Amy's Early 22nd Birthday Celebration

Monday after school we went to the Olive Garden to celebrate Amy's Feb. 2 birthday one week early.

Eggplant Parmesan was their choice, as always!

Once back home, they packed up the car and then we took a few more pictures before calling it a day.

Their 3 a.m. alarm came very early. But they stayed ahead of the ice storm today, all but a couple hours in Virginia, and arrived safely back in Maryland in the daylight hours easily.

Ocoee Biking and Hiking Sunday Morning

Randy looking over Amy's downhill bike while they geared up Sunday morning at Ocoee. Jeremy put them both together from parts purchased on E-Bay.

Amy, and the two Jeremy's biked some trails up while we hiked along the river.

It was a lovely day to be outside - in the 40's and sunny. I hope we get back to this Rhododendron Trail when they're in bloom in the spring.

They put their downhill bikes to use more on Monday when they went back to Chillhowie and found a steep trail to fire down, after a long walk up the 2200 vertical foot climb with their heavy bikes. They said the views were very nice. Sorry I don't have any of their pictures to post.

Sat. night Settlers

Jonathan and Kelli and Stephanie joined us for some Settlers while Jeremy and Amy went out with some friends for the evening.

Randy and Jonathan seemed to rake in the cards, while we girls watched

Stephanie - as far away as she could get from the action :) since she had no cards to trade for most of one game it seemed.

Randy was blue and it's his "great wall of China" seen here.

We can't wait to play some more this next weekend when Ryan and Carrie are here celebrating his 25th birthday - now he'll qualify for cheaper car rental rates!

Christmas time with Amy and Jeremy

Amy and Jeremy came Friday to spend a long weekend with us. We finally got to give them their Christmas presents. Their Willow nativity scene is now complete after the addition of the shepherds and animals and wise men. They got put away before we thought to take pictures.

Jeremy made this very handy dandy bike dealie (for lack of a better name) for our van. Randy says it's a fork block mount that will work well this summer for us when we want to take our bikes along IN our van on our camping trip west. Now the foldable bikes won't be needed - yes!

Amy and Jeremy made these gorgeous lighthouses that they'd mailed to me earlier.

We're really enjoying our Christmas tree this year. . . still.
The tree was still up at Coxes when they left Fri. too we were told.


Jeremy sang for our Sabbath School and Amy accompanied. What a treat it was!

Sabbath afternoon we looked at some pictures they brought of the beautiful little Providence, MD SDA church they'll be married in on October 4.

The weather was nice for a walk on the Greenway where Amy got to visit with several former teachers we met along the way and some former classmates at CA or SAU as well.

Visitors from the 49th State!

Jeff and Kari are here from Alaska visiting with Lori and Dan so they came by last night to see us. It was our first time to meet Kari - what a sweet girl and great match. They were married in August of 2007.

Jeff told us he recently went on a 60-mile bike ride back home in Fairbanks in -30 degree temperatures. He always did like the cold weather. He used to like to sleep in his pup tent in Maine in dead of winter as a little guy! Karen and Greg flew back to Maine today, and Jeff and Kari will be flying up there Friday to spend some time "at home" before they return to Anchorage.

Movers and Settlers

The weekend some of us had long dreaded arrived a few days ago ~ Jaclyn and Ryan's moving weekend. They loaded up the moving van that Ken and Renee drove over from Charlotte on Friday afternoon. Once we were out of school we joined in the effort that ended just before sundown. I didn't think to take any pictures of their little apartment as it was emptied out. None of us will miss the steep and narrow driveway there especially! Then we enjoyed Friday evening supper together here at our place. It was fun having them stay with us overnight before they pulled out of town.

Randy convinced most of them to try a taste of his green smoothie (greens with frozen bananas and water). See how bright eyed Ryan looks after his swig!

After supper Stephanie couldn't stay awake.
She shoulda' had some of the green smoothie I guess. She was the only one we couldn't convince.
Jaclyn helped me with one more birthday calendar. It was a day we didn't want to end.
Then Sabbath after dinner, Jaclyn, Ryan, Ken and Renee all napped while we went for a walk with Stephanie. Ryan's brother and sister came by to say good-bye as well as some of Renee's family. After supper we enjoyed sundown worship together around the piano with Ken leading us beautifully from one song to the next. It was so meaningful having this time together as we ended the Sabbath and our great years together with Jaclyn and Ryan.Some of us didn't even make it through the first song we sang, "We are Nearing Home," before tears were flowing.
Stephanie said, "This seems like a funeral" as the kleenex box was passed. It was no longer possible to put out of our minds what was about to happen. We'd been doing our best to do that for the last two or three weeks, since Ryan accepted the job as coach and PE teacher at Ozark after his December graduation.
After some singing, Stephanie asked who was going to have the eulogy. The comedy relief was needed. Thanks, Stephanie.
We have enjoyed so much having Jaclyn here for eight years while she got her nursing degrees and then "got hitched." (Whoever said "Parting is such sweet sorrow" needs to take out the "sweet.") The sky was even shedding tears as we stood out front in the driveway in the rain after sundown watching them put a few more of their belongings onto the truck. Several of us were here to wish them well as they pulled out to drive about half way to Ozark Academy on Saturday night (it's a 12 hour trip).

After they left, some of us "Settlers" played 3 rounds - it was therapeutic, even though Stephanie won two of the games. We kept track of where the moving caravan was through text messages with Jaclyn and a few phone calls.

We had some more normal smoothies (carob smoothies with peanut butter and bananas) to go with popcorn while we played. Jonathan and Stephanie watched our "Smoothie King" whip them up. The plan was to call Jaclyn and Renee en route and slurp thru the straws into the phone which we did often here with Jaclyn as we'd call Renee, but we didn't have the courage to do it. Stephanie was seeking assurance that Jonathan and Kelli would stay around and not leave us this summer when Kelli graduates. Jonathan will be in school then so they promised to stay around till he's through. We hope to share lots more fun games of Settlers together with those of us still settled here in Happy Valley.

Not even a great day for ducks

We've had heavy rain since last night and most of the day today. We drove around to see the flooding when we left school today and here are a few pictures we took on the camera phone. It's about as bad as we've ever seen it here. There are a lot of roads closed here in the county and several schools have already announced they're closed tomorrow - however, ours isn't on the list yet, but we haven't given up! - Hallelujah - 6:30 Wed. morning we got a call from our registrar - good news - no school, but teachers report at 10 this morning. We can take it! According to the news tonight, we set a record today for amount of rain in one day here -
4 inches!
If you click on this picture, you might be able to see the white ducks paddling for all they were worth on the far side of their swollen duck pond to keep from getting swept away.

The water was right up to the sidewalk in front of Dollar Tree at about 5 this evening.

The car driving through this deep water between the ABC and ball fields was having quite the time, making one run after another through the deep water. We took a video or two also that should be fun to watch.

Eve of the New Year and more

We came home from Michigan WAY before the end of our Christmas break for a change and sure did enjoy the time here with Carrie and Ryan and Jaclyn and Ryan. New Year's Eve we had some tasty pizza together and watched a funny movie Ryan gave us for Christmas.

Jaclyn had to be at work at 6:30 a.m. so they left early in the evening and then we 4 played SETTLERS. I stayed awake past midnight for a change! What a blast it is. You can see Carrie must have been planning her next shrewd move from this grin. She's a tough one to beat. But we managed once or twice!

Our game is expected to be delivered to our door Thursday this week!

Tennis heaven is what Ryan enjoyed with his tennis buddies and Randy and I even played some while he was here.

You can see what gorgeous clear days he had for it most of the week.

But it was a little nippy. Gloves and a hat felt good when we were getting started.

New Year's night we enjoyed supper with Jaclyn and Ryan.

The Carlson's came over too for some games and fun. They love Settlers too.

Ryan and Jaclyn brought Ryan's new truck by when they got back from the lake house - and this is really a TRUCK, Ken!

It was a big empty house after the kids left to go back to Portland. Here they are at our "last breakfast" for a month probably. Back to reality tomorrow - this vacation went way too fast, as always.