddies.  Elta and I went to Sunday School together as toddlers.  We couples started our families out together, we went to church together for fourteen years,  later I was the music teacher for their two youngest children for ten years.  All that to say - our lives have always been intertwined.  A few years ago Jay was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  Surgeries and treatments were very successful.  This spring, again when we were at the Manheim Christian Day School benefit auction, Jay told Dick that he was going to be having an MRI the following week.   Later we heard that the cancer had grown.  This morning's email from Elta said that a second MRI has shown even more growth in spite of treatments that he's had since April.  He just sleeps most of the time and they are coming to terms with the fact that their time here on earth with him is limited.  My heart is just crying for this dear, precious family - Jay and Elta on the left, son Jordan and daughter Alyssa in the middle, son Kirby and his wife Joanna on the right.  Please pray for them as they come to your minds.

Sammy, Destiny, and Father's Day - a super weekend

Another fun, full weekend over, and lots of great pictures to share.

On Friday afternoon I drove to Lancaster County.  It was an absolutely beautiful day for driving.  My first stop was at my brother's car repair business.  I spent quite a while with Dick and Nancy in the house looking at the pictures Nancy took of each family group at our big Witmer reunion the previous weekend.  Then I went out to the shop and caught up with Mary Ellen in the office.  Katie the cat is her constant companion and sleeps right on the desk.  As we talked I let out a few of my signature laughs, and Katie would lift her sleepy head and look at me as if to say, "What ever in the world was THAT??"

Then I drove to Sam and Jenn's house.  Jenn is away for five weeks of training, so we're trying to do what little we can to help Sam out.  I wish we weren't so far away at a time like this.  Oh!  I do want to share that Jenn got a promotion the other week and is now an E-6 Staff Sergeant!  She's rising through the ranks!

Here are some shots of Sammy on Friday evening.  He loves his yogurt and his motorcycle.  They live in a cul-de-sac,  just the perfect place for kids to play and ride bike, etc. 

On Saturday morning we went to a nearby diner for breakfast, looked up an old friend of mine (Helen Groff-Dabbs) who owns Dutch Cousins Campground, stopped in to say "hi" to Helen's daughter Michelle down the road, and went shopping for a few flowers at Village Farm Garden Center.  

Sammy even got to see and feed chickens at the campground!

Sam and I did outdoor work for a few hours.  He mowed and I prepped a flowerbed for some future plants.  I also did this planter.

All that hot work required some flavored ice!

Sam says that the prepped flowerbed has become Sammy's favorite place to play!  He loves digging in the dirt, of course!  Sam sent me this shot.

I said my goodbyes to them Saturday afternoon and headed to Reading where Destiny now lives with her mom for the summer.  I hadn't seen her since Mother's Day, and I was so happy to be with her again. She's growing up so fast I can hardly stand it, but we had the most fun together.  We went to see the movie Epic.  Of course we had to do our traditional restroom pics!

I needed to get back home after the movie, so all too soon our time together was over.  We're hoping it will work out for her to spend a week here soon.

Of course Sunday was Father's Day.  I was reminded of my dad almost right away as we sang the old Gaither hymn He Touched Me at Fillmore.  How my dad loved to sing that song!  There were lots of old pictures of dads on Facebook yesterday.  I was looking for one that I remembered of my dad and me, but instead found this one - four generations of Witmers in 1976.  My grandpa Elam Witmer, my dad Paul Witmer, me, and our daughter Lisa.

These are our "boys" being dads.

Dick had a good Father's Day.  Anthony, Lori, and Austin showed up for church at Houserville, which was a nice surprise.  AFter church Austin came home with us for lunch and a nap.  When he woke up from his nap he sat and watched golf on TV with Grandpa!  Now that's a boy after Grandpa's heart!

Then we went to Anthony and Lori's for a cookout.  Lori's brother Gary and family were there too.  We always have so much fun together, and the weather was just perfect for being on the deck.  Lori outdid herself with corn-on-the-cob, barbecued ribs, hamburgers, and hot dogs.  Anthony capped the evening perfectly with his cup-at-a-time pressed coffee.

A few more Witmer facts and a good song

What a rainy, dreary Monday!  This kind of weather, added to the feeling of disappointment that a fun week is over, seems to go right along with eating things I should not eat and not getting exercise.   But at least I'm not facing shoulder surgery this week, as I was last year at this time!  And I don't have a speeding ticket to pay, as I did last year at this time.  So there's lots to be thankful for!

I do want to share some more things about my Witmer reunion.   Last evening I was overcome with curiosity about just exactly how many people are in this huge Witmer family.  So I took the directory that was made especially for this reunion, and I counted every person that's living, including the spouses, as well as the foster and adopted grandchildren and great-grandchildren, which is not uncommon in this family.  Here are the true facts:

In 1917 Elam Witmer and Katie Wenger got married.  (They were second cousins, by the way!)  They had 10 children and 56 grandchildren.    Now, 96 years later, there are 1,013 people in this family.  They are living in 29 states here in the US plus 9 other countries!  Now that's almost a movement!

As I said in the previous post, we did a good bit of singing on Saturday, all of it by memory.  Dick recorded one song on his iPhone.  I really wanted to share it, but I don't know how to convert a voice memo into something that can be put on a blog or Facebook.  So I played the song on my computer while I also ran through my "Beautiful Scenes" Picasa file, and I videoed it with my phone!  Very, very unsophisticated technology!  In fact, a lot of the pictures are ones I "stole" from other people, so you may recognize your pictures, haha!  So just enjoy the singing!

A picture I did not post the other evening (because I was too sleepy to explain who the people are) is this one.  It's the "children" who are still living and  their spouses, as well as the spouses of the "children" who are no longer living.  Did you follow that?

Back row:  My Uncle Luke and his wife Dorothy; my Uncle John and his wife Evelyn; my Aunt Lois and her husband Clarence Good; my Aunt Grace and her husband David Shenk; my late Aunt Jean's husband John Bender with his second wife Doris.

Front row:  My Aunt Arlene (her husband Lester Hertzler passed away 3 years ago); my dad's second wife Mary (you all know her as Grandma Mary!); and my late Uncle Roy's wife Miriam Wine.  Her second husband Norman was not at the reunion.   

If any of this interests you, that's great.  But I mostly wanted to write all this for my own memory's sake.  I just love details, and more and more I love history.  I guess that means I'm old!

From Lancaster County to the ends of the earth and back again.

This morning Dick and I drove to our hometown of Manheim for a Witmer Reunion to be held at the Manheim Christian Day School where I used to teach.  It was a reunion of my dad's family - his remaining siblings and their children and grandchildren.  

Dad came from a family of 10 children, five of whom are still living.  Many of them are very conservative Mennonites.  But if you think that these conservative Mennonites live cloistered lives with all their children and grandchildren living nearby, you would be wrong.  There is a very strong mission mindset engrained in them, causing them to be willing to scatter far and wide to start churches.  While all of this Witmer family started out in Lancaster and York Counties of Pennsylvania, there are probably more of them living outside of PA than in it anymore.  Of my cousins present at the reunion today we represented Pennsylvania, Virginia, Illinois, Florida, New Mexico, Colorado, New Jersey, New York, Alberta (Canada), and Colombia (South America).  In looking through the directory of my cousins' families, I see there are some in Paraguay, Mexico, Kentucky, Guatemala, Arizona, Texas, California, Maine, Vermont, Georgia, New Hampshire, Michigan, Sweden, West Virginia, Utah,  Idaho, Missouri, the Bahamas, Wyoming, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Egypt, Mississippi,  Washington DC, the state of Washington, Manitoba,  British Columbia, Philippines,  Indiana, and Ohio.  Wow!  I could sit and count the number of people listed in this directory, but I don't have time.  I just know its hundreds.  There were almost 200 there today, and probably a lot more than that missing.  

I took a few pictures from the back of the gym.

We ate, we sang together - good four-part acapella harmony, we told stories and memories, and we introduced our families.  The only family that was 100% represented was my Aunt Grace's family.  She and her husband, David Shenk, raised their family on the mission field in Africa.  Now the majority of their family has settled in Lancaster, which is interesting.  They are such a wonderful family, and I had a great time getting better acquainted with these Shenk cousins.

These are my dad's remaining five siblings - Arlene Hertzler, Luke Witmer, John Witmer, Lois Good, and Grace Shenk.  The other five were the four oldest in the family - Anna Eshbach, Dorothy Miller,  Paul Witmer (my dad),  Roy Witmer, and the youngest sibling, Jean Bender for whom I was named. 

And now we're back home again - just two-and-a-half hours from Lancaster County, much closer than most of my cousins!

Relaxing, playing, shopping, and eating with Lisa, George, and Sophie

Dick and I both took off work Monday and Tuesday so we could spend every minute possible with Lisa, George, and Sophie.  I was so surprised when I woke up Monday morning to find that it was already 7 am - very rare for these bright summer mornings.  Guess I was that exhausted from our big day on Sunday!   And so was everyone else.  I was the first one up!  Eventually Lisa was up with Nilla Bean.

Bless Nilla's heart.  She really wanted George and Sophie to wake up too.  So she just waited quietly at  their bedroom door!

We just lazed around the house all morning.  I made pancakes for our breakfast and open-face tuna sandwiches for our lunch.  After lunch we headed into town to see Anthony's new studio.  Here he is demonstrating the ear-splitting volume he can get out of the guitar amp and speakers he recently bought from us as a collector's item.  When we tried to figure out how long ago we had bought them (used), I found a picture of us using them when we recorded our first Witmer Trio album in 1976 when I was pregnant with him!  How cool is that?

Sophie enjoyed the little lofts (or the tree houses, as Austin calls them.)  I was up in the one when I took this picture of George and Sophie in the other.

Later in the afternoon Anthony and Austin came up to our place for a while.  Sophie gave him a Thomas the Train filled with two packs of gum - his favorite things!

An unusually calm moment with Austin and Nilla.

Lisa had brought her laptop for Anthony to do some trouble-shooting on.

Then we headed to our beloved Circleville Park for a hot dog roast.

Lisa and Anthony with their young-ins on top of the playground equipment.

Any place is good for Yoga!

And speaking of Yoga, that's how Tuesday morning started out.  I am completely amazed by Lisa's flexibility.  But I know she's been practicing slowly and steadily for a number of years.  I'm so proud of her.

Nilla felt right at home here.  She looks like she belongs, right?

We went downtown for lunch to an Italian place called Inferno.   Lori said that she knew someone who had her first hot flash at Inferno.  Is that hilarious, or what??

From there we walked to the building that houses fitness and gymnastics.  Sophie got a chance to watch some gymnasts practicing.

She also met the women's gymnastics coach and got her picture taken with some of the gymnasts!

When Lisa was a Penn State student she taught aerobics classes.  Everyone who works there gets their name on the wall.  Lisa is pointing to her name.

It was fun to find that the fitness director, who had been Lisa's boss, was in her office.  She loved getting to meet Sophie for the first time.  

From there we walked to Lori's building.

It was fun to see "Dr. Lori Francis" on her door!  (Lori said, "This is so corny" as we told her to point to her name, hahahaha!)

Lori went with us to some stores downtown, and we shopped till we dropped!

For dinner Lisa and George, Anthony and Lori went out to a restaurant. 

Dick and I had fun with the kids.  First they played with Austin's trains

Then we took them to Chik Fil-A.  They were absolute angels.  I was so proud to be their grandparents!

When we came home George had to hole up in my office with earphones and his laptop as he attended his online class.  The rest of us watched "So You Think You Can Dance", and I worked on prep for praise team practice. 

And then it was Wednesday morning already.  Dick went back to work.  Lisa and George packed up.  Lori came to say goodbye to them.  

We first of all went to Houserville House of Hope so I could show them where I am praise and worship leader, also to show them The Mommy Shoppe.  Sophie was delighted to find a soft flannel blanket for the new baby doll she had bought downtown on Tuesday.

Then we went to Bastian Tire so they could see where Dick works and say goodbye to him.  Anthony came there too to give his goodbyes.  However, Dick noticed that my one front tire was very low, so we were a bit delayed as he took care of that.  I decided to take a picture of the crew while we waited.  Oh dear.  They love the opportunity for catalog poses.  Here we go.

When Dick was finished with the tire, we took off for Lancaster County where we met up with George's dad, who lives near Philly.  It took some work, but everything got transferred from my car to his car.  It was my turn to say goodbye to them.  Boohoo.  It's just never long enough.   From there they  were headed to a family beach house in Avalon, NJ.  

And I headed back to my very quiet house near State College - with five days' worth of catching up to do in two days!  

Because tomorrow is another big day!