Monday Evening .....Groton, Conn
Memorial Day is especially important as we are reminded daily of the great sacrifices that the men and women and their families of the armed services make every moment to defend our way of life. May God keep his arms around each of those brave Americans and each of us.
Tonight we are in Groton, Conn. We left Karthaus, Pa this morning and are on our way to Pete and Linda's in Mashpee, Ma.
When I last did our blog, we were in Annapolis, Maryland. We left Annapolis and traveled to Patuxent River, Maryland. We were so glad to be able to spend time with Jim, Sharon, Anthony and Rachel Lettner. We were stationed in Germany with Jim and Sharon before they had Anthony and Rackel...who are in high-school now! We really enjoyed getting to know them and catching up with Jim and Sharon.
We left the next morning....25th of April and headed to Lancaster, Pa. We had reservations to see Bill Engvall that evening. Of course Peggy and Larry had a lovely dinner for us before the four of us headed to the American Music Hall in Lancaster. We had wanted to see him in concert for some time so had to take the opportunity to see him in Lancaster....and being able to see him with Peggy and Larry was an added bonus. He did keep us laughing!! We were able to visit Dad Reinhart and their Uncle Jim,Aunt Doris, Peggy's son in law Dan and 2 of their sons before we went to Keith and Lisa's for dessert on Monday evening. It was good to see Parker, Elisabeth and Brendan again and were treated with a great song on the piano from Elisabeth and then Brendan played the guitar while he and his Grandpa Larry sang a song!! We also stopped by to see Maryann's Aunt Annie before we left for Karthaus on the 29th of April. We spent the first couple of weeks at Mary Ann's Mom's helping out around the house and were able to see Diane, Paul, Lisa and Aunt Ethel and Aunt Liz. Tom and Kenny were able to spent quality time at camp and going out looking for Elk nearly every evening. One night they saw 55 Elk!
Tom and I went down to camp and spent a day with Tom and Joan. We saw several deer on our trip down and back and also saw 1 elk. Joan and Tom had a nice dinner for us and then we played cards..tried a new game "SWAP". We laughed so hard our ribs hurt!! We also took a walk.
Maryann and her friend Janet went to lunch one day to catch up. We were so glad that we were home to be able to attend Julie and Denny's daughter's graduation from Penn State College in Architectural Engineering. Maryann was able to help Julie (Carol and Kenny's daughter) shop and prepare food for Chelsea's party on Saturday evening. We went to dinner with Denny and Julie, Kenny, Tyler and Chelsea and Jay's (Chelsea's boyfriend) family before the graduation. We also shared how we really missed my sister Carol and how she would have just been so proud to see Chelsea graduate. I know that she has a window in heaven that she can look down and be with us! I will always cherish the time I spent with Julie.
We also got to see Steven, Kim and their 4 beautiful children at Chelsea's party.
Joan and Tom came up from camp for Mother's Day and we made Mom Soup as she loves soup and then we all played dice and bingo with Mom. We even had Bingo prizes and of course Mom won most of the games as she should as it was Mother's Day. We also celebrated long distance Carrie's first Mother's Day with Emme and with Kelly and girls. We also remembered the day that Emme and Eiza were born one year ago on Mother's Day AND how lucky we were to have Eiza with us even if only for 20 hours before she went to be held in Jesus's loving arms. Carrie had a birthday party for Emme at the park in Tucson and also remembered Eiza with special words and left balloons go to heaven in remembrance of our Eiza. Emme had 55 of her friends in the park to help her celebrate being One. She is now 13 pounds and 7 ounces! Emme is now seeing a pediatric GI specialist for her reflux. Emme is also seeing physical and occupational therapy to help strengthen her leg muscles. She was doing the belly crawl but with just starting the PT, has improved so she is crawling with her knees now. What an amazing year she has had! We are so proud of her and her Mom!
The start of a new week and we began to get ready for Carrie and Emme's visit on 15 May. They were to arrive in State College, about an hour from Mom's but the flights were canceled into State College due to weather so flew into Harrisburg. Carrie called us from Chicago and Tom and I threw our toothbrushes in a bag and headed for Harrisburg (about 3+ hours from Karthaus). Had very heavy rains on our way down the mountain so decided not to try to come back over the mountain in the fog.
We called Peggy and Larry in Lancaster and arrived to spend the night with them about 10:30 PM!
How blessed are we to have such special people in our lives that even had a "pak-n-play" for Emme to sleep in! So Emme was able to meet our Peggy and Larry, who are so special to us! We stopped into see my Aunt Ethel in Harrisburg before we headed to Karthaus the next morning.
My Mom was so excited to meet and hold Emme. Emme was very good on the flight from Tucson and on the drive to my Mom's. Emme was always ready to meet her cousins and aunties etc ....even if she had just fallen asleep ..she would wake up and give them her Emme Smile! Let me list all the family members that she met.... Auntie Joan and Tom, Aunt Liz, cousins Vicki, Becky, Diane, Paul, Steven, Roseann, Jeff, Sarah, Camyrn, Maddie, Ethan, Emma, Adam, Carrie, and Uncle Kenny, Auntie Janet, Auntie Julie in just a week. Her cousin Camyrn(6) even gave Emme some of the stuffed animals she had when she was a baby! During the days in Karthaus, Emme spent her time playing with my Mom, going to the park, swinging on the porch swing with my Mom (family tradition) and just getting lots of hugs and kisses from Nana and Granddad and her Great Grandmother. Emme adjusted very well to her new adventure except that she would get over tired and so we took turns waking up with her at night...but she always had smiles for us even in the middle of the night...so who could complain!!!! NOT Nana and Granddad!!
Granddad watched Emme one evening so Carrie, Maryann's Mom and Maryann could go to town to the Movie. Maryann's Mom had not been to a movie in over 30 years!! We saw "Heaven is for Real". Really a good movie to see. Maryann used to go to the same theater when she was growing up. They had upgraded the sound and the projection etc....but the seats were most likely the same as still seemed to have the same lumps in the cushions as had 50 years ago!! While we were home, we spent evenings playing a dice game with Maryann's Mom. She turned 91 this April and loves to play dice...of course she is still the champion as "again this year" won most of the games.
Carrie and Emme left on 24 April and are safely at home. We talked to them today and it seems that Emme is getting back to her usual schedule. Of course Buddi was glad to see them both but is getting more exercise today as Emme is crawling further and faster these days...
We talked to Kelly and girls every few days. Buddi stayed with Kelly and Bryan while Carrie and Emme were here with us. Molly, Samantha and Kirsten just finished their school year, They were all excited when we last talked as met their teachers for next year and all really liked the teachers that they will have. Pete and Linda, Bryan's parents stopped by Karthaus and spent a night with us before they continued on their way to Mashpee from Tucson.
We are now on our way to Mashpee to spend time with Pete and Linda. Tom and I and Pete and Linda will be going to Nantucket Island for a week on Friday. Linda's cousin and her husband will travel with us for the weekend and then Pat and George Cannode will join us on Monday. They are in Ohio and will be on their way the end of the week so can travel to Nantucket on Monday. We will be glad to see them as have not seen them since they were in Tucson last fall.
Tom and I are spending the night in Groton, Conn. We spent some time this afternoon, walking around Avery Point where there is one of the oldest light houses and then went over to New London, Conn to check out the area. Tomorrow we will head up to Newport, Rhode Island for the night before we go to Mashpee on Wednesday Morning to spend time with Pete and Linda before we all leave for Nantucket on Friday.
The drive here through the mountains was beautiful today. Such varied colors of green. We were surprised to see that the traffic was heavy about 10 AM. However we were very pleased that we were going East and not West. The traffic coming East was barely moving and was bumper to bumper due to the amount of traffic to get back to PA from the coast today.
As we were talking today how blessed we are to have such wonderful friends in our life over the years, we decided that we don't have friends....since all our friends ARE FAMILY to us! We thank each one of you for keeping us in your daily thoughts and prayers.
I will once again try to post some pictures....
Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity. ~Khalil Gibran
Sending our love and hugs,
Keeping you all in our daily prayers,
Tom and Maryann
