Corn, apple crisp, BBQ, memorial service, weekend visitors

On Monday (August 19) I made air fried chicken and roasted veggies, then later picked up Hunter from summer camp and took some of the food to their place.  I took some pictures of the lucious greenery.  Lori has such a green thumb!!

Hunter wanted to come home with me.  First he put together our USA floor puzzle. 

Then we played three rounds of Chutes and Ladders.  What a crazy game!  I won two of them, and he was a good sport about it.  Of course an ice cream sandwich is always his go-to dessert. 

I had gotten a dozen ears of corn from a farm stand down the road.  They were NICE!!  I husked and boiled them while Hunter was here. 

After I met Anthony to give Hunter back to him, Dick cut the corn off the cobs with this trusty tool.  That will make some really delicious baked corn.  

On Tuesday I spent a lot of time blogging.  

On Wednesday I made Chicken Marsala Pasta, trying to recreate what Mike had made the other Sunday.  I picked Hunter up from summer camp, then met Lori and her sister at Lowe's to give her some of the food and Hunter.  

Dick met me there too and we went to our friends Donna and Gale's house for dessert.  They had invited several couples from church to have some apple crisp and ice cream.  It was a lot of fun.  We so seldom do things just for fun with friends.  

On Thursday I got two more dozen ears of corn, boiled them, cut the corn off the cobs, and put them in freezer bags.  It's been years since I have had good homegrown corn in my freezer.  Back in my gardening days we raised a LOT of corn, and I would do up many, many dozens of ears of corn.  Buying vegetables and fruit in the winter time was unthinkable.  We did up enough of everything to last till the next summer.  (Exceptions of course.)

Dick mowed at Anthony's place that evening.

On Friday evening Destiny, Ozzy, and Elizer arrived for a short weekend!  As soon as they got inside the house Destiny said, "Do you want to play a board game?"  I said, "Wow, you get board game-itis the minute you get inside my house!"

They decided on LIFE.  Destiny, Ozzy, and I played that while Dick had fun with Elizer.

Saturday was a very big day.  Anthony and Lori hosted a memorial service for her brother at their place.  Dick had mowed and helped Anthony to get other things ready.  I did a Sam's Club run for them.  Destiny and Ozzy took Elizer to Get Air and came over later. 

The weather cooperated beautifully, and the service was truly beautiful.  No dry eyes I'm sure. 

They had a catered meal from their favorite BBQ place in town.  Delicious!!  And such a truly wonderful time.  There were friends and family there from NYC and Baltimore and Atlanta, as well as the State College area.  Probably around 40 altogether.  

Elizer had the best time playing with Hunter.  When we got home in the evening he played in the tub for a while.

He was a TIRED boy and was sleeping almost as soon as he lay down on his cot. 

On Sunday morning Elizer went to church with us.  Everyone is always so delighted to see him. 

Destiny, Ozzy, and Elizer were ready to hit the road soon after lunch.  Of course I wanted pictures first!

I told him to stand against that wall so I could see his whole outfit.  This is what I got.  He is such a HAM!!

Yes, he had worn those old Christmas bedroom slippers to church because he wanted to look cool, hahaha!

We went over to Anthony's for some of those yummy leftovers.  Lori's mom and sister had taken an early morning flight back to Atlanta.  Lori took Gary's son William to the Penn State campus.  He will be taking a class there this fall and she wanted to show him his way around.  She took this picture of William and Hunter. 

Here are some pictures of my flowers.

One of my few roses.

Summer is coming to an end.  All of our grandchildren are back in school except for Brennan.  In Portland they do not start until after Labor Day.  So next week I'll post the "first day of school" pics.  

Elizer's birthday party

On Saturday (August 17) Dick and I left here around 12:30 to go to Lancaster for Elizer's birthday party.  When I came out to get into the car I took a few pictures of my wild and crazy flowers falling all over the place. 

My poor roses had staged a rebellion while I was in Portland.  

Before going to the party venue, Urban Air in Lancaster, we stopped at a Walmart to pick up the cakes Destiny had ordered - one for Elizer and one for Jada (her 12th birthday was that day.)  Elizer's wouldn't be till the next day.  

She had prepaid the cakes, but we had to buy some number candles for them.  Well, good grief!!  That Walmart checkout area was packed with people who had grocery carts piled high.  Long lines of people!  We are not used to that anymore.  Nor are we used to the heavy traffic around Lancaster.  Dick and I took turns going to the rest room while we waited and waited to get to the checkout.  All that for a little over $3.00!

But even so, we were the first ones at Urban Air.  It was a huge, loud place!

There was a party room reserved.  First we had pizza then the birthday cakes.  Here are Elizer and V'anni.

Alaya.

Jada.

Elizer.

Singing "Happy Birthday."  I dropped a piece of pizza off my plate as I was taking the video and had to bend down to pick it up, haha!  As you can see on the video there were quite a lot of people there. 

Destiny's mom (Enid) and her boyfriend Jacob; of course Frank with his girls;  their mom Lauren came too;  (I was really disappointed that Raelynn - Frank's youngest - was not there);  Destiny's maternal sister Keshila was there with her boyfriend and their two children;  Destiny's maternal cousin Agnalies and her boyfriend and two kids; Destiny's maternal uncle Steven and his son; Destiny's maternal sister-in-law Kayla; two of her good friends from State College; her best friend from Reading - Mariah and her boyfriend  (they had helped with moving Destiny from here to Reading in the Spring, so it was fun to see them again);  Alex's dad was there, as well as Alex's sister and her husband and two children (her son and Elizer are best buddies);   Destiny's brother J'von was there with his girlfriend.  Over thirty people!  

There was one more person!   This is a picture of Frank and his TWO sons!  On the left is Adrias whom we have not seen since he was very young.  (There had been tense relationships between Frank and Adrias' mother.)  Now he's 18 and a senior in high school, a football player just like Frank and J'von.  It was so wonderful to see him and talk with him!

This is a 2007 picture of me with J'von, baby Adrias, and Destiny.  

Three generations - Frank, Destiny, and Elizer.  

Fun on the bumper cars - Destiny and Elizer. 

Guess who that is climbing to the very top!

We hadn't seen Elizer for three weeks, and I could have just eaten him up.  He's getting so grown up, but still so sweet and funny.

When it was over we said our goodbyes.  They went home to Reading and we went home to State College.  It was pretty late when we got home and I still needed to practice piano.   

It was nice to be back at church on Sunday morning.  I'd been away for two Sundays.  In the afternoon we got some necessary groceries at Walmart and Sam's Club.  After we came home I napped and then worked on the music prep for the next Sunday.  Dick went over to Anthony's to check his trail cams.  

We Facetimed with Elizer since it was his official 4th birthday.  He was so proud to tell us that he was FOUR now!!  I made this JibJab video for him.  A few years ago I had made it for Brennan, and every time Elizer would look at my videos he always wanted to see it.  So now he has it with his own face. 

That's it for this post. 

My trip home; back at home

 Ok, here's the last of my posts about my trip to Jeremy's in Portland.  

I had a Lyft scheduled to pick me up at 4:45 on Wednesday morning (August 14.)  I was trying to be ever so quiet, and just as I was about to go outside I heard Brennan yell, "Dad?"  Then "Grandma?"  So I quickly slipped out the door as quietly as I could.  Getting into another goodbye conversation with him would have woken up the entire household. 

I got to the airport in plenty of time to sit and relax, but I decided to not eat or drink anything so I wouldn't need to use the bathroom in the plane since I would be in a window seat.  

I said a sad goodbye to Portland as we flew away.

Turns out I fell asleep in the plane and completely missed when they passed out the snacks and drinks.  When I realized it, they brought me a coffee.  I had a bag of tootsie rolls and Bit-O-Honeys in my purse to snack on.  The flight was about 4.5 hours long.

I enjoyed my view from the window.

 

I always love to watch my flight on the screen.

When we landed in Dulles the time jumped ahead three hours.  I was pretty hungry by then and got a chicken salad croissant and a diet coke.

My plane from Dulles to State College was a little one that had two seats on one side of the aisle and one on the other.  I was on the side with one seat, the very back row - 24!  The only rest room was right behind me.  

The flight took forty-five minutes at most.  

I was so thrilled to see us fly over Rock Road as we went in to land.  So often when I'm driving on that road I see planes coming right overhead.  

I think it was around 8:00 when we landed, and Dick was there to pick me up.  We live just five or ten minutes from the airport.  

We sat at the kitchen table for a long time, talking and catching each other up.  

On Thursday I unpacked, went for groceries, made burrito meat, prepped all the fixin's, picked up Hunter from summer camp, took some of the food over to Anthony and Lori's, then brought Hunter home with me for the evening.  I had the WORST headache all day long.  No amount of Tylenol or coffee worked until around bedtime.  

Dick was mowing at Anthony and Lori's that evening, so Hunter and I played a bit of Pictionary, went to the playground behind our house for a while, then sat on the porch and gave each other riddles.  It was so funny when we realized we both were getting our riddles from the same website, hahaha!

Later I met Lori at the Cracker Barrel parking lot to give Hunter back to her.  We talked for a while.  Her mom and sister had arrived from Atlanta, and they had so many decisions to make due to her brother  Gary's unexpected death.  His wife Liz has advanced MS and is mostly bedridden.  His 20-year-old son William is autistic, but has been successful due to all the services our schools have to offer.  He has a job and is taking a class at Penn State.

My heart truly ached for Lori with the tasks she faced, so soon after doing all the same things when her dad passed away in March.  Here's what she had posted on Facebook.

 

On Friday I did a lot of catching up with our bookwork and banking and my church music.  My headache was gone, praise God, and when we Facetimed with Jeremy and family in the evening we learned that both Mike and Tasha were feeling much better too.