SUMMER VACATION WASHINGTON PART ONE

Olympia Washington

John teaching Luke and Charlotte to play rummy.

Mark, just a swinging

Charlotte eating s'mores.

Luke rescuing Mark from the jungle gym.

Luke caught a butterfly on a Dandelion.

Serious, Prissy, and Happy.

John, Sarah and the kids.

At the Huntsville airport

Ready to leave on our vacation

We just returned Sunday from our epic vacation - adventure. We left on June 21ST from Huntsville and started our trip to Washington State. Of course our trips always involve visiting our children and this trip was no different. Sarah, Cody and the kids are now living in Yelm Washington. We flew from Huntsville to Denver then on to Seattle Washington. Sarah and the kids met us there. It was so good to see all of them. Luke and Charlotte have grown so much, but Mark has really changed. When we saw him before Christmas, before they left, he was just a baby crawling around. Now he is a full blown toddler and still crawling but now it is crawling on top of everything he can get too. He fell off so much stuff while we were there, I was drawn up in a knot for days.

The weather in Washington was just wonderful. When we left Alabama the temps were in the high nineties and low hundreds. When we got to Seattle the temp was like 67 degrees and didn't vary from that more than one or two degrees. We spent eight days in Washington. We enjoyed going to the farmers market where we wondered around for a while. Then we got some of the best seafood we had had in a long time. Clams, shrimp and fish, sold from a food stand there at the market. We also bought fresh cherries that were fresh and sweet and really yummy.

Our main goal for this trip was to spend time with the grand kids. John spent lots of time playing cards and games with Luke and Charlotte. Mark took every opportunity to climb on the table and disrupt the game. We took a side trip down to Oregon where we took a train ride. We went down the night before and stayed in a little town along the Columbia River. The power of that river was amazing to me. The water was swift with lots of white caps. Must have been quite a ride for the settlers that came through years ago. I'm use to seeing big rivers here in the south, but in comparison ours are strong, slower moving, lazy type rivers.

On Sunday we boarded the train at 10:00 and took a four hour trip up through the mountains where we got a wonderful view of Mt Hood. The constant rocking back and forth of the train soon put Mark to sleep and the rest of us were close behind him. We were all just kind of staring out the window in a stupor. The scenery in Washington and Oregon was some of the most beautiful I've ever seen. But that darn rocking of the train was almost to much for a bunch of nappers like us.

John, Sarah and I managed to squeeze in a trip to a casino that was just a few miles form her house. Here again we had no luck, but are just dumb enough to lose our money and still have fun. Go figure.

The days went much to fast. We ended up leaving a day early, because we bought Sarah's car(they bought a newer one) while we were there and decided to drive cross country coming back. We drove down through Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming and finally Colorado........

Happy Father's Day John

Eagles flying over the Tennessee River.

Emily enjoying a Sunday swim.

Grandma Rose cooling off her feet.

Four generation of Sundquist.

John Pearson acting goofy peeping in the kitchen window.

Me.

At Joe Wheeler Resort.

Me and Rose

Over looking the Tennesee River.

John and Rose.

Today was Father's Day and it was the most beautiful day we have had in quite a while. It was really breezy and a little overcast when I first got up this morning. As the day went on it just got nicer and nicer. We went to 11:00 church this morning and made a quick stop by ALDI's on the way home. After we got home we changed into our bathing suits and went over to Johnny's and Tracy's to eat lunch and swim for a while.

Their central heat and air went out last week, so they have been struggling to make it in this 90+ degrees heat that we have been having for the last few weeks. They are lucky to have the pool to cool off in. The contractors come tomorrow to put in a new unit. Hopefully they will have air by Tuesday.

Tracy grilled brats and hot dogs, made cheese dip and key lime pie. It was a real relaxing afternoon and we even got home early enough to squeeze a little nap before the afternoon was up.

Yesterday we took a drive up to Joe Wheeler park and sat out by the lake for a while. We made it back to the car just before a tremendous wind storm came through. I don't know why we are having so many storms here lately. I guess it has something to do with the instability of the weather. When it gets hot like its been lately a little cool front can cause the weather to go crazy.

We also drove down to Lock Six boat ramp and sat and watched some eagles that had a nest somewhere close by. There were at least two and they would fly out over the water then glide back over the trees. I managed to catch one picture of them just above the tree line. We use to never see eagles in this area, but now they are spotted from Waterloo up to Champion paper mill. We also saw a deer, which are getting plentiful in this area. I never saw a deer around here until I was in my thirties and now you can hardly drive down the road at night without one running out in front of you. All in all it has been a nice Father's Day weekend.

Jim should be getting here tomorrow to carry Rose back to Ohio. We have have had nice visit with her. Hopefully she has enjoyed her stay with us. We will be flying out Tuesday to Seattle to stay a few days with Sarah and the kids, then down to Colorado Springs to spend another few days with Sondra, Jonathan and the boys. We are really looking forward to our visit. In the meantime Monica and her boys will be coming here to spend a week or so and keep and eye out on Emily and JP while Johnny and Tracy are at work. Mark and Paige will be in for the Forth of July. I guess I could leave a to do list and come back to a clean house. We will be home shortly after that. Sounds like we are all running in circles.

I need to get busy packing and doing a little laundry. I told Tracy I only worried about carrying my medicine. If I forget anything else there's always Wal-Mart or a thrift store somewhere close by.

HOT TIME IN MISSISSIPPI

Dinner at Monica and Tim's house.

Johnny, David and Mark.

Part of John's family,

Mark acting like he's not nervous.

Becky, Jim and Ludwig their exchange student from Sweden.

Emily trying to make a fashion statement, I guess.

Rehearsal

Mark and Paige feeling the heat.

Rose eating lunch.

When Mark and Paige got engaged last year, the wedding seemed so far away, but guess that time waits for no man or in this case no man and woman. The wedding took place in Southaven MS this past weekend. I think the weather man said it was the hottest early part of June in weather recorded history. At 6:30 when the wedding started it was 77 degrees and the high that day had been 99 degrees with the heat index of 103. Needless to say we were not just perspiring but wringing wet with sweat.





The wedding was really beautiful. All of John's Mother, brothers and sister came in from Ohio. The nieces and nephews except one came in. All of our kids except Sarah, Luke, Charlotte and baby Mark came. It would have been almost impossible for her to travel with three kids and expecting. Sondra flew in with David and Daniel and I didn't envy her trying to load and unload all her gear in and out of the airport. We had lots of family and friends come in from AL.



The wedding was outside and I was so thankful that it didn't rain for the rehearsal dinner or the wedding which were both outside. We were so busy praying for clear weather, that we forgot to also pray for cool weather. The reception was part inside and part outside. There was a DJ inside and the dancing went on until midnight. There was a time when I would never get up and dance in a crowd like this, but I thought what the heck this is my last child to be married, so we just let our hair down and danced right along with all the young people.



It was great having time to reconnect with John's family for a couple of days. John's mom came home with us and will stay for a couple of weeks. Then we will head out west to see kids and grand kids.



Why does things have to be so difficult. I think I can finally download some pictures from the rehearsal and family gathering at the hotel. I seem to have a conglomeration of pictures that have no rhyme or reason, but I was just glad to get anything to download. Maybe when I figure out what the problem is, I can share some actual wedding pictures. Oh well it has stopped again. Later.

Storm clean up is underway at Mother's

Seems that it has been forever since I posted anything on my blog. I just couldn't find anything light hearted to talk about. Well I still haven't, but I figured it's time to sit down and let some of my thoughts out before my head swells like a helium balloon and I float off into oblivion. That might not be such a bad thing.

There is so much going on in our area right now. Clean up from the tornadoes is still going full blast all across the south. I haven't been into the areas that were hit, but John and a couple of friends drove to an area around Athens and Madison last week. John said he had never seen so much destruction and total devastation in his life. These were not even the areas that were hit hardest. There are so many tales of people being lost elderly people, young adults, teenagers and babies. It is hard to make yourself believe that nature can cause this much heart ache.

The flooding in the Memphis, Mississippi and Louisiana areas are as mind boggling as the tornadoes. Seems as though all across the southern United States people are being effected by the weather. I posted a few more pictures of the wind damage at Mother's house. Luckily we were able to get hold of a insurance contractor and they came on out and got the tree cut down and cleared away. Now it is just a matter of waiting for them to be able to start the renovation work. It may take a while because of the large number of homes that will have to be renovated or rebuilt. So I guess patience is the name of the game right now.

In the meantime time is clicking down to the wedding. Just three more weeks. The nice part is that I'm off work now and have a little more time to get things done. We are looking forward to having lots of family members come in from out of town to attend the wedding. We are going to have the rehearsal dinner at Monica's home. There will be a bachelor and a bachelorette party for Mark and Paige. A bridal tea on Friday morning, wedding rehearsal and the rehearsal party on Friday afternoon and evening. You know, now that I see that in writing, I think the tea is on Saturday morning. Well when ever it is, its going to be a very busy weekend.

John's mom is going to be staying a week or so with us after the wedding. Jimmy and Becky will be taking Ludwig ( their foreign exchange student from Sweden) on a few side trips while they are down here. When they get back John and I will be going to WA. to see Sarah and the kids and then to Co to stay a few days with Sondra and Jonathan and the kids. Lord I'm already wondering what has happened to the summer. I will be going back to work around the thirteenth of Aug.. Wow, its enough to make your head spin.

STORM DAMAGE

There are two or three trees on the roof at Mother's house. This one is on top of the sun porch.

This is a oak tree uprooted on the creek bank. I seems as though the storm went right up through her yard.

It is hard to tell from looking at this picture, but the hole under the trees is 4 or 5 feet deep and about 10 or 12 feet across.

The tree was completely over the whole house. These limbs were from the two trees in the back yard. Wayne and one of his son-in-laws got the limbs off the top of the house so he could patch the leaks. Now there are so many limbs on the ground that you literally can't make it around the house. We were very lucky that no one was hurt and that the trees didn't completely crush the house. Robbie made these pictures the morning after the first storm went through.

Today was the first time I actually saw live pictures of the devastation from the tornadoes that went through our area. It is unreal that so few lives were lost. Mark's best friend and his wife lost their home, car's, pet and everything they owned in the storm that hit Tony Alabama. They had planned on staying in their house and waiting the storm out, but at the last minute decided to go a relatives house that had a shelter. Thank God they did. Their home was totally destroyed.

The houses, businesses, churches and schools can be rebuilt. The lives of loved ones cannot be replaced. The ones of us who were untouched are thankful for being spared from this horrific act of nature. Continue to pray for the people across the south who lost family members and homes that they can over come this tragedy and become stronger.

BRIDAL SHOWER'S AND BATHROOM REMODELING

Oh Well!! I have been putting off posting for the past few days because I have been having trouble downloading some pictures that I wanted to add to my blog. Seems as thought that want be happening until I buy an adaptor for the computer. All the pictures that we made at the shower were made with either Monica's or Tracy's camera and their memory card is a 4GB (what ever that means) , and apparently is not compatible with my computer. It's not that I didn't try everything in the book to get them to download. Monica left her memory card with me, I took it to work and downloaded the pictures to the work computer, with the help of a student that had an adaptor and emailed them to myself. I could pull up the pictures up to look at them, I made a file and saved it to desk top, but it would not go onto my blog post. Then Tracy sent me her memory card and I tried again. Same thing. So by the time I get pictures from the shower posted Mark and Paige will have grand kids of their own. Things like that can really make me come unglued.

John's bathroom project is coming along pretty well. We will probably be going to Johnny and Tracy's for our shower's for quite a bit longer though. John can figure out just about anything, but if we were building a whole house I'm afraid we would be in big trouble. After falling through the floor joist twice already and getting horrible sores on both knees from crawling around on the floor, he is pretty stove up right now. I feel so bad for him, but it is one of those things that he wants to do by himself and like I say, I'm about as much help as a one armed paper hanger.

It seems ever thing is coming quickly to a head. School will be out in about 18 working day and there is so much to do in the mean time. The wedding will be June 4Th and that is about 6 weeks. I have to find a dress, make arrangements for the rehearsal dinner and probably stuff I haven't thought of yet. We are looking forward to seeing family and friends that we don't get to see very often. The best thing for me is that I'm not the Mother of the Bride. ( Not that I wouldn't love to have Paige for a daughter). But after having three daughters and one son get married, I'll take another son's wedding every time.

I have to post this little tribute to Granddaddy from Matthew. This is a little speech he gave for scouts the other day.

My favorite person in the world is my granddaddy. What makes him my favorite person you might ask? We find some of the coolest treasurers together. Not the kind you find buried int the sand, or at least we haven't found that kind yet. But the kind of treasures you find in old attics, garages, dumpsters, thrift stores and auction.

Anytime I have ever asked for something, he has managed to find it. Some of the things I have asked for and we have managed to find are an old electric typewriter, a Indiana Jones fedora and leather jacket, an old cassette recorder, a stop watch, and an old smokers pipe. these are not the kind of thing that you can just pick up at Target... these are antiques.

My Grandaddy who was also a boy scout, has always been a collector, but he started out as a boy collecting stamps and coins. I think I learned to love collecting from him. I don't just collect one kind of thing , I like to collect interesting things that catch my eye.

Granddaddy always says I have a good eye for antiques. And I can always seem to talk down the price of something I really want. Over spring break I spent the week with my Granddaddy and MawMaw and I found a Porshe 356 model that was made in Italy. They wanted $10 for it but I talked them into taking $5 for it.

While I really enjoy finding treasures, the very best part is spending time with my Grandaddy.

Thank you Matthew for making Granddaddy's day.

SO MUCH TO DO, SO LITTLE TIME

My spring break is winding down to a hopefully nice long weekend. We stayed pretty close to home the first part of the week. The weather was kind of nasty and I had a couple of doctor appointments. After my evening at the ER on Friday night, I figured the week was going to be a complete bust, but things got better as the week went on. We went to an auction on Saturday night. This was up in Loretto TN. at Old School Antiques. It is in what use to be the Loretto school house. The auction is held on the second and forth Saturday of the month. The attendance is picking up quite a bit and there are lots of bargains to be had. Sunday was cold and miserable so after church, I spent the afternoon rolled up in a blanket doing absolutely nothing. Monday we had our taxes filled out and on Tuesday I had a doctors appointment. I had promised myself that I would accomplish tons of stuff, like cleaning house a bit, get the yard mowed, so far I'm batting ZERO. I'm getting ready for Mark and Paige's shower so on Wednesday I made some cakes and stuck them in the freezer. I found this really cute recipe for a Sunflower Cake. You make a single layer cake with chocolate icing and put Twinkies around it and drizzle chocolate on the Twinkies and it looks like a big Sunflower. Then I made a punch of heart shaped red velvet cakes (small) and I will put a dollop of cream cheese icing on top. I guess you would call it a Hearts and Flowers theme. I will try to remember to post few pictures when I finish them. On Thursday Emily was going to go home with a friend, so we didn't have to pick her up at the bus stop. We decided we would take a short trip. So since it was my vacation week, John took me to Tunica (The Casino Capital of the South). I am so dumb. I don't know why I love going and throwing my hard earned money away. I guess I must have an addictive personality. Anyway we drove down on Thursday afternoon, checked in around 4 PM and played the slots until around 11:00. We had a free room and some discounts on food. John won a couple of small jackpots and won $100.00. So we spent about what most people would spend on a really nice evening out. On the way home we stopped in Southaven and met Paige. We went over and John got fitted for his tux for the wedding. Then we went to the Bed and Breakfast where to wedding is going to be held. It is a real pretty area, so I think the wedding will be beautiful. I will have to start praying for good weather since the wedding is going to be outside. After leaving there we drove over to Mark's work place and stayed just a few minutes. We drove in and got home around 6:00. I came in turned on the computer and sat down and started to write this blog. John is taking a nap and I'm trying to figure out what we can get into tomorrow. To be continued.......

MAKING SOME CHANGES

I am having a hard time trying to figure out why I have to be whacked up side the head a dozen times with a sledge hammer to get the point. My body is in a health crisis and I simply just can not or will not accept it. As I had said in my last post, my numbers were all way off on my blood work that I had done last week. I know that I am going to have to take charge and do something about it or I might be kissing my rear in good-by. I guess the main problem is that I feel pretty good, I go to work every day and I'm 66 years old and I figure things start to deteriorate sooner or later.

I have decided that I am going to give it one more try and see if I can't develop a healthier life style for myself ( and John too, if he will let me). The problem with John is that he thinks you should be able to eat all the butter, eggs, cookies, cakes and pies that you can hold. He thinks it is ridiculous to buy skim or low fat milk, margarine or anything sweetened with splenda. I on the other hand am a diabetic and my triglycerides are out the ceiling and I HAVE TO MAKE SOME CHANGES. I am not trying to blame John, even thought it may sound like it. I am just trying to talk myself through this situation.

Right now I am in my third day of trying to eat better and cut out some fats, cholesterol, sugar and carbs. The first day I had Brand cereal and skim milk for breakfast, a veggie wrap for lunch and baked Tilapia and wild rice for dinner. Pretty much the same thing the second day. I also had a couple of oranges and an apple when I thought I couldn't make any longer.

This morning I fixed some oatmeal and skim milk for breakfast. We went out on one of our rambles today and ended up in Athens Al.. Of course we got hungry and of course we had to stop and get something to eat. We stopped at Jack's and got a salad. John got the crispy fried chicken salad and I got the grilled chicken salad. When John got back to the table the tray was loaded down. The salad was in one of those black with a clear top 32 oz. bowls, with a pack of dressing, a pack of croutons, several packs of crackers and extra honey mustard dressing for John's crispy chicken. Now I don't care how you stretch it that ain't a low cal meal. I ate the grilled chicken and about a third of the lettuce and veggies with some of the salad dressing and the croutons. If a dietitian figured the nutrition value, it would still have been more then I needed. At least it wasn't a cheese burger, fries and drink.

This evening for dinner, and I have a few pictures to document it, I think we ate pretty healthy.

The wrap consisted of:

1 flour tortilla

fresh spinach

red peppers

tomatoes

onion

1 oz turkey

1 teaspoon of lite dressing

I put cheese and extra dressing on John's wrap.

I also made this really tasty soup.

Do you remember those really large butter beans that everyone hated as a kid. Well I always loved them. That's my problem I like everything.

Butter Bean Soup:

1 can large butter beans

1 can chicken broth

1 small onion (chopped)

1 Roma tomato (chopped)

1 handful of fresh spinach

salt and pepper to taste

Cook on medium heat until onions, tomatoes and spinach are tender. This made a very tasty soup and went well with the wrap. It was a nice comfort food for a cold rainy evening.

Now I'm not going to bore everyone with a blow by blow description of everything I eat for the rest of my life, but I will probably occasionally post a follow up as to how I'm doing with this epic battle that I am pursuing and post some recipes that I find particularly interesting.

This is no Caribbean Cruise

Johnny, Emily, Tracy and John Pearson

John Pearson getting to be all grown up.

Emily and Matthew playing games on the computer.

For the last two weeks we have been going non-stop. Not going anywhere in the traveling sense but in the lots of things going on sense. Things are working there way down to Mark and Paige's wedding in June. This will be the last of our five children to get married and hopefully they have all chosen wisely and we want have to worry about weddings again until the grand kids get older. It always makes you feel good inside when you see that your kids are happy and Mark and Paige are very happy.

To give you and idea of all the things that have been going on, I will start with our visit from Matthew. Matthew was on spring break week before last. He had ask if he could come and spend a few days with us. John met Tim, Andrew and Matthew in Corinth MS and as usual had some ice cream treats at the Dairy Queen before making their way back home. I was working so I missed a lot of the rambling around that week. John took Matthew to every thrift store in the area. He bought skates, a lava lamp, boat and I can't even remember all the other things. I just know that his mom and dad probably hated to see him drag all the stuff he bought into the house when we carried him home.

While he was here Emily had her 10Th birthday, so we went over and spent the evening with her and her little friends and had Birthday cake, ice cream and pizza. Then seven days later on the 22 ND Johnny celebrated his 44Th birthday

We carried Matthew back to Memphis on Saturday and spent the evening with Monica, Tim and the boys. Andrew fixed most of the dinner. He made a baked chicken with his special sauce (it was really good) , salad and baked potatoes as big as a football. Mark and Paige came over and had dinner with us.

On Sunday we got up and went to church with Mark and Paige. She goes to the La belle Baptist Church in Southaven MS. It was a very nice service. The shower started at 2 PM and there was a really nice turn out and they got some lovely gifts. Now we are on the countdown to April 10TH, when we will have the shower here in AL. I had planned on having the shower at Out Post 72, but got a call from the owner one day last week, telling me that they had closed the previous Sunday. I had to hustle it up a bit and find another place. Luckily I was able to get the activities room at our church (St Joseph Catholic) church in Florence. The bad part is that I had already mailed invitations to everyone and now I need to start making phone calls and make sure everyone knows about the change of place.

I had gone to the doctor last week to have some blood work done, so I could renew my meds. When I got in from work on Friday, I told John that I was going to lie down and take a short nap. He told me that I needed to call the doctor before I did that. Well I called the doctor and the receptionist gave me the results of my blood test. As usual everything was up. She told me to hold on while she talked to the doctor. She came back and told me I should get to the ER asap. Apparently my triglycerides were 1610. So we headed out to the ER about 3:00 PM. I'm on the phone trying to get a hold of Johnny or Tracy or John Pearson to pick up Emily who usually gets off the bus at 3:30. All I got was the voice mails. Thank goodness the school bus driver decided to bring her straight to our door. She didn't have to walk from the bus stop.

When we got the hospital they hooked me up to all the stuff they do. First off they couldn't get a blood pressure reading. Finally got that, then did the EKG and chest X-Ray. Then they did a C-scan. After 5 hours the doctor came back and tells me that all the test came back normal. In other words your old, too fat and need to exercise more. The story of my life.

That was the beginning of my vacation, so with the other test they're fixing to do, I will probably spend most of the rest of my vacation at the doctors office. Money wise it will be just like going on a Caribbean Cruise.