A weekend with the little boys

My upcoming week promises to be jam-packed from beginning to end, and first thing on my long list is to post my pictures from this past weekend with Sammy and Austin.

We met Sam and Jenn at our favorite Sheetz above Harrisburg on Friday evening.  It's so nice to have more daylight for evening trips.  As we headed back home Sammy was fascinated with the long, skinny clouds in the sunset.  He said they were crocodiles and snakes.  

Silly boy!

On Saturday morning we went to an egg hunt-roller skating party at a local roller skating rink.  It was a community event hosted by the Greater Buffalo Run Valley UMC that I am secretary for.  Lori brought Austin too.  I was glad they did the egg "hunt" in a very organized way so that there was no running and bumping into each other.  It was probably boring for older kids, but perfect for younger ones.  Everyone got the same amount of eggs and candy, because each time they went out on the floor they were told how many to pick up.  Sometimes they had to hop like a bunny or flap their wings like a chicken, etc.  

I took this picture of Sammy waiting by the side for the next instructions.  Can you believe how tall and slender he is becoming?  Trying to catch up with the tall and slender Austin, I guess!

After all the eggs had been "found" there was time for the kids to take the candy out of them.  What a stash!  They were delighted.

Then the skating party began.  Neither boy knew how to skate very well, and I most certainly do not, so this was interesting!  What was I thinking??  Thankfully, this skating rink does children's classes, etc, so they had these "walkers" for the new skaters.  Sammy LOVED using it!  He just wanted to keep skating and skating, not even interested in any snacks!   Austin didn't want a walker, but he stayed pretty close to the wall most of the time. 

Near the end Austin was getting much braver and more sure of himself.  So sure, in fact, that he took off in the opposite direction of everyone else, hahaha!

There were snacks and crafts provided.  We sat for a while and mostly ate marshmallow candies and cupcakes and cheese curls.  I had fun with a new friend from my exercise class who was there with her grandchildren.  She took this picture of us, but Sammy was having no parts of it.

The party ended at 12:30, and Lori picked up Austin.  We came home for a nap.

There was a family fun fair being held in the Ag building on campus which we went to later.   I think we missed some of the best activities, but there were a few fun things.  Like this tug-of-war contest between some Penn State athletes and the children.  It was funny - you could see the athletes pretending they were working hard and finally giving up as the children won, ha!

One display area had a little mini-golf course.

There were a lot of door prizes, and even though we got there for just the last hour of the fair, we won a football!  We gave it to Sammy to take home.  He was delighted with it and the bucket that it came in.

In the evening we just stayed home, ate pizza, played with Legos, and watched Ice Age, complete with popcorn.   I had to practice piano for Sunday morning, and Sammy was more than willing to help me with that.

His imagination is alive and well!  Before we had story time on the sofa he packed up his bag and asked Dick where he could hide it, because Captain Hook was coming.  Dick told him it would be safe under the coffee table, and he was satisfied with that.

This was our goodnight selfie for Mommy and Daddy.  

As usual, we went to our two churches Sunday morning.  And as usual, Sammy loved the music.  After the opening songs at Fillmore he said loudly to Dick, "I could hear Mahna!"   The choir did a beautiful arrangement of Jesus Messiah.  When Dick went back to his seat, Sammy said (again loudly), "That sounded great, Grandpa!"  

At Houserville we started out with Praise Is Rising, which is perfect for Palm Sunday.  Sammy sat with me at the piano and held his ears shut.   Afterward he said,  "Mahna, you were really LOUD."  

After church we went to Burger King.  Anthony and Lori dropped Austin off.  Goodness gracious, the place was way too full.  I had no idea it was such a popular place.  We had decided to go there because Austin likes their chicken nuggets.  There were noisy (but very polite) guys from a fraternity filling a number of tables around us, and obviously many of the after-church crowd.  I was glad to leave. 

We brought the boys home for the afternoon.  Sammy was sleeping before we got home despite Austin's efforts to keep him awake.  Austin was sure he himself was not sleepy, so I let him play with his Star Wars Legos quietly on the loveseat.  But it's so hard to play quietly when things need to make explosive sounds all the time, haha!  

After a while he rolled over and fell asleep.  I went to the computer while everyone slept and finalized my music plans for the various church services during this Holy week.  Then I woke everyone up and we started our "return the boys" trip.  As we drove toward Anthony and Lori's house, Austin said, "There's an X in the sky."  And sure enough, there WAS!

We dropped Austin off, then headed to Jenn's parents above Harrisburg.  I sat in the back seat with Sammy.  He had his Easter egg candy on his mind.  But I had brought some GOOD things along too, so we had a little game going - eat a peanut butter cracker, then you get to pick a piece of candy from your bag.  Eat half a banana, then a piece of candy, etc.  So by the time we handed him back to his parents he was all sugared up.  But he had gotten some nutrition in the process!

We had fun hanging out at Jenn's parents' house for a while.  We got to see this little miss.  I got Dick to take this picture of her and me together.  It didn't last long.  She is very attached to her mommy and  daddy, which I keep assuring them is OKAY.  She'll outgrow this stage eventually.  

We were back home by 8:30.  I had worked on emails the whole time we were driving.  I am so thankful for my phone.

In a few days we will be through March.  There has been precious little warm weather so far.  In fact, Saturday was BITTER around here.  But I've come to expect that and am trying hard to not fuss about it all the time.  But like everyone else, I will be very thankful for truly warm temperatures.  

Have a good week!

Friday evening ramblings

It's Friday evening, and we are driving to meet Sam halfway to get Sammy for the weekend.  We've got some fun things on deck for the weekend.  

I had the most wonderful surprise this morning.  After putting off a dental check-up for THREE years - for reasons I won't bother going into here - I finally had one. I just knew that I would probably need root canals and who-knows-what-all that would cost an arm and a leg and probably my other arm and leg too.  But amazingly, I had no cavities and need no work done!   I do floss religiously, but I have pain at a couple of places sometimes, which I've always feared were abscesses ready to cause huge trouble at just the wrong time.   She said it is probably sensitivity due to somewhat receding gums.  I'll take that!  I think I'll sleep well tonight. 

I gotta tell you the crazy dream I had one morning this week. To save time I'll just copy and paste it from my FB post.  

"Don't you hate waking up exhausted and frustrated?  I was dreaming that I was at a church with a music group (don't know who, but there seemed to be a lot of us), and we were getting dressed for the program.  I discovered that my contact lens had torn, so I was trying to figure out if I could see my music well enough with one contact.  Then someone remembered that my sister Mary Ellen was still at my house and could probably bring me a new contact lens before the program would start.  So I called her, and she answered the phone with  "So what did you forget?"  Everyone in the room roared laughing.  I tried to tell her exactly where in my bathroom cupboard to look for my extra contact lenses.  While I waited for her to arrive, I was trying to sing and discovered that my voice was terribly scratchy.  I wondered when did THAT start???  Finally Mary Ellen came with my contact lens.  She handed me two of them, all dry and already taken out of their packages!  I couldn't believe it.  And then, thankfully, my alarm rang."

Here's my Throwback Thursday picture for this week.  

The fruit of my labor sometime in the 80's.  I always canned enough fruit to last us from one summer season to the next.  No dinner was complete without some kind of canned fruit.  I also made jam out of various fruits, canned lots of tomato juice and several kinds of pickles.  In addition,  we also had a huge garden in which we grew vegetables to do up and freeze, enough to last till the next summer.  Summers were HARD WORK!   There's very little about it that I miss, to be perfectly honest.  

I got my FBI clearances in the mail today. I have no record, woohoo!  Not that I thought I did, haha!  

How sad is the plane crash in the French Alps this week?  Of course every expert is giving their thoughts on it.  Yesterday morning one person said something that caught my attention:  "There is one inescapable fact - a human being flies every plane."  We really do put a lot of faith in that person, don't we?  Next time I fly I'm going to give a great big smile to the pilot and wish him a great day. And then I'll breathe a prayer for him.  

Well, enough of this rambling.  I'm sure I'll have some fun pictures for my next post.  

Snow and money and music

I thought I was done posting snow pictures for this year, but we got about 6 inches of the kind that outlines every branch of every tree on Friday.  I had to admit, as much as I am eager for Spring,  it really was beautiful.  Thankfully, it is all gone already.

As I was doing food prep at Anthony and Lori's house that afternoon, it occurred to me that this was probably (hopefully) the last time I would be looking out at snow from those kitchen windows.  Plans are for settlement mid-April.  I remember the first time I took a picture of snow from their kitchen.

Just a few months after we moved up here in 2009, we had a freak snow storm on October 15th!

We stayed home this weekend.  On Friday after work, Dick and I met at Denny's for dinner.  We love it there.  Lots of people our age getting their senior discount, haha!  Their zesty nachos are so good.

On Saturday morning I spent hours doing all the things that now need to be done as a UMC employee likely to be in contact with children.  I did the clearances a year ago, but the rules have changed here in PA for everyone, and there are lots of hoops to go through, including FBI fingerprinting.  That was a first for me.  Making a list of all the people I had shared a household with since 1975 (including their current ages!), and coming up with the addresses I've lived at since then as well, was interesting and time-consuming.   And actually kind of fun as I thought of foster children and friends who have lived with us.

Yesterday Austin came home with us after church as usual.  They had stopped at a coin show on their way home from church.  Austin is obsessed with money lately, haha!!  So the coins and bills at the show just enthralled him.  Anthony spent $10 on a number of coins and bills for Austin.  He heard Austin whisper as he looked over his goods, "I am so lucky!"

At our house Dick got out his coin collection, and they had fun showing each other their money.

I heard Austin ask, "Did they have 100-dollar bills in the 90's-50's?"  I think he meant the 1950's.   You know, back in the dark ages??  Hahahaha!

He was especially proud of this million-dollar bill.  He said, "Hey Grandpa!  If you want blacktop, I could pay for it with this!"  He must have heard Dick say something about our stony driveway.  I decided I believe we'll be alright with Austin looking out for us.  I'm still cracking up!

After naps Dick took him to the Y for rock wall climbing and swimming and then s'mores by the fire at Anthony and Lori's.   I stayed home to start working on a new song for our praise team at Houserville.  I heard it on Pandora radio this week and thought, "What a great song for Easter!"  Matt Maher's  Because He Lives (Amen).  Here it is.  Enjoy!

A chance to breathe on a Thursday evening, what??

I got lots of things accomplished this week, and now I have a chance to breathe.  We had Lenten service at Fillmore last evening and the choir sang, so afterward we had practice instead of this evening.  My exercise class after work today was also cancelled since the instructor is away, so this feels like an absolutely leisurely Thursday evening compared to normal.

I also finished up our income tax stuff this week and have that ready for our tax man.  And I got a new song ready for our praise team at Houserville - Lord, I Need You.  Yes, I know I mentioned that song several weeks ago, but at that point I had just gotten it arranged in my computer composer program.  After I do that I print it out in the right key and format for each musician on the team, make personal markings in each, etc.  It's a time consuming process, but I love it.

Dick had a root canal done today with several more to go.  I need to make an appointment for myself and dread hearing the verdict.  I floss religiously every single day, but I know there's at least one problem area.  A thousand dollar's worth of dental insurance per person per year doesn't begin to make a dent these days.  I'm trying not to let it overwhelm me.

I babysat Austin on Tuesday evening.  He was taking his bath and playing with his Star Wars "people," giving me an education about who the bad guys and the good guys are.

This boy's head is filled with numbers - big numbers.  Later during his bath he was "writing" a bunch of 9's on the tile with his wet finger as he was slowly and deliberately saying, "Ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine."  Then he asked,  "What number comes next?"  Without thinking very hard I said, "A million?"  And he said, "No!  What comes after ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine?"  I had listened more closely that time and answered, "One hundred thousand!"  And just like a teacher he said, "Right!"   Last evening Anthony posted a number that Austin had come up with - five thousand, four hundred infinity, hahaha!!

Here's another funny one from the weekend.  He was very tired and extremely upset over something that Anthony and Lori were holding firm about - a line he had crossed after having been warned a few times.  He was sobbing and declaring,  "I will never get what I want. Not even when I'm 41, because I might live in your house and you'll still be in charge."   And then he warned them, "I'm going to wake up at 6:31 tomorrow."  I just cracked up at his choice of numbers!

And now I want to share my Throwback Thursday pictures for this week.  Here are our parents' wedding pictures.

First my parents, Paul and Mabel (Myers) Witmer on October 2, 1943. It was also my mother's 20th  birthday. 

Dick's parents, Howard and Ruth (Brubaker) Stauffer, October 2, 1948.

They celebrated their anniversaries together at our wedding on October 2, 1971.  

Unfortunately, by 1983 Dick and I were the only ones celebrating that date, since both of our mothers died from cancer in their fifties, just a year apart.  

I shared these pictures on FB today.  One of my cousins, whose dad is one of my mom's younger brothers, made an interesting comment.  She said she showed her dad the picture of my parents' wedding, and he remembered that they went to the Pocono Mountains on their honeymoon and when they came back they gave him a Milky Way bar - his first one ever!  I think he would have been about 8 years old at the time.  That must have been a really good piece of candy for him to remember it all these years later!

Most of our snow is now gone.  But guess what is in our forecast for tomorrow?  Several inches of snow!  Oh well, it won't stay around for long.  I have green shoots coming up in my flower beds and I'm so excited to think of flowers!!  We took all the greens and lights down the other weekend, so it's time for some color out there!!

Is the weekend over already??

I can't believe this weekend is over already!  It feels like I just got finished crossing a million things off my list from last week, and now I'm starting it all over again.

On Friday evening we got to Sam and Jenn's shortly after 7:30 pm.  Sam had just arrived home with Destiny.  She had track practice after school and he had waited for her.

Sam and Jenn went out on a date, and Grandpa and I settled in with the kids.  Bianca was acting pretty clingy and weepy until they left, then she was okay.

Destiny wondered if I would help her with her homework.  What????  Wasn't I just helping her to learn her addition facts?  I had NO idea how to help her with this.

At some point when Dick was playing with Bianca on the floor, she started rubbing her face on his flannel shirt sleeve.  He sat with her on the recliner, and in no time she was asleep!

Sammy fell asleep on my lap, but there was no one to take a picture.  I hung out with Sam and Jenn for a while after they got home, watching hilarious video clips.

I slept until 8 on Saturday morning, which is just unheard of for me!  And Dick was still sleeping!  But not this little girl!

Or her big brother.  Trust me, he was not sleeping on this picture.  He just HATES having his picture taken, so as soon as he saw my phone in picture-taking position, he turned his face away just that quick!  Thus I have almost no pictures of him this trip. )-:

I made egg and bacon sandwiches on English muffins for everyone.  We had a gloriously unproductive morning, just playing and laughing at the kids.  At one point when Dick was holding Bianca she fell asleep in this position, which cracked us up.  It looked like she would have fallen asleep mid-conversation, haha!

Bianca is now on the move!  She's learning to crawl, and it is SO CUTE to watch her figure it out!

I had brought chili along, which was heating in the crock pot all morning.  We then had a late lunch of Mexican Pile-up, which is chili with all the fixin's.  It was absolutely yummy, if I do say so myself.  Destiny had offered to help get stuff together, so she chopped tomatoes. 

After lunch we loaded Sammy and Destiny in the car with us for an afternoon of galavanting around. Our first stop was about six miles down the road at Grandma Mary's.  We had not seen her since she returned from her winter stay in Florida.  We had so much catching up to do.  I think Dick caught a little nap on the recliner while we were talking.  The kids played with the big basket of toys.  

Later when we went to the kitchen for some snacks, Destiny brought out a deck of Old Maid cards that she had found and wanted us to play.  She just LOVES playing games and is very persuasive.  So Grandma Mary, Destiny, and I just stood there around the island in the kitchen and played a round of Old Maid!  Destiny had already read all the rules and knew what to do.  We had great fun!

From there we went to Fred and Deb's house to see Bjorn.  He had just returned from a big meal at the very popular Shady Maple Smorgasbord with his bowling team.  So I know he was fighting sleepiness the whole time we sat there talking.   But it was really good to see him again and get caught up a bit on his life in Manheim.   Dick also really enjoyed chatting with his brother Fred. 

Dear Deb was on the floor with the kids and the toys.  Their granddaughter Payton was there, but she was not in the room when I took this picture.  Payton is about six months older than Sammy.  They had a great time, especially with the waffle blocks. 

From there we went to a Goodwill thrift store and K Mart near Sam and Jenn's place to look for some track practice clothes for Destiny.  Sammy was just hilarious.  At K Mart we were in the health and beauty section at one point.  I turned around to see him lifting his cap visor up a bit and trying to brush his hair with the most enormous round brush you ever saw.  Instead of being embarrassed by our laughing, he then proceeded to try more brushes.  What a ham!

Then we went back to Sam and Jenn's, packed up our stuff, and hit the road by 6:30 or so.  Once again, Sam took Destiny home to Reading for us.  It cuts our drive home by half (two hours instead of four) and I just can't thank him enough for it.  I left him some chili, hahahah!

There was heavy fog most of the day.  It got lighter the more we drove.  After an hour or so there was no fog at all.  SO MUCH BETTER than our last two trips!  

  

On the road and no snow!

Finally we are making a quick road trip to Lancaster County with no snow or ice in the forecast!  We just passed our "white-out nightmare" for the first time since Valentines Day.  

Yea, Spring!  We got warmer temps this week, and lots of snow disappeared. My rose bush made an appearance for the first time in quite a while!  

We will be staying at Sam and Jenn's tonight. Can't wait to see Sammy and Bianca!  Sam was picking Destiny up on his way home from work, so she'll be there too.  Tomorrow we plan to see Bjorn for the first time since Christmas and Grandma Mary too.  

Then back home tomorrow night. I can't be away from church two Sundays in a row.  

My next post will be more interesting, I promise!

ErisWomen's Retreat at Camp Hebron

I'm home from the women's retreat, very sleepy, but happy.  My trip there on Friday was uneventful.  I got this picture of the Susquehanna River, mostly frozen over. 

I had bare roads to drive on until I neared Camp Hebron.  There was still a good bit of snow at places, and I was really glad it was still daylight.   This is the retreat center as I approached it.

After I was inside I zoomed in and took this picture of the big slide at the pool where we always have so much fun during Stauffer camping each summer.  

The fire in the big fireplace was burning all weekend.  What ambiance it provided!  This was  my pathetic attempt at taking a selfie by the fire, ha!

This was our view from our meeting room, which had glass on three sides.

And here's our group.

Our speaker for the weekend was Brenda Hollenbach from Hershey, PA (standing to my left.)  What a beautiful woman in every way!  She stirred up our love for the Lord and also stirred up our compassion for women at risk.  She had a huge display of jewelry and other products made by women at risk all over the world that we could buy.  The Women at Risk International brochure that I have here says, "Every $250 in sales sustains a woman for a month in one of our safehouses."  (Our small group this weekend generated enough sales to sustain a woman for THREE months!)  The safehouses rescue women and children from the horror of human trafficking, providing them with holistic treatment, medical care, counseling, education, spiritual care, and job skill training.  Take a look at their website! 

I loved leading these ladies in worship.  So many beautiful voices and hearts!

My roommate was my dear friend Elta Nissley, second from right on the front row.  You may remember that her husband Jay, lifelong friend of Dick's, died after a battle with brain cancer a year-and-a-half ago.   It was good for us to have time to catch up with each other.  We talked way too late last night, especially with the time change!  She's an amazingly strong woman in every way and I'm in awe of all that she handles.  Love you, Elta, my faithful reader and friend!

I got home at 3:30 this afternoon.  Houserville church was again having a fund raiser at Hoss's today, so we joined Anthony and Austin there for dinner.  (Lori is in South Africa until Friday.)  Unfortunately, Austin had had a late nap and had to be wakened, so he was NOT in a good mood at first.  When I tried to get a picture of him and his daddy, this is what I got.

And now I am feeling ready to go to bed.  Too little sleep, too much food all weekend.  Time to hit the reset button!

Have a good week!