Our weekend down home, our anniversary, and gorgeous weather!!

It's Tuesday and it's warm and I love it!  Besides, it's our 47th wedding anniversary, but more about that later.  I have lots and lots and lots of pictures to share!!  But first this one I just took of my front door and planter.  It makes me feel happy every time I come home.

Last week we had so much dreary weather.  On Friday afternoon when I went over to Anthony and Lori's the sun was finally beginning to peak through.  As I was driving away I had to stop and take this picture of the pond.  All I could think of was "Heavenly Sunshine!"

Dick and I left right after he got off work for a weekend down home.  When we crossed the Susquehanna River above Harrisburg the sun was setting over it.  So beautiful!

When we got to Sam's, he came out and said we should hurry inside because they were about to show the halftime activities of Susquenita High School's football game on TV.  Jenn's niece Taylor was on the homecoming court.  Can you imagine the excitement when Taylor's boyfriend was announced Homecoming King and then Taylor was announced Homecoming Queen?  Sammy and Bianca were screaming!!  Bianca was saying, "Taylor is my girlfriend!"

That put Sammy in the mood for putting on a show!  He first of all enlisted my help setting up a concession stand in the basement.  I carried a few things down for him and helped him to make some signs.  Things were quite pricey!  Oreo cookies were a dollar a piece!  A little box of Mike & Ike's was five bucks!  He told me that since I was a helper I could have things for free!

And then the multi-faceted show began.  First it was a display of this spinning machine he had made. I can't remember what he called it.

Then there was a float in a parade.  Bianca wanted to be on it, but Sam convinced her to walk along side it and do "the wave."

Dancing in the laser light went on and on.  Here is a video of the two kids dancing together to some classical music.

And then around and around on the "float."

Such a fun evening!

On Saturday Dick and I took the kids to a nearby park.  The weather was PERFECT!!!  And what a great park it was!

Sammy doesn't need any pushes on the swings anymore!

They played for a long time in the sand box.   There was a little girl that was insistent upon destroying everything they built.  Her grandparents did nothing about it.  I was so relieved when they moved on with her. 

From there we went to visit Grandma Mary.  She moved to Richland Christian Home (just down the street from her son's home)  in September, and I was eager to see her new home.  We were surprised by all the high water in the fields and even on some roads on our way there.  We actually drove through this!  Very slowly, I might add.

I was told that all that standing water is the result of the deluge that area had on Labor Day weekend!!    The ground is completely saturated, and there are no creeks in the area, so it has nowhere to go!  

Here are some pictures I took during our visit with Grandma Mary.  Richland Christian Home is a lovely place with just eighteen residents.  

We visited in her room for a while first.  She had some toys and a coloring book for the children. This is her bed, complete with a quilt and wall hanging, both made by her, of course. 

Then she took us on a tour.  I loved the big common sitting area.  This doesn't show even half of it.

And the view!

Sammy, of course, wanted to play the piano.  I also played and sang a few hymns.  Grandma Mary requested "I Will Praise Him" which was one of my dad's favorites.

Here's the crafts and exercise room.  The woman sitting down was cutting patches for a quilt. 

The children loved the gazebo out back.

We talked some more before we said our goodbyes.  We were both aware that October 1st was coming right up.  That is the anniversary of my dad's passing from this life, and we reminisced how sad, but precious that night was.  I love her so much, and it made my heart happy to see her here, surrounded by other residents and staff who love her just like we do.  

And now I gotta brag on Sam!  I've said before that he is a city mail carrier, which of course requires day after day of walking.  On Saturday it paid off for him!  He did the 28-mile March for the Fallen at Fort Indiantown Gap and finished in just under six hours!  It's a rugged route and took him much longer than that on previous years.  He was very happy with himself.  He sent me this picture.

That evening Ray and his friend Ashley and her son RJ came over.  The big game between Penn State and Ohio State was on TV.  I had fun playing Jenga with the boys.  And it was ME who ended up toppling that tower!

Then we had a birthday cake for Sammy - an ice cream cake, as he had requested.  

On Sunday morning we got ourselves and the kids dressed up and went to our home church, Grace Community Fellowship.  When Sammy asked which church we were going to I told him, "It's the church your dad went to when he was a teenager because we made our kids go to church!"  

I thought the kids looked beyond CUTE in their "church" clothes!  They looked like an ad for J. Crew, haha!

What a WARM welcome we received that morning!  It was just wonderful to be there.

On the way home from church we intended to stop for lunch, but Bianca was falling asleep.  At Sammy's request we ordered take-out from a Sheetz gas station.  As it turned out, stopping there was quite necessary, even though we were unaware of it when we pulled in.  Just as we parked Dick noticed that our gas light was on!  We had totally not realized we were getting that low!  I was imagining what it would have been like to run out of gas on that flooded road the day before.  Yikes!!

Later in the afternoon we went to another birthday party for Sammy at Jenn's parents above Harrisburg.  We had a good time.

Here he is with a few of his gifts and his cake - this time an angel food cake, at his request!

What a guy!  I love him so much!  So grown up already.  Seven years ago he was this little bundle!

I started this post on Tuesday, but it is now Wednesday evening.  As I said at the top of this post, Tuesday was our 47th wedding anniversary.  Here's a picture from that wonderful day.

I was curious yesterday to see how we had celebrated our anniversary ten years ago.  I remembered that that was the year Dick had lost his job just a few weeks prior to our anniversary.  How wonderful to look back on my blog posts from October 2008 and remember that Miki and her kids had come to visit us from Sweden!  And Jeremy from Florida!  We celebrated our anniversary with them at the Olive Garden in Lancaster.  I remember that we had a LOT of fun.

So last evening we went to our Olive Garden here in State College.  We had a scrumptious meal - salad of course, and we both got the steak and Fettuccine Alfredo.  We also enjoyed their delightful watermelon margarita. 

We even got dessert!  I got their seasonal pumpkin cheesecake, but couldn't finish it all and got a take-out box.  So when we got home I got an idea.  We re-enacted our cake-feeding wedding picture, hahaha!

And yes, I did ask Dick to wear that shirt so we would match, hahaha!

Actually, our area had tornado warnings last evening.  We did have some really strong storms, especially after we got home, but no tornado, thankfully!

Today was absolutely DELIGHTFUL!!!  After my work was finished at Anthony and Lori's late this afternoon I had time to sit on the screened-in porch and just bask in the the sights and sounds and fragrances. Almost too good to be real!

Later Austin and I walked down to the barn to see the result of Anthony's hard work the past two weeks.  He tore out his previous stage and built a bigger and lower one.  It will better suit his needs than the other one.

He just finished the flooring yesterday and was doing some electrical work today.

Here he was demonstrating his pipe cutter.  Austin was impressed when that pipe fell apart!

And now I'm all caught up!  Have a good rest of the week!