Show me the way to go home - Friday Funny

This is so my husband and I. How about you?

Click on photo to embiggen!

Do you remember...

Visited Nurse Nancy and family this weekend. Our boys went to the Army-Rutgers football game Friday night. Although Army lost and it rained - alot - they had a good time.

So what did the girls do you ask? Well, we met up with Mental Mama, Tombstone Annie and Jules for a bit of girl talk. The conversation was interesting, the food delicious and as the designated driver I had more problems getting out of MPM's driveway than I did driving on unfamiliar roads (in my defense, it was dark, rainy, I have tinted back windows and a bicycle rack obstructed my view). But after changing from trying to back out to turning around, we were off.

In the course of conversation Jello 1-2-3 was discussed, which morphed into Shake-a-pudding and a few other confections of our youth were discussed.

Do you remember these?

A belated Happy 59th Anniversary

I tried to post this yesterday, but Blogger wasn't cooperating with allowing me to upload pictures.

Any way, with all the running I have been doing from my home in NJ to my parent's home in PA, I forgot to post 59th anniversary wished to my parents on October 7th. Here's the happy couple en route from Haines to Skagway Alaska on the ferry boat.

I think they're a pretty darn good looking couple for being 87 and 80.

My mom is doing much better. She's venturing up the steps daily and taking short walks when the weather permits. And she's doing little things around the house like setting the table and doing dishes. She's not allowed to do anything that would put a strain on her back so walking is her best form of rehab and exercise right now. My dad has been a real trooper cooking, doing laundry and anything else that needs to be done. I go to visit at least once a week to give him a break and do some things he doesn't do like ironing.

One Last Alaska Post - Fairbanks

Our last three days were spent in Fairbanks. In addition to seeing the sights, we connect with a a couple who were high school classmates of my mother. The husband was the president of my mom's class (PAHS '46) and was a ceramics professor at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. They are a lovely couple who have done lots of travel in their retirement.

Panning for gold, we combined our finds and had two lockets of gold pieces made - one each for my mom and I.

We had lunch at a reconstructed mining village. Dad and I posed in front of a giant gold pan.

A stop at a visible portion of the Aleyska (or Alaska) pipeline. Here's a sign telling us where we are!

This is a retired "pig" - a device that goes through the pipeline to keep it clean. The name came from the "squealing" noise it makes as it scrapes the sides of the pipes.

We took a riverboat ride on the Chena River.

We stopped at a model of an Athabaskan village - the native people to this area of Alaska.

Our guide was a lovely young woman who is part Athabaskan. Here she is describing the different types of fur that is used.
This coat was hand made by an artisan and cost about $20,000. Needless to say, I didn't get her number.

Not far from Fairbanks is North Pole Alaska and a huge Christmas stop. Our favorite find was a string of lights make from shotgun shells.

And finally, we went to a recently opened Antique Car museum where my husband thought he died and went to antique car heaven. The "newest" car there was from 1936.

I hope you enjoyed a snippet of our trip. We took about 2,300 pictures. If you want to see more, you'll have to come visit us so we can bore you with our vacation pictures.

Man versus Vole!

So, I showed you part of our adventure in Denali, but I left out my husband's encounter with a vole.

During our bus trip through the park, we stopped midway at the farthest point that we would go into the park. At this stop we were given the opportunity to make a warm drink - coffee, tea or hot chocolate from a tap on the bus. Although it wasn't too cold, it was nice to have a warm drink after looking at snow covered Mt. McKinley.

My husband made himself a cup of hot chocolate and wandered over to an area where a native Alaskan was giving a talk on live in Alaska and the culture of his tribe. While listening to the talk, he put down his cup of hot chocolate to take a few pictures. When he reached down, not two or three minutes later this is what he discovered:

After much consideration and consultation with a woman who joined us to watch the vole, we could only conclude that it was a female who was PMS-ing and was in desperate need of chocolate. Oh, and that it wasn't the first time this vole had raided someone's cup of hot chocolate!

Denali

We arrived in Denali in the afternoon and stayed the lodge owned by the cruise line. It was quaint and rustic. Here's my mom in the lobby of the lodge posing with Dall sheep.




We experienced an Alaskan fall. The tree color is yellow throughout the state, while the reds are found in the shrubs and fire weed.

A log cabin in the park is used for demonstrations for the public during the summer season and in the fall, winter and spring, when the park is covered in snow, rangers travel from cabin to cabin by dog sled to check on the park. While we were waiting to get off the bus to see this cabin, a bear walked down the middle of the road - literally - like it was walking the line for a sobriety test. Unfortunately, some visitors in a car decided to get out and take pictures and scared the bear off. So we didn't get pictures.

We were part of the lucky 30% who get to see Mt. McKinley. Most of the time the top of the mountain is not visible because of low cloud cover. We were about 75 miles from the mountain, though it seemed like you could walk there in an hour.

Where I've Been.

I've been off the radar for much of the last two weeks. After our return from Alaska (pics of our land trip to follow) my mother had spinal fusion surgery. So being the "good" daughter that I am, I've been spending much time shuttling between NJ and PA to help my parents out.

My mother had spinal surgery about three years ago, but that procedure proved to be unsuccessful. At a seminar at the local hospital, my mother heard a presentation by a local spinal surgeon and decided to have a second opinion about her problem. He was optimistic that he could help her and after much prayer and consideration of the options available, she decided to schedule the surgery for the week after our return from Alaska.

She's recuperating at home now after six days in the hospital and another 10 days in rehab. While she is still in pain from the surgery, and we won't know whether the surgery was successful until after the incision heals and there is significant bone growth on the fusion, there are some good signs - the pain that she had radiating into her leg is gone and the pain she feels is different - most probably the surgical pain.

Get well Mom. Coming home yesterday was a wonderful birthday gift for Dad.

Birthday Boys

Happy Birthday (a day late - sorry, taking care of mom) to two of my favorite guys in the whole world - my dad and my husband. I love you both.

This guy is 87.

This guy isn't!