Porch painting, a reunion, more zucchini recipes, grandchildren

Wow, these weeks just fly by!  I'll start this post with a picture I took yesterday as I had my first cup of coffee on our side porch.  I found myself singing a beloved song from the 90's, "I lift my eyes up to the mountains where does my help come from.  My help comes from You, maker of heaven, creator of the earth."

I decided to look it up on YouTube and was delighted to find it!

Last week I was eager to get beyond my "regular" work on Wednesday (cooking for Anthony and Lori and the Houserville/Mt. Nittany Wednesday evening service) so I could do some "fun" work on Thursday.  I think it was four years ago that I first put stain on our side porch floor, and by now it was really needing a touch-up.

I went to Dick's shed to find my brushes and the paint that had been left over.  Wow, it was really lumpy and thick.  I googled what to do about lumpy paint and found out you can strain it!  Of course it is latex and washes easily, so I pulled out my strainer and poured that paint through it!  And it worked!  I added some water and was good to go!  When I posted this picture on FB, someone thought it was chocolate pudding and another person thought it was spaghetti sauce, LOL! (The yellow blotches are just the sun shining on it.)

It turned out to be quite hot and sunny, and as I got to the edge of the porch and the steps I could feel my cowlick getting sunburned, haha!!  So I went inside in search of a hat.  Aha!!  I had forgotten that I have this cool hat from our visit to Cozumel two years ago.

I was pleased with my work, if I do say so myself!

I still had some paint left, so I decided to paint the never-before-painted door to our "basement."

Now it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb, but it's better than before, trust me.  I want to paint the cement block foundation.  I'm thinking about matching the now-tan shutters maybe.  Any ideas?  Or should I go with the rust/red?  As I walked around our neighborhood the other week and down the street behind us I was horrified at what the people living below us had to look at when looking at the back of our house.  Since I never have to look at it, it didn't bother me!

On Thursday evening I had a practice with my Fillmore flute and clarinet players for a special we would be doing Sunday morning.  On Friday I cooked for Anthony and Lori and packed for overnight.

I met Dick at his shop at 5 and we headed toward Lebanon.  We were going to Sam and Jenn's overnight, but we had an important stop to make on the way there.  Jenn is away for the entire month at a training for her military job, and the kids had been at her mom's for two days.  We picked them up on our way.  As we drove I told them to say hi to mama so I could send her a picture.

Sammy and I made peanut butter rice krispie treats together that evening.  We also spent a lot of time looking through the children's cookbooks they have.  Next week Sam and the kids will be here and I told him we'll make some things from his cookbooks.

As I mentioned before, Ray is temporarily staying at Sam and Jenn's since he got his new job in PA.  Thyda will be finished with the Navy and moving up at the end of this month.  They have an apartment in Lebanon that they'll be moving into.  Quite a downsize from the town home they have in Norfolk, but leaving the Navy is a huge transition.  We're praying that her job search will result in a good fit for them.

Anyway, she arrived later Friday evening with Leo, having driven six hours from Norfolk without stopping once!!!  You can probably guess which room she went to immediately upon entering the house, hahaha!!

Here's a picture I took of them the next morning before she left for a hair appointment.

And then because Ray is Ray, he grabbed a picture lying on the buffet and said, "Here, take a picture of this!"  It was a picture of Sam when he was a kid, hahahahaha!  He could almost pass for their child, right?  LOL!!

Dick and I made pancakes and bacon for everyone Saturday morning.  Sammy prefers his pancakes as finger food.  Actually, I do too.  Wrap them around a piece of bacon or sausage.  No syrup needed, especially if there are chocolate chips in them.  Yum!

Bianca was hunting for one of her stuffed animals, so we went to her bedroom to look.  She has a huge walk-in closet that they have turned into a playroom.  When she opened the door she discovered her care bears.  She forgot all about the one we were looking for.

Sammy has another new hobby - sanding.  He loves his sanding block, and was proud of how smooth the end of his stick was.

The kids were really in the mood for books this time.  We spent a good bit of time both Friday evening and Saturday morning with books.  They love the kind of books in which you need to search for things.

When we left around 11:00, Ray was on the couch with Sammy and a book.  Sam was on the chaise with Bianca and a book.  Loved it!

Dick and I had a Stauffer reunion to go to.  The big one that's held just once every five years.  Dick's dad's siblings and cousins and their offspring.  On our way we stopped at Divine Swine near Lebanon to buy some pulled pork and cole slaw to take along.  Then I thought we needed to bring our own place settings and serving spoons, so we stopped at a Weis Markets to buy a bunch of stuff I already have at home, but had not brought along.  Only to discover when we got to the reunion that we didn't need to bring our own stuff after all.  Ugh.

Before we ate, Dick's dad's cousin Glenn gathered everyone together for some history and story telling.  It was actually really interesting to hear the historical details that we had not heard before.

Cousin Dave Stauffer's wife told us about this family tree she has made that shows how she and her husband are 3rd cousins - a fact they did not know until they were engaged!

Glenn told us about this crossword puzzle family tree quilt.  He has made one for each of his nine grandchildren!

Dick's dad (92) is here with his sister Helen (on the right) who is just a few years younger than he, and his older brother Clarence's wife Grace (95!)  Clarence just passed away two years ago.  Dick definitely has longevity in his family tree! In fact, Emma, the mother of Dad and his siblings lived to be 101!!

These were the members present from the Henry and Emma Stauffer family (Dick's grandparents.)

Sister-in-law Deb Stauffer was chatting with Dad's cousin Elam.  Elam's dad was killed in an accident when Elam was just 9 years old.  As was common in those days, when widows could not care and provide for all their children, they were taken in by family.  In Elam's case,  he was taken in by Dick's young parents (about the time Dick, their first child, was born.)  He lived with them until he went away to college.  Elam and his late wife Doris spent their lives as missionaries in Central and South America.  They have two fantastic adult children whom they adopted from Equador.  He came all the way from Columbus, Ohio for this reunion.

These three guys are the sons of another Elam Stauffer - Grandpa Henry's brother Elam.  However, they are our age.  Their father Elam and his first wife were some of the very first missionaries that our Mennonite church sent to Africa in the 1930's.  His wife died in Africa and he later married again and had three sons, Philip (actually born on the same day as Dick!), Ken, and Bruce.  I knew them when I went to Lancaster Mennonite to high school.  One of them came from New Jersey for this reunion!

I was sorry I could not stay to talk with more people.  But I had another appointment to go to.  My nephew's wife Christy works at an optical place in Lancaster called Modern Eyes, owned by her brother and two of his classmates, all graduates of Manheim Central.  I have heard so much good stuff about them and often wished I could go there for an eye appointment and new glasses.  Last week I saw on FB that they had added six appointments to their Saturday schedule due to back-to-school demand.  So I immediately called and got a 2:30 appointment.  I have been told that I have cataracts and that whenever I have surgery my eye prescription will likely change.  So I have not gotten new glasses for 13 years!!  The only time I wear glasses is when I take my contacts out at night, so it's not that big a deal.  Unless, heaven forbid, something would go wrong with my eyes and I would not be able to wear my contacts and would have to wear my 13-year-old glasses in public!!  But they were EXPENSIVE even thirteen years ago and I have not wanted to spend hundreds of dollars on a pair of glasses only to have my prescription change soon thereafter.  So I wanted to have my eyes evaluated by someone I was sure I could trust.

When I walked into their place of business I was greeted by one of the guys with, "So you're Howard's daughter-in-law?"  I had forgotten to remove my name tag from the reunion!!  That was the joke of the day the whole time I was there!  Even when I left they told me to say hi to Howard from them!  I was happy to find out that my cataracts are still very small and I most likely would not need surgery on them for maybe five years.  So I will definitely go back to pick out new frames at some point.  They were closing when I was finished with my exam on Saturday, so I didn't have time to do that then.

I went to Dad Stauffer's then, which is where Dick was.  He had taken a nap after the reunion.  Cousin Elam was also there, so we visited for a while, then we went back to Sam's.  Ray and Thyda were there and we decided to get Chinese takeout.  Yummy!!!  Mine was fried rice and sweet and sour chicken.  Then we hit the road for home.

On Sunday afternoon we babysat Hunter.  He took a nap for over two hours and so did I!!  One of those naps that I had a hard time recovering from the entire rest of the day!  

Here are some adorable pics I took.  They can't be anything but adorable, can they?

After I woke up I made a recipe Peg had sent me to use up more of her zucchinis that I had in the fridge.  Zucchini Blueberry Muffins.  They were really good - very moist and not overly sweet.  They called for unsweetened applesauce, which we always have on hand.

In the evening we had our first fire on Anthony and Lori's new crushed stone patio.  No more mud or sloping toward the hill!  The weather was perfect for a fire.

Hunter was mowing the yard!

He kept trying and trying to seat himself on this stool.  It was both scary and hilarious to watch, because he would climb on top of it first and then try to twist himself around into a seated position, which was hard to to without falling off.  But I think he got it down after enough attempts at it!

Lori got him this chair at Sam's Club on Saturday for $20!!  She thought it would make a perfect birthday gift for Bianca.  But when Dick went there on Monday they had none left.  Online they cost anywhere from 45-65 bucks!  Apparently they had a special sale on Saturday and Lori just happened to be there at the right place at the right time.

Sorry, no picture of Austin that evening.  They have made a new playroom in the basement right next to the patio, and he and his cousin Will were in there a lot of the evening playing a car race game.

There was a beautiful sunset before we left.  We took Will home, then hit the grocery store on our way home.

On Monday I cooked for Anthony and Lori and also cleaned and prepped their airbnb apartment for the next people who would arrive later in the day.    My piano students were on vacation this week, so I didn't have those lessons as I usually do on Monday evenings.

At home that evening I made yet another zucchini recipe - a quiche.    It was delicious.

Yesterday (Tuesday) I worked on music prep for both churches all day long.  In the evening Dick washed this side of our house, and once again the light-colored paint on the shutters washed right off. Have you ever heard of such a thing?  Now you can really see the difference when you look at the shutter at the front window still waiting to be "unveiled."   I'm so thankful we discovered this before I went to the work of painting those shutters!  This is way easier and less expensive!

Out in Portland Martha is in a skilled nursing facility once again.  Often the pain medication causes her to be asleep, but she does have wakeful times too.  I had sent her a card and some pictures last week and she texted me after she received them.  Jeremy also got big pictures made to hang in her room to look at from her bed.  How very sweet of him.  The lower group picture is from our 2015 Thanksgiving at Anthony and Lori's when Martha was with us.  That's a good memory for sure.  This is a very hard time for all of them and my heart is aching.

And one last picture - look who is turning three today!  Miss Bianca Marie!  We'll celebrate her birthday on Saturday at Jenn's parents' house.  (And Jenn will not be able to be there. )-:   I still gotta figure out what to get for her, since that chair idea isn't going to happen.  

Whew, this took way too much time, but it's one of my weekly jobs, haha!  Somebody has to write down  everything for posterity, right??