HOME AT LAST

Sondra getting friendly with the Navy

Fixing to tour the Naval Museum

Sacked out at the beach

To much fun in the sun

Do you know how many pancakes a box of Bisquick can make?

An almost empty pool at the beach

Three rowdy boys.


Battle field at Perryville KY.


John next to a cannon. He loves anything to do with the history of the civil war.

My friend Diane.

WHEE!!... I feel like I just slid into home. I have been gone for the last month.

A week in Niceville, a week in Orange Beach and then a week in Ohio. The dust on my furniture is at least an inch thick and the dust bunnies are hiding everywhere I look. But I guess there will always be time to clean.

When we were almost home from Orange Beach, I ask John if he needed to go up to Ohio and check on his mom and he said he would like to. He said when do you think we should go and I said it didn't matter. So we got in from OB Sunday around 8:00 PM and headed out to Ohio on Wednesday morning at 4:00 AM. We would have left sooner but John Pearson had football camp and we didn't want Emily to be home alone.

We decided to stop in Cinn. and visit with an old friend. We met Diane when we first got married and she and her husband and little girl lived next door to us

in Milford Ohio. John worked long hours at the Kresge store and Diane and I would spend hours watching soap operas and honing our cooking skills. I had none at that time and was always impressed with the fact that she could follow recipes and they would come out just perfect. Mine were always kind of hit or miss. She had already had her little when I met her and I was expecting our first child, so I thought she was a more experienced mom and relied on her to answer any questions I had about babies and birthing. Looking back on that time I realize that we were two very naive kids just trying to figure out how to make it in an adult world.

It is kind of strange in a way. We only knew each other for a year when John got transferred to Columbus. After we moved we continued to keep in touch. Time passed, our lives changed, more kids for both of us, a divorce for Diane and later a marriage to a very nice man. I talked to her every once in awhile, a few letters and a couple of visit in the beginning. The first thing you know it has been 32 years since we have seen her, so I gave her a call and told her we were in the area and would like to stop by. It is the darnedest thing with Diane. No matter how long it has been since I have talked to her, it is like we just talked yesterday and we become those two young girls sitting in her living room watching TV and eating hot German potato salad. The main difference is more wrinkles, gray hair (covered by the bottle) and now talking about grand kids instead of our own babies.

I am one of those people that doesn't have a lot of casual friends, but I have a few really good life long friends and that is fine with me.

After a short visit with Diane, we headed on over to Gallipolis to visit with John's mom. She is staying with Jim and Becky. We had a nice visit and was able to find a lot of things for our antique booths ( not at Jim and Becky's house by the way). Rosemary came over to visit and John was excited to spend time with her. Larry picked her up on Sunday and brought his mom and Stratton. We spent the day in the pool and visiting. We left on Monday morning and finally got home about 8:30. It was a nice trip all around. Glad to be home for a bit.

Finally got some of the vacation pictures to post.