The rhododendrons at Anthony and Lori's hit their peak last week. They are absolutely extravagant!!!
I also enjoyed flowers on my kitchen window sill last week. A friend at church handed a rose to each mother the other Sunday. Sam and Jenn gave me the pretty yellow ones. I also have a beautiful planter on the porch from Anthony and Lori, but haven't remembered to take a picture of it yet.
On Friday I made dinner for Anthony and Lori and also some peanut butter rice krispie treats for a meal being provided for volunteer firemen on Saturday. (Calvary and other area churches participate in City Serve, making a difference in the community with hands-on service.) I took dinner to Anthony and Lori's place, then took the treats to the Calvary office. It is in a lodge on a hill behind the church building. What a view from up there!!! It was breathtaking!!
The funniest thing happened on the way there. I had hit dreadful traffic going around Harrisburg, so by the time I got off Route 78 at the Bethel exit I really had to go to the bathroom. I was so glad to see that there is now a Sheetz gas station there. I went straight to the ladies room. When I came out, there stood Julie Zimmerman, my stepbrother Gary's wife! They live in the Manheim area, so we were each surprised to see each other! I said, "I'm going to visit Grandma!" She said she was on her way home from a homeschool book sale along with two friends, one of whom I also know quite well. We had fun catching up a bit as we paid for our purchases.
The drive from there to Mary's house was lovely, areas of Lebanon County I had never seen. And the sight of beautiful flowers greeted me! Carl's wife Mae is an avid gardener.
Mae said she calls this "Mom's Flower Haven." How sweet is that?
I had the sweetest time with Grandma Mary. She's facing some discouraging "aging" issues, but she was in good spirits that evening. She's going to be 90 in September, so I guess she's allowed to have a few aging issues, right? After a while my stepbrother Roy and his wife Carolyn came too. True to her nature, Grandma wanted to feed us. She had a blueberry pie in the fridge, raspberry ice cream in the freezer, and cookies baked!
It was a very good evening together as you can tell.
From there I drove to Sam and Jenn's to stay overnight. It's just a 20-minute drive, but I am not the least bit familiar with those country roads in the dark, so I was totally dependent upon the Google Maps lady. I was thankful when I got to familiar territory!
Jenn and Bianca went to bed soon after I arrived. Jenn would be getting up very early for her drill weekend. So Sammy and I hung out and had some fun! We were at a Hawaii beach. Can you tell?
I also had a good time later catching up with Ray. He has landed his dream job near York, PA and had just put in his first week there. For now he is staying at Sam and Jenn's until he can rent a place for him and Thyda. She'll be leaving the Navy this summer. (Keep her in your prayers as she's in Virginia alone these last months.)
Sam and Ray were entertaining me with stories from the week - of cutting trees down and of steel tip shoes that Sam loaned to Ray, which unfortunately met their demise on his first day of work. The story is just too funny and way too long for this post.
In the morning I made my regular eggs and bacon breakfast. Sammy didn't want my eggs, just bacon - lots of bacon!
Bianca ate some of everything, including an English muffin, but she wasn't going to look at me for a picture.
Little ham!
I said my goodbyes and headed toward Lancaster. The real reason for my trip was that some of my sisters and a cousin were going to see a musical together at Bird in Hand Theatre. I was hoping to take Destiny along with me, but they were having a cousin's birthday party at her house, so I just stopped by for a bit to see her.
And to get our selfie, of course! And to hug her and kiss her as always.
The musical we came to see was a comedy, Mennonite Girls Can Cook! Oh did we laugh! It was very well done. We had a front row seat!
Afterward we had a delicious meal and more fun upstairs in the Bird in Hand Restaurant.
Can you tell I was in the heart of Amish country?
And then I drove the two or three hours home. It always takes me longer than Dick, because I don't drive as fast, haha! I would rather set my cruise control at a pace that others can pass me if they want.
Sunday was a different kind of morning. Once a year the Greater Buffalo Run Valley UMC (of which Fillmore is one location) has Worship in the Park on the 3rd Sunday of May. Unfortunately the temperature was quite chilly, so it was held in the Buffalo Run location. Our praise team was going to provide music as people ate, but since the eating was taking place in the basement of the church, we did our music up in the sanctuary as people who were finished eating trickled in. Afterward there was a service in which we also played. The choir sang a song too.
I just love playing with these musicians - Dick, Brenna, and Ross.
In the afternoon Austin and Hunter stayed at our place for a few hours. Hunter isn't quite walking alone yet. He does stand alone for short periods of time and does well walking while holding one hand. But he gets around so fast and is in full exploratory mode!
After a while he was tired out and lay down on a rug! I picked him up, sang a little bit, and he was soon sleeping. What an easy baby! I held him till he woke up about 45 minutes later. He's growing up too, too fast.
Actually I missed taking pictures of the fun Dick was having with Hunter while Austin and I played Life and Mancala. While Hunter slept Dick played Uno with Austin.
Austin wanted me to take a picture of Hunter sitting on his lap - no easy task anymore!
Someone caught their attention.
Mommy was back!
Monday was a regular day for me of cooking for Anthony and Lori and taking it to their place before going to piano lessons. But there's where the regular stopped!
My lifelong friend Elaine Nissley arrived while I was at Anthony and Lori's place, and the weather was just perfect for us to sit on the screened in porch and begin our 24-hour catch-up binge!! Seriously, we had so much catching up to do!!!! Elaine and I first learned to know each other as students at Manheim Christian, me in 1st grade, she in 2nd! We went on to date and marry guys who were neighbors and friends. We were attendants in each other's weddings. We had children in the same years, we both added other children to our families, we both did bed and breakfast, although she stayed with it WAY longer than I did. You may remember that her husband John passed away last April, so she is learning to do life alone - well, as alone as you can be with a lot of children and grandchildren nearby, haha! And what a spunky loner she is!!! She's gearing up for a road trip to Alaska this summer with a few others in the RV she has purchased! And she wants to blog about it, so she wanted to spend some time with me to get her blog started. Thus her trip here from Manheim.
When it was time for me to go to my piano students' house, she drove to my house, and later she and Dick met me at Cracker Barrel. Bless her dear heart, she treated us to dinner, and we talked and talked and talked some more. Then we went home to do more of the same until almost midnight! I took one picture of the incredible sunset as we were going from Cracker Barrel to our house.
Later I noticed that Anthony had posted a picture he took of the sunset from their place. It was truly spectacular!!
Just before we were deciding we should stop talking and get some sleep I realized I had not yet taken any picture of us, so here's our goodnight selfie!
The next morning we did some more catching up over coffee and fruit, then decided we really should get started on the blogging. Oh my. We tried. But we ran into some issues with email addresses and passwords and administrator unknowns on her new laptop, etc. This was us for hours in our pajamas!
Eventually we called it quits, got ourselves decent and went to Sowers Harvest Cafe for a late lunch and for one last hour or so of catching up. But first we tried to get pictures in front of my house with my camera precariously sitting on the sloped hood of her van!
I love this friendly little cafe.
And I love this mural on the wall. And I love Elaine. This was like a 24-hour gift. I hope we can spend time together again before we are old ladies, hahaha!
And now a few more pictures from this week before I go. My friend Peg gave me some rhubarb from her garden the other day. I got this picture from the internet for those who don't know what rhubarb is.
I turned it into two Rhubarb/Strawberry Crumb pies. They smelled delicious when they were baking yesterday morning, but they're not really that special. I probably won't bother making them again. Maybe I just didn't use the greatest recipe.
Today I spied my first rose of the summer! I just know that in the next week that bush is going to turn into an amazing sight! There are buds all over it.
And how cool that it would be blooming when Sam and Jenn are here this weekend, since this bush was their Mother's Day gift to me several years ago. They will be arriving this evening. I am SO EXCITED!!!!! But first I must go direct our last choir practice before our summer break!
