Friday, March 25, 2016

We are in Great Britian!

I apologize for not having pictures, this is the first time I have used my IPAD to write the blog and for some reason I can't download the pictures onto my blog....any suggestions would be appreciated.

Leaving our Colorado friends and our family in Colorado was not easy, it never is, but we drove to Ohio to surprise Fran,  Pat's close friend, from high school on her 65th birthday.  Pat enlisted her daughter, Amy and her husband Buck to ensure the ruse was on...she was very surprised and we all shared in her amazement and happiness.  It was a short stay in the Buckeye state but we did get to visit with Pat's 98 year old aunt, Martha for a few hours and have a meal with George's family before leaving the Motorhome at his brother's house and driving to Pennsylvannia to pick up our friends, Tom and Maryann.  The four of us drove to Washington DC and caught a plane to London to begin our first 42 day leg of our European adventure.  Flying British Airlines is a treat in itself, the flight was smooth and they must have fed us at least three times and brought snacks a couple of other times, OBTW all the drinks are free and the wine hit the spot.  Landing in England posed the biggest problem of the day.  Driving on the left side of the road, thank God for Tom....he did great!  We arrived at our first stop, Kate's Cottage in Stow-on-the-Wold.  We will just relax for a few days to get over the jet lag and start exploring.  There was a wonderful cake waiting for us and we enjoyed it for a late snack.  So we are here, a little tired, and will be touring the Cotswolds for a couple weeks.
We are cutting this post a little short because we are all a little fuzzy.







Wednesday, March 16, 2016

On the Road Again

Our winter volunteering at Chatfield State Park is over and we enjoyed working and meeting new friends at the park.  We kept busy trimming trees, painting, cleaning up the aftermath of the summer floods, installing new fire pits and hundreds of small jobs.  Of course the real reason we volunteer at the park is so we can see our family on a continual basis throughout the winter.  We celebrated Thanksgiving at Steamboat ski area with Kris, Amy and the super K's, Christmas with David and April and Holly, Kasey's birthday with the family and was there for April and David's new baby boy, born on March 4th.  Lucas Henry came into the world at 8# 1oz and was 21 inches long.  It was a nice cap for a wonderful time from late October to March 14th when we fired up the Motorhome and headed east.    One other milestone we should mention is that George is done with his maintenence treatments, after 5 years the Doctor said it was enough and he would do annual Pet Scans to follow George for the next few years.
Our next adventure will be with our close friends, Tom and Maryann Graue, who we mentioned many times over the years in our blogs.  We visited with them in October and sat around talking about what we missed when we were in Germany together.  One thing lead to another and we both failed to go to Normandy and decided that we should go in 2016 together.  So in December we drove back down to Tucson to plan our trip.  After a hours of talking we decided that we should also visit Great Britian and Ireland, a few more discussions and it was decided that we should also go to Berlin and Warsaw.....well to make this short...we are going to Europe for 3 months and see those things we missed when we were stationed in Germany.   We will fly out on British Air on March 23rd out of Dulles International outside of Washington DC.  We hope Europe can handle the four of us, we have a few planned stops but for the most part we will drive around England, Scotland, Northren Ireland, Ireland, return to England and take the ferry to France to start our continent trip through the Benalux, Germany, Poland, the Czeck republic, back into Germany and up to Normandy for the June 6th celebrations before crossing back to England for a couple of weeks and catching our flight back to Washington DC. On June 15th.
We will be posting pictures and sites on the blog so if interested in our next backyard adventure stay tuned.  Of course the downside of this adventure is that we will miss our family, our grandkids (shelfish parents won't let us take them with us) and our friends in Colorado.  But this maybe our last great backyard adventure, at least for awhile since we now have 4 grandchildren.  All of you grandparents know the draw of the grandkids on us old people and now with 2 under 2 years old and two starting school and into everything ....it might be time to think about staying a little closer to our family.   But that is a post for another time...wish us luck and follow our adventure on the blog!