A wedding, sight-seeing, a birthday party, and a funeral

Dick and I have kind of a history with the Pocono Mountains.  That's where we went on our honeymoon and many anniversary weekends since.  But NOT since 2006!!  I think it must be because we have so many children to visit, and me being employed as a church musician on Sunday mornings, we don't ever have enough weekends to do our own thing!  So when we got an invitation to a beloved former student's wedding in the Poconos we decided this was our chance!  Even if it wasn't our anniversary weekend.  Unfortunately, I started to have a scratchy throat Thursday evening, so ever since then I have had to be diligently fighting off/suppressing the effects of a cold.  I think I did pretty well at both and made it through a whole lot of full days anyway.

Saturday
So we left Saturday morning and headed east on Route 80.  (Yes, I was reminded of my 24-mile mistake after leaving the campground the previous Sunday, haha!)  This time we flew right on by that Lamar exit and much further.  The wedding was at the Stroudsmoor Country Inn, so we looked that up first, then went to the Hampton Inn a few miles away where we would be staying.  There we changed into our wedding attire and headed back to the wedding venue.  Look at this!!!

The place was almost breathtakingly beautiful!  We were there in plenty of time, so I walked around taking some pictures.

We were pretty hot waiting in the sun, but it clouded over during the ceremony and was not bad at all.

We were asked to not take pictures during the ceremony.  I had never met the groom, but I knew I loved him as I watched them interacting with each other.

The bride was my former student Steph Rokosz.  Here we are together later.

Her bridesmaid was another dear former student, Meg Waddington.

And here I am with both of my sweet girls.

I had not seen these girls for like eight years!!  But we keep up on FB.  Both of them were on my middle school worship team my last year at Manheim Christian, and we had some very precious times together.  Steph was on my drama team for a couple of years and we have often reminisced some of our hilarious memories from that.  When I told her how much I already loved her groom, she said that he had been in drama and dance and musicals in school, and she just knew I would love him.    Here's a picture of them that I took from her FB.

Before the reception there were SO MANY amazing hors d'oeuvres.  We stood around chatting as servers came to us with platter after platter of them.  We were full before the reception!

The reception was delicious and fun.  We sat at a table with some of her relatives, and we had the greatest time together.   We didn't stay for all of the music and dancing, but enough to get some good laughs.  Of all things I somehow got into a completion for the twist.  I said, "I grew up Mennonite!  I don't know how to do the twist!"  But nobody cared.  Thankfully, the groom's grandfather was fantastic and won the competition, so I was off the hook after that!

When they cut the cake I stood at a window through which I could see through another window where they were standing!

Sunday
The next morning we had a very nice, relaxing complimentary breakfast at Hampton Inn and then hit the road for Jim Thorpe.  We actually did not go to that quaint town on our honeymoon, but discovered it several years later on one of our anniversary trips.  We've been back a number of times since.  We decided to take more rural roads as we were in no hurry.  We passed nearby to our honeymoon hotel, but there would have been nothing to see.  I found out online that it had burned down two years ago!   Jim Thorpe is nestled between mountains, and this was our view as we drove down toward it.

We walked up one street and down another, checking out lots of little shops and taking pictures of the beautiful buildings.

We were trying to imagine how they built this church all those years ago.  This picture does not even show the hill it was built on!

We walked up a lot of steps to get pictures of this historic Asa Packer Mansion.  We took a tour through it one time.  It was incredibly beautiful.

This mansion next door to it is used for murder mystery dinners.  Not interested!  But I'm sure many people are.

We decided to go down to that restaurant for some lunch.

It was absolutely lovely by the railing, just a slight breeze.

The lunch and my date were both good too!

After lunch we drove around the town a bit more and found some residential streets that reminded us of our own local, very hilly Bellefonte.

Our next destination was Reading for Jada's 6th birthday party.  That was a little over an hour's drive, but we had plenty of time and took our good old time on country roads.  We even stopped in a school parking lot at one point for Dick to take a nap.

Jada and her little friend were sitting on the front steps as we arrived.  Aren't they just the cutest??

Then Alaya came to the door and pressed her little nose against the glass.  When we cracked up over that Jada wanted to go inside and do it too.  So here they are with their "piggy faces."

J'von came too with his mom Danielle and his little brother Marty.

The party room ready and waiting.

Gift-opening time.  Isn't her dress adorable?

Destiny sat by her side and helped her to keep things organized.

Later it was piñata time.  Destiny was the holder!  A few times we were afraid she would get whacked instead!

Somehow I missed getting pictures of the food.  Lauren and Frank are the most amazing cooks!  Her pulled pork was the best I've ever tasted.  And his grilled ribs were incredible.

It was 10:30 PM when we pulled into our driveway.  It did not take us long to unload and hit the sack.    

Monday
Monday was a full day of cooking, piano lessons, and music prep.  But I went to bed by 9 PM and had no trouble falling asleep.  I had an early morning coming up and a big day.

Tuesday
I got up at 4 AM and left the house by 6:30.  I was going to Lancaster County for my aunt Miriam's funeral.  I could not believe when it started raining hard almost as soon as I hit the road.  The only thing I could think of was, "The weather hates me!!"  I drove in heavy rain and some wind for the first hour-and-a-half.  I arrived at the funeral about 15 minutes early.

My aunt Miriam's first husband was my dad's brother Roy Witmer.  Their daughters Patty and Janie were near my age and we always had so much fun playing together.  Our paths have taken us very different ways, but we always enjoy catching up whenever there are funerals or reunions.  There was no way I was going to miss this chance to see them and their children and grandchildren.  I also had good conversations with several cousins.  Many of my dad's family belong to a very conservative Mennonite group.  I did not see anyone else taking pictures, so I didn't either.  I did take this one picture when we were at the grave site.

Elam and Katie were my grandparents.  When we had a reunion in 2013 some diligent cousins got all the data together from the entire family and compiled a booklet.  At that time I wrote this in my blog:

"In 1917 Elam and Katie Witmer got married. They had 10 children and 56 grandchildren.  Now, 96 years later, there are 1,013 people in this family (including spouses.)  They are living in 29 states and 10 countries."

I assure you, that number is significantly higher now!  There is talk of a reunion in 2019.

There was a meal served afterward and I talked with everyone of Patty and Janie's children and others too.  When I left I realized that I was feeling really horrible.  My throat felt sore and my skin felt hot. And there were severe thunderstorm warnings all the way home.  I stopped to buy water and ice two times, and that's all I had or even wanted.  I did drive in some pretty significant rain and wind for a while, but nothing was as bad as I feared.  By the time I reached State College the sun was trying to peek through.

I was so thankful to be home!  I drank some hot tea, took some NyQuil, added an extra blanket, and was asleep by 9:30.  I slept nine hours!  Almost unheard of for me.  I felt so much better today.  Still working to get rid of a cough, but at least my head is no longer congested.  

Have a good rest of a week!  (And bless you if you've made it all the way down to here!!)