Here's To Life!

Kristin and Scott got engaged in March, 2019. They had planned an October 10, 2020 wedding. They are still going to be married on that date but we will have the big wedding celebration on October 15, 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Another in the change of plans for this year. We look forward to celebrating their marriage on 10/10/2020.

We have probably spent more time so far this summer sitting on our patio or the deck and enjoying our backyard than we have in previous summers. The biggest reason for this is that we have been home much more with nowhere to go. Both Paul and I have been enjoying watching the different birds that come to feed at the bird feeders. We have also watched a couple of rabbits and lots of squirrels. We have added more flowers to the yard and flowering bushes. It has changed quite a bit in the seven years we have lived in the house.     Backyard Photos

This has certainly turned out to be Not the Year I Expected. Last year was full of travel and special events. We traveled both to Hawaii and Greece as well as several places in the states. We celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary by taking our kids to Hawaii for a week. We all had a great time. Paul and I did a group tour of Greece through our church following in the Steps of St. Paul which was inspiring and educational. We also took a trip to St. Louis, Cape Cod to visit my mother and returned to where we started our marriage in Oklahoma City. Traveled on to San Antonio and New Braunfels, TX as well. Enjoyable. We celebrated our granddaughter’s first birthday in May. I retired in June from over 20 years of working part-time at Beye School. Paul made the decision to retire at the end of July 2020. It was a pretty good year. Travel was supposed to continue this year - and we did take a trip to Destin, FL and New Orleans in January which was great - nice to spend a week in w...

Xochitl turns 2 at the end of this month. We have not seen her since the end of February and we miss her and the rest of our family. Here are photos from her 2nd year!

Click here - Best Photos of 2020 - so far!

A Little January Fun The best way to spend a week in January is not in the Chicago area. We took a 10 day trip south driving to Destin, FL and New Orleans, LA. We drove through Birmingham and Montgomery, AL on the way and  stopped at some of the civil rights memorials. One of the most meaningful one was the National Memorial for Peace and Justice which highlights the many lynchings (4400) that took place in this country between the years of 1877 and 1950. We spent 2 1/2 days in Destin, enjoying walking on the beach and using the pool at the resort as well as trying different restaurants. Drove to New Orleans, stopping in Biloxi, MS to visit the last home of Jefferson Davis. Activities in New Orleans included exploring the French Quarter, taking a 2 hour cruise on the Natchez steam boat, and sipping coffee and eating beignets at Cafe Du Mond.   The next day we visited a few plantations along Plantation Row - the Whitney Planta...

Christmas, 2019 Dear Family and Friends, Our tree is up, cookie baking has started and it is time to reflect on this year and share our happenings with you. We celebrated 40 years of marriage on May 12. We took the whole family to dinner and then at the end of June we took them all to Hawaii for a week. Our kids arranged for a photoshoot while we were there (hence the Hawaii pictures on our card) and we all had a great time seeing the sights, enjoying the sun, sand and surf. Dolphin watching and snorkeling was a highlight. We did a fair amount of traveling this year - 28,000 miles or so. Besides Hawaii, we took a trip to Greece with our church friends following in the footsteps of the apostle Paul. Amazing to think we walked in the same places in Corinth, Ephesus and Athens. The trip ended with a four day cruise on the Aegean Sea. We drove to Cape Cod with John, Sasha and Xochitl and spent a week there. We started the year with a trip to West Virginia and in Apri...