It’s been a while. Sorry. Time just flies out the window ...
I hope you didn’t think something awful happened on our trip to Kentucky last summer – nothing happened, the week went very well and we worked hard and had a lot of fun along the way. It was so nice to visit with Brenda, and Pete and Stephanie and their children, and make some new friends among the church volunteers from Pennsylvania and New York who were working that week. Our wonderful friends Karen and Doug drove down with us – both of our pick-up trucks were loaded to the gills with donations for the thrift store - and they were able to stay for a couple of days. They very quickly fell in love with the area and the work that’s being done at E.C.C.O and SWAP. Chris led a team of volunteers during the week, going out to do home repairs in a couple different locations, while I stayed back at ECCO and helped Stephanie with meal preparation for the 25 or so volunteers. I did go out with him on Thursday to the home where they were working, since Thursday is usually a half-day of work, and a half-day of sight-seeing. (Not that’s this area is exactly a vacation wonderland, let me tell you!) We drove out to the coal mining museum and toured the coal mine that afternoon. I can surely appreciate the hard lives of the men who work in the mines, day after day, year after year. Dark, cold, damp and depressing work, for sure.
The remainder of the summer went quickly: 4th of July fireworks with friends, a day trip to Lafayette,IN to be with our friend Minnetta and her husband Dick, for the funeral of her Dad; numerous Sunday evening drives to try out new ice-cream places with Doug and Karen; we said a sad good-bye to our beloved 20 year old cat Lucy; our daughter was in a car accident in which her car was totaled (and thankfully nobody was hurt); we all moaned and groaned about the heat and the drought that seemed to last for weeks on end in July, August and September … and then finally came the fall.
Our son became employed again in September – that was good news! – as he found an entry-level job as a Pharmacy Technician. He also moved in with us for a short period of time as he and his wife have decided to part ways. He brought his cat Melvin (who is a very cool cat, by the way) and our granddaughter Tara also spent some time at our house. We made a second (3-day) trip back down to Eolia in mid-October taking the remainder of our donations for the thrift store – our basement was finally cleared out for a “minute.” Karen and Doug drove down with us again and we spent a wonderful couple of days roaming around the area – hiking, driving Little Shepherd trail, visiting Kingdom Come State Park, and we found a great little family restaurant where we ate 2 nights in a row. On the way home we took a small detour and visited Natural Bridge State Park in Slade, KY. We had a fun cook-out on Halloween at a friends’ house, trying to stay warm as we huddled around a portable fire pit that Celia set up in her driveway. We did a hot dog/ hamburger giveaway and passed out candy – it was a popular stop for all the trick-or-treaters, adults and children alike.
The holidays came and went quickly with lots of good family time and visits. Nothing eventful, all good. Every year I find myself more and more thankful for low-key, low-stress holidays. Keeping it simple is definitely the way to go, and “time spent” is the best gift of all. We were blessed to have Tara with us quite a bit in November and December, including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day – she is so much fun in her toddler stage! I’m glad she feels so at home with us. She keeps us smiling even when life all around us might otherwise be quite messy. We also said good-bye to another of our faithful felines just after Christmas. Beanie had become ill and there wasn’t much we could to except to keep him comfortable for his last few weeks. (For those of you trying to keep track, we’re now down to 2 cats and 3 dogs.)
Anyway, here it is 2011 and I still have more to catch up on, many pictures that I could / should be sharing. Oh, that reminds me, I've upgraded my camera (at my husband's suggestion) - it's the newest Canon Rebel with an awesome lens. Don't know the specifics, ask him. I just use it! We're shooting a wedding in June and knew we needed to kick it up a notch, so we both got some new equipment. Fun! Too bad I rarely have time to sit down and edit through the 100's of pictures we take... and as you can tell, Tara is the subject of so many of them!
