Celebrating with Krista and Steve

May 27th - Monday

We spent Saturday helping Krista and Steve renew their Wedding Vows of 15 years.  It was a beautiful day at the Grand Canyon, not too cool and not too warm.  They held the celebration in a pavilion and had a fire in the fireplace, so it was nice and cozy.

Krista and Michelle made all of the plans and arrangements while Lou and I were in Florida, so I didn't have any duties and as it turned out, it was a good thing.  With the accident, I was lucky to be able to walk to get into the car and get their.  Mary, Steve's mother was the gal to help when Krista and Michelle needed an extra hand.  She is always good to come when called, even if it is just to watch Matt, while a special task is completed.

With the allergies that Krista and Matthew have to endure, cooking and baking really has to be done by their family and they sure cooked and baked up a storm.  They made individual cupcakes that were decorated with intertwined  chocolate hearts that they made with liquid chocolate, then a bride and groom cake with a special K and S made with the same chocolate.  I thought it was really neat.

The cupcakes

The topper for the Bride and Groom cake

The  Torpy Family

Robby and Michelle

Robby played the cello and Michelle sang before the ceremony started, all in all it was a very nice day for all of us.  She had a professional photographer, so we should all have nice photos for the family members.

I do believe all of the decorations were all hand made.  They used fresh lilacs for flowers on the six tables.

Our SMART Muster at Strasburg, PA

May 26th - Memorial Day 84 degrees Beautiful Day

On Saturday, May 17th, we awoke to a beautiful sunny cool day and after breakfast, I made my casserole for our Pot Luck Dinner, Lou and I decided we would take a ride to the outlet and pick up a few items that we needed and then tour the Amish countryside.  It was a perfect day to take to the back roads and we enjoyed our day immensely.

The farmers were out in the fields with their horses busy at work.  The alfalfa hay was ready to be cut and we saw a "tedder" being used and neither of  us had seen one of those in years.

This was a boy of about 14 years of age tedding the hay, this would get it off the ground after the rain, so it would dry a little quicker.

We passed one of their school houses while we were driving, of course, it was Saturday and the kids were all at home working.  We saw many of the girls using gas powered weed eater, trimming along the fences.

Horses awaiting their drivers to return from their errands at the store

Sheep at one of the farms

One of the young men using skates to get from one farm to the other.  Note his boots in his hand

Another beautiful farm with laundry on the line

Can't have a trip to Strasburg without seeing the train

The school house that I was writing about

After our afternoon of driving and seeing the sights we were ready to get back to our campground to meet up with out group for our dinner.  We were turning left on a green turning signal when a car came through the light and hit us on the passenger side of our car.  God certainly was watching out for us.  An EMT with the Lancaster General Hospital was on his way to work and he saw the accident and was to our car before Lou could get his door opened.  He sat with me until his buddies arrived to assist me.  They had to use "the jaws of life" to extract me from the car.  My door and the bar between the back door and front door was pushed in to me along with the back door.  I had cuts to my head, elbow, bruises to my leg, hip, knee and ankle.  My neck is the worse and is going to take time for it to heal from the severe whip lash that occurred from side to side.  We were taken to Lancaster General Hospital by ambulance and received excellent care.

This is a picture that Brion took when he went down to get out tow bar for us.

Now we are back home without a car and have been busy trying to find a new car.  We wanted to get one of the new Buick's the Encore, but have found that it can not be towed, so we have settled for the Chevrolet Equinox.  It is too late in the year to order one from the factory, so have gone through a dealership in Harrisburg and they have located one that is very close to what we wanted in Maryland and they will have it in Harrisburg on Wednesday, so we will be renting a car on Thursday and picking up our new vehicle on Thursday.

I saw my own doctor last week and he has referred me to another doctor and I saw him on Friday and he did more x-rays and he told me if I hadn't had such good bones, I would have had a broken neck.  He said that it had broken up a lot of the calcium deposits and certainly things are out of place and he did a laser treatment, but he feels in time it will all work out well.  I certainly have used a lot of ice and I can raise my head up further, so know that I am progressing.    Praise God, it could have been much worse.  Lou did have a chest x-ray on Friday and it was fine also.  More soreness from the seat belt, not cracked ribs. 

White Oak - Strasburg, PA

This is the view from our living room window of our RV

May 16th - Friday - Heavy rains 58 degrees

We arrived here yesterday just as it started to rain and I quickly found that my rain coat is no longer water repellent, got soaked to the skin, which didn't help my cold. It did let up a little while we got the car unhooked and we got the water and electric hooked up.  We do not have sewer here.  After a dinner of Chili prepared by our camp host, we got reacquainted with the folks, many we hadn't seen since last fall, we came back to our RV and enjoyed an evening of television and were amazed to find that we could get all of our local stations from home.  A mystery.

The wind began to blow and once again, we were forced to bring our slides in and the rain started and did it ever rain and blow.  We were supposed to meet for breakfast at 8:00 and I had decided about 6:30 that I wasn't going to be interested in breakfast, as I hadn't slept much and at 9:00 Lou's phone rang and they had called it all off meeting and all until the rain let up.   We got up to make coffee and the water here is bad, so we got out bottled water to make coffee and that is when we realized that two containers of salsa sauce and cheese sauce that traveled from Florida with no problem, decided to tip over and the lids come off and run all over in the refrigerator!!  Lou got out the book, to find out how to take the racks and the glass out of the refrigerator and we spent the whole morning taking the refrigerator apart and cleaning it and reassembling it.  It sure sparkles now.  Then I fixed sausage and scrambled eggs and rye toast for lunch.

Krista called us and reported on what was happening at home with the high water.  Sounds like we left at the right time.  I can always depend on her to  keep us posted on what is going on at home.  Sue had sent us an e-mail of what was supposed to happen, but I didn't have an good connection for the internet last night and didn't get her message.

Two Cranes fishing in the barnyard

Flooding over the freshly planted corn feild

The water is so high it's causing wave whitecaps. 

Tonight our group is going out to dinner together and then tomorrow Lou and I hope to do some shopping and then drive through the countryside and take in the sights, as the weather is supposed to clear and be much cooler.

Catching Up

May 15th Thursday - Overcast 78 degrees

I am writing this blog post as we  travel in the motor home to our SMART Muster near Strasburg, PA.  We have been really busy at home with outside work that I haven’t taken time to do a blog post, not that there hasn’t been anything to write about.

We have planted our garden, in fact I have to give Lou credit for doing all of the jobs associated with that this year.  He rototilled it until it looked like a bed of ashes.  He even has two beautiful tomato plants started.  We will wait for the rest of our plants until we get back home.  He has cut the grass twice, since getting the lawn all prepared for spring.  He even cut our friend’s lawn next door, as they are away for a short vacation to attend a grandson’s graduation in Georgia.  He has always done  so much for us in the past we are glad to sneak in a favor for him when we can.

I have had a cold for over two weeks and can’t seem to shake it, and it has really dragged me down, I work a while and rest a while, not like me at all.

We have  spent some great time with our great-grand kids and have loved every minute of it.  We stopped at Shawn and Maegan’s one Sunday after church to drop off a couple of things and ended up staying all afternoon, but it was a great afternoon.  Five little girls can offer a lot of love and fun.

Mother’s Day started off with breakfast with Brion and Janet at 9:00 in Mansfield.  That is always a special time to be able to catch with what is happening in their lives and with the boys.  They are always eager to share happenings and stories.  We attended church with Maegan and her family, as she and the girls were scheduled to sing with her dad as he played the guitar.  The song they sang was one that her father, Joe Powell wrote years ago as a tribute to Mothers.  It was wonderfully done and well received by all that heard it.  It was remarkable in many ways, as Joe had been involved in a chainsaw accident last fall with severe injury to his hand and we all feared he would not be able to use his hand, but thanks to many prayers, a fine surgeon and hard work on Joe’s part most of the flexibility has been restored.

After our church service we went back to Maegan’s for lunch on their big  spacious porch.  Time to catch up with Sue and Tim on what has been happening in their lives also.  Another good Sunday afternoon.

The girls playing on the trampoline 

After Christmas I had told Susan that I needed a new Christmas runner for my kitchen table and she said that she would be glad to make one for me, and when she and Tim were over for dinner, she measured our table, so I knew she would do it, but I sure wasn't expecting it as a Mother's Day present.  She took into consideration the color of our dinner ware and you can see the finished product at the  top of the blog.  Susie does beautiful work and her stitches are perfectly straight.  I will use it the day after Thanksgiving, if I can wait that long.

We had just gotten home and Krista, Michelle, and Matthew came down with cards and a beautiful hanging basket of purple wave miniature petunias.  We all went outside and they helped us do a couple odd jobs that needed an extra pair of hands.  Matthew is getting pretty good with his speech and has decided that he is going to call Lou “Pa”, much easier that grandpa.

On Monday Krista and her family went to a funeral and we kept Matthew, he brought down his favorite movie Planes, so we had a picnic in the living room and we watch it, wow it was really good, you know his grandpa enjoyed it.  They have played planes since he was old enough to hold one in his hand and they look for them in the air.  Like Lou says it is great when you had grand kids that live next door, but unfortunately when they are so close, I don't take pictures like I should and I regret this.

We just put up our new bottle tree in the garden and we both think we are going to like it.

Sunday Blessing

May 4th - Sunday

Spring in Pennsylvania

May 3rd - Saturday - Cool and rainy

This is one of the reasons we wanted to get back to Pennsylvania in May to enjoy the spring flowers that we have planted in our yard and surrounding areas.  They are coming along rather slow; however, that just gives us more time to enjoy them.   We are about a month behind what we normally are.  We usually cut our grass for the first time around the 15th of April and we will probably cut it this week.

Lou got the fertilizer spreader and roller out yesterday ready to do the yard and the yard tractor is all ready to go just waiting for a warm dry day to complete the task.  I raked off one side of the bank yesterday and planted my poppy seeds.  We have purchased our onion sets, rhubarb and pansies and we are anxious to get started.

Lou and I took his sister to the airport on Wednesday as she is going to spend a month and half with her son and wife in Texas so while we were in the area, we stopped into see a new great granddaughter that we had not seen in person, and she was kind enough to allow us both to sit and hold her while she napped while her brothers played with their trucks.  They are pretty happy to have a baby sister.

Busy at play

Thursday was our 5th wedding anniversary and we spent the day running errands.  We had put this off as long as we could.  I hate getting groceries, but the time had come.  We have been home a week, and had pretty much consumed what was in the motor home, so off to the grocery, brought that home and put it away, and then to Mansfield to Lowes with our list which was lengthy and, found some nice plants that were 50 percent off.  They just need some TLC, which I can do, then we went out to dinner.  All in all it was a very nice day.  Seems like we have celebrated for three months, as we have had such a good time this winter and have done a lot of different things.

Today, I have tackled the house, and Lou has spent the day with Donnie, doing his check book and getting his affairs in order and that has been a challenge and after eight hours, he is still working on it, but he is now working here at home.

Today is the first day of Turkey season and our side hill has a huge flock of the sly birds walking across it.  We heard them yesterday while we were working outside and then saw them late in the afternoon and again this afternoon.  Big Tom is strutting his stuff!