A HAPPENING weekend!

 This was a HAPPENING weekend!!  First off, Saturday was Louie's 2nd birthday and also RaeLynn's 3rd birthday.  

Look at this sweet girl enjoying her party!

Dick and I made Happy Birthday vidoes to send to each of them.  

After we sent Louie's I got a message from Bjorn.  "That's so sweet!  You might want to add another name into the song for next year's April 25th birthday song."  

And then this picture!!!

Linnea Kay was born in the wee hours of Saturday morning - on her brother's 2nd birthday!  The crazy thing is that four years ago Charlie was born on Jess's birthday!  So I told Bjorn, "You're gonna have to have another one sometime that's born on April 11."  That's his birthday.  

Linnea is the name of the Swedish national flower.  Kay is the name of Jess's beautiful grandma who passed away at age 57.  I think she was just a year older than me, and we were from the same Manheim area.  I love that they gave her name to this baby girl. 

I was making a pot of chili on Saturday for our chili cook-off at church that evening.  We had six different chili entries, the fixin's that everyone brought, and plenty of desserts.  The kids were the official tasters.  Another fun evening!  Our friend Will's chili was the winner.  I should have gotten a picture of him.  

Sunday morning was so good.  All our band members were there.  Here's a screen shot from the choir song.  I'm that little white thing sticking up behind the piano. 

This beautiful lady next to me is Doris Grove, age 93!  We used to see each other regularly at the Fillmore church, but due to her health and memory challenges we haven't seen her in a few years. My friend Peg picked her up from the nursing home and brought her to church on Sunday!  So many were delighted to see her.  

Doris is no ordinary woman!  You can read about her in Wikipedia and even more on the National Soaring Museum's website.  She and her late husband had a gliderport across our mountain, and she was still taking people up on those gliders after she was 80 years old!  She actually set several world records! 

Right after church we drove to Manheim for my Myers cousin reunion at the restaurant at Pleasant View Retirement Home.   We had a room to ourselves and a buffet line of food, drinks, and desserts.  I didn't get any pictures of the food - too busy eating!  Later I took pictures of conversations happening around the tables.  

Our uncle Earl Myers is the only one of our parents' generation still living.  He was second to youngest of ten children.   He has the greatest sense of humor and a great memory!  He regaled us with stories and answered many of our questions.  His daughters Debbie and Peg, sitting to his left on the bottom right picture, added their two cents to his answers sometimes, which was so hilarious!!  We had the greatest time and hated to leave when our time was up. 

There were six families represented this year.  Joanne (red shirt in the middle row) was the only one from her family, so she stood with one of the other families.  

This was our group picture. 

Before we left Pleasant View we went up to visit Grandma Arlene in her third floor apartment.  

Then we went for a quick visit to Bjorn and Jess's place to see that precious new baby.  They had gotten home from the hospital that afternoon, and while we were there Jess's parents brought the boys home.  

Linnea is just the sweetest! She looks a lot like Bjorn did as a baby.  Bigger than the boys were at birth.  I think she's already working on holding her own, hahaha!!  

Monday evening was our regular monthly women's group at church, but it was not regular!!  My friend Sue planned a Kentucky Derby party - complete with photo ops, food, games and prizes.  We had so much fun!!  

Lots of races!  Here's me and my friend Cindy.  Everybody had a turn.

Then we tried passing a balloon one-handed.  More difficult than you would think!

Gotta get some Ketsi pictures in now.  Last week while at Lisa's we were Face-timing and I was snapping away!  She was SO fun to watch with Destiny.  Elizer had just gotten home from school and was pretending to karate chop the potatoes Destiny was going to be peeling.  

And here's a picture of me holding Destiny 25 years ago! 

And now I'm caught up.  

Saying goodbye to a wonderful vacation

 

And all too soon it was Wednesday morning and time to pack up.  Sweet Prince was making it really hard to want to do that!!

I took a few more pictures of the house before we left.  This is the hall bathroom that we had.  Very nice to use and so very beautiful!!

Their third bedroom is George's office.  Sometimes the dogs were with him in the office, but if they weren't, they were lying right outside the office door waiting for him to come out. 

In our bedroom (Sophie's room when she's home) hangs this painting by Dick's mom many years ago.  (I showed pictures of this room in my first Florida post.) 

They will soon be doing work on the master bedroom and bath, so she didn't want me to take pictures of it.  

True to Lisa's corny sense of humor, they have these unique glasses holders in the kitchen, hahaha!

Mother-daughter picture before we left.  Of course Stella and Prince had to sit with us!

We said our goodbyes to Lisa and were soon on our way to the St. Pete-Clearwater airport.  

We were there long before boarding and had time to grab a few snacks and just "chill" for a while.  

It was an easy  2 1/2 hour trip to Harrisburg, PA and then about two hours home after getting out to our car in long-term parking.  

Sadly we arrived home to ruined flowers.  One night while we were away the temp went down into the 20's.  GRRRR!!  We weren't home for Dick to put the tarps over them.  I haven't taken any pictures outside since we're home.  It will take time for things to recover.  

If you by chance missed the post I did earlier today about our Monday and Tuesday in Florida, please check it out.  You might recognize someone in that post!

Our Monday and Tuesday in Florida

Ever since we've been home from our trip to Florida I have had so many things consuming my time, and only now do I finally have a day to get back to this blog.  I need to go back to Monday, May 20.  That seems so long ago, even though it's just a bit over a week. 

We had a big day planned!  FINALLY after quite a few years we were able to get together with my dear blog friend Terri!!  In the fall of 2017 we met up with Terri and Joe for lunch and had a most delightful time, especially when they told us the story of how they met.  I'll never forget Joe getting tears in his eyes.  So precious!!  Sadly Joe has since passed away, but Terri is full of spunk and lives a full, interesting life in Lakeland.  This was us in 2017.

We had rented a car for the week, so that morning we drove to Lakeland.  So beautiful as we crossed Tampa Bay.

I think it took about an hour-and-a-half to two hours.  Traffic was pretty crazy sometimes.  We drove to Terri's house first and relaxed and talked for a while.  I forgot to take pictures indoors!  But it was so fun to see it in person after reading so much about it on her blog!  And we met her two beloved cats.  WHERE was my camera??

Terri took us to Glory Days Grill for lunch.  We had GOOD food and fun conversations as we ate it!  We cracked up when we saw how huge Terri's burger was!

After lunch Terri took us to Morton Lake where we fed the swans and other birds.  I was fascinated by the white ibis with their long, curved beaks.  Terri keeps food for the birds in her car and gave each of us a baggie of bird feed to give them.  We have never been so popular!

Beautiful, graceful swans.

We also enjoyed the view of this United Methodist church building across the lake.  First United Methodist of Lakeland is the name of it I believe. 

When we got back to Terri's place we got a few pictures.  Her neighbor across the street took one of the three of us.  She had the CUTEST little dog!  Princess Leah.  

Then we said our goodbyes till next time and made our way back to Safety Harbor.  Ugh.  The traffic on I-4 was not fun at all!!

Lisa made a delicious dinner of salmon, little potatoes, and salad.  Would you believe the only picture I took was this??  Because I wanted to remember the seasoning she had on her air-fried salmon.  

We watched part 1 of the documentary "Trust Me:  The False Prophet" about Sam Bateman.  Very difficult to watch.  

On Tuesday I did our laundry and we went for another wonderful walk downtown.  We decided to walk a street we hadn't walked before, and Dick was happy to find some things he loved.  This doesn't even show the 1965 Ford Mustang in a garage.  The owner of the garage owned the Mustang, and he and Dick had fun talking "shop" for a while.  Dick's first car was a 1965 Mustang.

Once again we found our way to Cafe Vino Tinto.  This time we had home fry waffles!  And of course the iced coffee with coffee ice cubes!!  It was so pleasant to just sit there in the sun (it was not too hot or humid) and watch the people. 

Then we walked a lot more.  We saw lots of houses we liked and trees and flowers.  

We walked down to the bay and sat on a park bench for a while.  The benches had books on them, which seemed interesting.  A guy said that people were saving their seats for book club later.  I didn't know if he was kidding or not.  We tried to get a selfie by propping my phone on the park bench.  That was a series of trial and error!  The guy said,  "I was going to offer to take it for you, but it looked like you were having fun."  

When we got back to Lisa's I took pictures of the things she has planted out front.  Next time we go these will certainly be bigger.  They are planning to put a pool in their back yard next month, so I didn't take any pictures back there yet.  

George left on a short business trip, so we said our goodbyes to him.  Lisa went to her track practice, which she does each afternoon after school.  When she got home I ordered food from a Greek place for our dinner.  After dinner we watched part 2 of the documentary and I folded our laundry.  Our lovely vacation was coming to an end.  

Our weekend with Lisa and George

 Saturday morning started out slow, except for George who had to leave early to go to an MS Walk in Tampa for his job.  He got home around noon I think.  

We had gotten home very late from the track meet Friday evening.  Lisa was wiped out from all the work she had put into it.  

We mostly watched the collegiate track meet in Gainesville even though Sophie wasn't able to be there participating.  They were on the phone with her a lot as she watched it too.  

George went and got hoagies for our dinner, then he took us on the golf cart to some really unique places in town.  The first was Folly Farms, a nature preserve.  Wild and natural, and we had such pleasant weather to enjoy it. 

Adorable gnomes everywhere!

A "wind" phone booth.

Paths to walk on, a community vegetable garden.

They have goats and chickens too, but that part was closed when we got there.  

Then we went to another little park in town.  Again, very natural and lovely.

Then we went down to the bay again, but didn't walk around this time.  Such a LOVELY evening!!

On Sunday, for Dick's 76th birthday, we went to Sand Key Beach for a "day-cation" at the Sheraton Hotel. 

 

It was a long walk in the sand and wind from the hotel to the water, but the chairs and umbrellas were already set up for us, so it wasn't long till we were having our "day of rest." 

It was beautiful out there, of course, but a little more cloudy and windy than we would have preferred.  

We were glad to make use of the rides to and from the hotel and beach when we had to go to the bathroom, and later when we decided to get something to eat.  

Later in the afternoon we decided to sit by the pool for a little while - unfortunately just long enough to get some sunburn. 

I felt like this when we got home, haha!  Later I got Dick to take me to Publix so I could get cake and ice cream for his birthday.  

Dick and I had a big day planned for Monday.  I'll write about that next time!