Well,
it has been an interesting year for us. Both
of us are pretty healthy and still in possession
of our faculties!
Cathy is still teaching reading and
social studies, and I’m still a na’er-do-well.
In June our schedules matched up and Cathy and I
took a month’s vacation to visit with family and
friends in Florida. We
drove in Cathy’s new Camry hybrid. We
traded in the Prius for it so Cathy would feel
safer on her 70 mile round trip commute each
day. Plus
I was tired of people mistaking us for Al Gore
groupies! On
the trip the Camry was very comfortable, and got
40 mpg.
We took our time travelling, and stayed at some
great places.
First, the Davis Mountain State Park
“Indian Lodge” at Fort Davis, Texas. Dad
and I stayed there last year, and it continues
to be a really pleasant place to take a break
and it’s got a great restaurant too. At San
Antonio we stayed at the Menger Hotel, right
across the street from the Alamo and within
stumbling distance of the River Walk. Down
in Florida, on the spur of the moment, we went
to “The Villages” which you might have seen on
the TV ads.
It certainly was as beautiful as the
commercials make it out to be, and the whole
place is “golf-cart friendly”. I
guess that’s because there are 50,000 golf carts
in the development! They
have golf-cart trails everywhere, or you can
drive them on the side streets. We saw
many such places along the Gulf Coast, even in
our favorite old town, Apalachicola. We
stayed at the Apalachicola Inn right on the
river and it hasn’t changed much since we first
went there in 1993. It is
still very much “old Florida”, although they’ve
started to get some trendy shops and restaurants
in town.
Of course we spent the majority of our time in
Florida with our son Greg and his family and
with Cathy’s brother Gary. We
also visited Cathy’s brother Tim and some
friends along the way. On the
way home, we made a swing up to Oklahoma to
visit our son Eric. Right
after Christmas last year we had him home for a
visit, and we’ll bring him home at Christmastime
this year, but it was nice to see him in his
“natural environment”! He is
doing very well and seems happy.
While we were gone, we had some work done to the
house. We
had a new metal sun shade put over the patio,
and a metal framework on top of the rock wall
out back. We
planted some wisteria and other vines and are
training them up the framework and in a couple
years should have a very colorful backdrop to
the pool. Speaking
of that, in September we installed a solar
heater on the roof for the pool and it actually
works – it kept the pool up to 80 degrees until
Halloween!
This August we attended the White Sands Film
Festival again.
This year it was five days long, but
Cathy had to work for three of them, so I used
her ticket to take Mom along and we saw some
good little movies. Maybe
Cathy will be able to go to all of them next
year. She’s
thinking about retiring.
This year she’s teaching reading to elementary
students and conducts & grades an on-line
Social Studies program for 7th & 8th
Graders. Since
that program requires a teacher with a secondary
certificate, she was granted a temporary one and
now takes night courses at NMSU to earn her
permanent secondary license. However,
the really big news is that she completed her
“National Boards”.
This is a two year program leading to an
certificate to teach anywhere in the country. Although
she was planning to retire in July when she
turns 60, now she’s thinking about staying on
for a couple more years. In her
school district, the certification has a healthy
pay raise attached to it, but she’s also
thinking about going overseas to teach at DoD
schools for a while.
I think she wants to go to Naples, Italy, so she
can keep an eye on our Grandsons! Last
June, our son
Christopher was hired as the Navy’s regional
lodging manager for the Mediterranean and Near
East. So
he and Janna and the boys pulled up stakes in
Japan and made the move to Naples - talk about
Culture Shock! But they found themselves a very
nice house and have spent plenty of time
exploring both modern Italy and ancient Rome. The
boys, Connor and Geoffrey, are now 10 and 11
years old and apparently enjoy seeing new places
and learning about new (and extinct) cultures. They
are adding some Italiano to their Japanese
vocabulary, and soon they won’t know which
language to speak.
Greg, our youngest, is playing Bachelor Father
right now, as Rebekah is deployed to Bagram,
Afghanistan.
It was a very short notice departure, and
Greg was off TDY himself when her orders came
down. So,
Cathy took some leave without pay and flew out
to fill in for a couple of weeks. It was
worth every penny because it gave Cathy the time
to spend time with our Granddaughter, Kirstin. This
year, Kirstin turned 7 and is taking gymnastics
classes and is on a pee-wee cheerleading squad
that won first place in their division.
In
October my Dad’s Cousin Rita Morris came out for
a visit and we spent many enjoyable days
scanning her father Jim’s genealogical research
and old pictures he left her.
This hasn’t been a particularly good year for my
folks. Dad
had to have another back surgery, and
deteriorated so much he came down with pneumonia
and is now spending a couple weeks in a
rehabilitation hospital. While
he’s there, Mom is staying with Cathy and me so
that she won’t be alone – she has some memory
loss and should have someone check on her
regularly.
Dad seems to be progressing well, and we
are hopeful he’ll recover as much as possible.
As for me, I’ve been crippled for the last few
months with Plantar Fasciitis in my left heel,
although I finally got “plasma rich platelet
infusion therapy” a couple weeks ago, and
hopefully I’ll fully recover in a couple months. I’m
also the proud owner of an anti-snoring machine
that seems to work; now Cathy can get a good
night’s sleep without me sawing logs in her ear. As for
hobbies, I seem to spend a lot of time on this
computer, and like taking pictures. I even
got paid to take photos as a local winery - $1
and 2 free bottles of wine! So now
I’m a “professional” photographer! Woo-hoo!
