Fun weekend with some siblings and some grands

I'll begin this post with a picture I took on Friday.  I had been in the Harrisburg area that day, driving in all kinds of ugly weather.  In the late afternoon I made my way to Columbia to see Destiny.  The Google Maps app took me a different way than I was used to, and I wasn't happy about it until I got here.  I was crossing the Susquehanna River on Route 30 and the sun had come out.  What a beautiful view!  I really couldn't look at it because I had to keep my eyes on the car in front of me, but I held up my phone with one hand and took a few pictures without even looking.  Later I was pretty happy when I saw this shot!

I was at Destiny and Alex's apartment for a while that evening helping her with some things, but again forgot to take any pictures.  That night I slept at Dick and Nancy's house (my brother).  They were telling me about the straight line winds they had had there that morning.  It was quite scary, and I was certainly thankful that I had not driven in anything like that.  

In the morning I went to The Brickhouse Cafe in Manheim to eat breakfast with my sisters Doris and Mary Ellen.  I arrived first and sat at our table to wait for them.  The view from the table was absolutely magical!

I was amazed to think that this place was a little general store when I was a kid.  In 1960 the owner closed it and kept all the merchandise in it for many years!  Before he died in 2001 he sold the store and its contents, and the new owner operated it as a museum for a few years.  He ended up selling it and moving its contents elsewhere.  I'm not sure how long ago it was opened as a quaint little restaurant, but I had not ever been there before.   I loved it.  The food and the service was also great.  

Before long Mary Ellen and Doris arrived and we spent a couple of hours catching up with each other, sometimes with laughter and sometimes with tears.  There's just nothing like sister friends.  

While we were there I was noticing a woman who was eating at another table.  I knew that I knew her, probably from our boys' high school years, but I couldn't think of her name.  Later she came over to me and we both agreed that we had known each other.  We shared our names and we realized that not only did we know each other from our sons' high school years, but we also had been classmates at Manheim Central in the 60's!  She was Gail, the mother of Matt Nagy.  He played basketball and football with Anthony and Frank and was our team's quarterback.  He is now the head coach of the Chicago Bears, and all of Manheim is so proud of him!

When I left there I went to my favorite country store, Hilltop Acres, for a few groceries and then headed to Sam's apartment in Duncannon.  I hung out with Sam and the kids there for a while.  Silly kids!

Then we all headed to State College.  Bianca rode with her dad and Sammy with me.  

At our place we had all kinds of fun.  Sam set Bianca up with a painting kit they had brought along.  She painted a unicorn. 

Sammy was showing his dad a new app he had gotten on his tablet - something about physics!!  He has an insatiable desire to learn!!  

While I had been at Sam's apartment earlier, Sammy had been showing me his big Merriam Webster dictionary.  He wanted to look up the word maleficent, the name of a movie.  So I showed him how to look for that long word in all the tiny print of that huge dictionary.  Then he showed me other resources at the back of the book, such as Roman Numerals, the periodic table, and a list of the books of the Bible.  We had fun with all of those things, and I know his brain was absorbing it all.   

I made homemade hamburgers with all the fixin's for our dinner followed by ice cream and cake for dessert.  Dick had gone to the spaghetti supper at GBRV the evening before and had brought some cake home. 

After that Bianca wanted me to bring out the beads.  This time she decided to make a necklace out of the sea animals. 

On Sunday morning Bianca went with us to our service at GBRV, and then we all went to the 10:45 service at Calvary.  Afterward we all went to Texas Roadhouse for lunch.  What a noisy crew we were!!  I think it probably took a bit of patience to be our server, but she was cheerful and patient from beginning to end.  God bless servers, is all I can say!  (My worst job ever.)  

One day this week my brother Dick posted something to our sibling Facebook page that was so funny, considering that all his siblings are female. 

The struggle is real!  My hair is so terribly thin and now it's getting lighter and lighter as I'm letting my white roots grow out.  And I can't figure out the best way to style it.  And I've been having the worst time with eating well, so I've gained about five pounds, which feels like at least ten.  UGH!!

So here's the latest selfie.  Of course I cropped my lower portions out of it, lol!

Well, that's all for this time!  Have a good rest of the week!