Happy Easter

Our Easter Basket

Easter Morning - Cloudy and Cool

We were up bright and early and to church for our Sunrise Service and breakfast after.  We have been so blessed this Lenten season, by our pastor.  This will be our last Easter with Pastor Keith as he will be leaving us in July due to health reasons; however, God has allowed him to richly bless us in the remaining months of his ministry with us.  He has a beautiful singing voice, a great gift of preaching, hospitality,and a super knowledge of the Bible.  All of his many gifts he shares so willingly with all of us.  Our services throughout Lent have been so memorable.  Good Friday was especially delightful, as he and his wife visited the Holy Land last year and they shared slides throughout the service that brought the message to us as if we were right there watching it first hand.

Of course, we have been watching The Bible on the History Channel every Sunday through Lent along with the Bible Study that we are doing from Daniel with  Dr. Jeremiah , well like Scott told me he just feels filled with the Holy Spirit.  What more can we say than Praise God.

Today we had a very special treat, we were sitting in church at 6:30 am, waiting for the service to start when I realized someone was coming in behind me, and I looked to see who it was and there was Spencer, Lou's grandson that is in the Army stationed in Tennessee and behind him, his mother, Janet, Lou's daughter, her husband, Brion  and later Casey their second son arrived.  They had all driven up from Camp Hill to surprise their Father and it certainly did.  They were able to stay and we all enjoyed having breakfast together and they were off to take Brion's mother to church and out for dinner.

Happy Easter!!

Coloring Eggs

Lou coloring a design on the egg

 

Boiling the eggs in onion skins

The finished product

March 30th - Saturday 52 degrees  Beautiful day

Finally what we call a beautiful spring day in Pennsylvania.  I didn't plan this very well, as this is the first day this week that I have been able to stay home all day and I planned on cleaning my house.

  I haven't been able to do much cleaning due to my arm.  At the last session of my physical therapy, the therapist came up with the idea of using a brace that is normally used for tennis elbow, on my upper arm to see if we could keep the tendons in place.  We tried it during therapy and it worked somewhat, so I used it today to do some cleaning and it worked pretty well.  The high amount of pain associated with movement is diminished.

Lou spent a lot of time outside while I cleaned, but we did color some eggs and I told Lou what Krista and I used to do with natural things to color eggs, so we tried the onion skins, one of my favorite and you can see the results.  Pretty aren't they.

Building Gliders

Lou cutting out the glider

Finished White Wings Glider

March 21st - Thursday

While Lou was looking for slides to sort through, he found glider patterns that he had when he worked for
Schweizer Aircraft.  He decided to bring them over and cut them out and see it he could make some different gliders.

After we had our last snow storm, he got the patterns out along with his cutting knifes and went to work.  He didn't think my craft paper glue was as good as it should have been.  Never the less you can see the finished product and it does fly.  He is waiting for Matthew to get over his cold so he can show him how it flies.

Spring Cactus Blooming

March 19th - Tuesday - Snowing again

We awoke to snow again, but thankfully not the eight inches that had been forecasted. Unfortunately, Lou had to shovel the driveway by himself, as my shoulder isn't to the point where I can do much with it.  Kris called early and said that she would come down to help, but she and Matthew have been sick with colds and we didn't want them out in the snow, so Lou tackled the job and he said that he enjoyed doing it.  After he came in I fixed him bacon and eggs and home made Irish Soda bread toasted, all of which he enjoyed.

We have been keeping very busy, I have been going to physical therapy three days a week and those sessions are an hour and half long.  We run any errands while we are out and seems like that shoots the whole day.  I am making progress on my shoulder and then I also have exercises that I do at home, three times each day; however, I have been a little over zealous with the exercise and now I have tendinitis and after seeing Dr. Golobek yesterday, I have a new medication to use topically three times daily, I have to cut back on my exercise, have some ultrasound treatments and see how I do.  We are  also working with my hips and that poses another problem that we are trying something different with.

We have been hearing from our friends that wintered in Florida and most of them are on their way home now, hopefully, the weather will change before they arrive, or they are going to be a bit chilled.  One of the guys live near Erie, PA and he thought he might stop off someplace further south for a week or so until it warms up before continuing north.

Our Bluebirds are trying to make up their minds which house they want to build in.  It certainly was a welcome sight to see the Red Winged Blackbirds, as Daddy always said that is the true sign of spring, and the many flocks of Robins that we are all seeing.  The Mallard ducks are back at the creek, now I will watch for the Merganser ducks, as they arrive a little later and they love to ride in the fast water.  They will ride the fast water down the creek and then fly back up to ride down again.  Aren't we lucky to have the wild life delights that God offers us each and every day?  That is what retirement is all about.
 

Hobbies

March 8th - Friday

Lou and I have been using these winter days doing some things that we enjoy doing, but not being able to do when we travel to the south.  Lou had a lot of slides that needed to be sorted and put into carousels to be viewed.  I was able to find some carousels on line to order and they have arrived; therefore, Lou has been busy sorting and getting them ready to insert them into the carousels to be viewed.  We have enjoyed looking at old slides and he has enjoyed reliving old memories and sharing old stories with me.  Many of his pictures of Europe were the same as the ones that I had.  He still has many hours of work left to accomplish the task at hand.

I have been reading while icing my shoulder.  I have always supported Family Life Ministries in Bath, NY but had never taken the time to ready Dick Snavely's book that he wrote on the history of the history of FLM.  Once I started the book, I found it very hard to put the book down.  Was an amazing testimony to a life lived to the glory of God.  Over the years Mr. Snavely has always said "To God be the glory, great things He has done". and this book certainly tells just what God has done for all of us that listen to and enjoy FLM radio.  Praise God that Dick's family is keeping the torch buring!

After, I finished that book, I started a book that Lou had started and that is one that his cousin wrote.  Facing Fallout, by Dorothy Hemenway Carter.  She has a special place in my heart as she and her husband Noel taught my youngest daughter, Krista, junior church for all of her years at Charleston Baptist Church and  what a great Christian foundation they instilled in her will always remain with her.

Dorothy's story is about her family growing up in Charleston Township and the death of her brother from a brain tumor and the possible cause being from nuclear waste.  She has done an amazing job describing members of her family and the community, some are fictitious and some are very real to us.  What a joy it has been to read this delightful book.  It is always a pleasure to see someone we know personally do a job well and Dorothy certainly has done that.  I hated to finish it now I have to go back to my other book, as I always have a book to read.  Lou and I are both avid readers.

Catching Up

March 7th - Thursday 40 degrees - Partly Cloudy

Sorry to all my folks that have been following our blog on a regular basis, but with Lou's cataract surgery and my shoulder surgery we have been spending a lot of time on the road and really have not had a lot to blog about.  I guess it would have been easier if our surgeries had been in the same state, we wouldn't have had so much traveling.

He had his surgery completed on the 28th of February.  It did not go as planned, had a little difficulty; however, his doctor was wonderful, even called us at home the night of surgery to make sure everything was going alright and saw us in the office the next day.  We went back today and he is seeing 25/20 out of his eye and the doctor is very pleased and he has scheduled his next eye for the 28th of March.

I have started my physical therapy on my shoulder.  I had a lovely conversation with Scott last week and he lovingly told me that PT stands for pain and torture, as he and Sue have been through this same thing, and he gave me some good pointers.  It seems that my PT should have been started a little sooner, and that is the reason that I am in so much pain and not able to sleep at night, the joint is inflamed so I am back to icing it three times a day and increasing my Naprosyn, then we will start PT three times a week.  We are also going to work on core strengthening for my hips at the same time.  Hopefully, by the time spring arrives in Pennsylvania we will both be back in good shape and be ready to tackle the great out of doors.

Every time we drive past Ives Run Camping Grounds, we tell it to hang on we are coming as soon as the weather breaks.  You can see from the picture the lake is still frozen and there is still snow in the mountain, in fact we still have snow in our yard, but thankfully, we did not get the snow storm that the east coast received this week.