A little help from my friends.

Al Michaels has volunteered the use of his farm and cattle trailer for the final hours of the pig - which will be much easier than trying to rig something up at our place. Tammy Michaels is making a cake, and bringing a vat of hot German potato salad (and a small batch of the vegetarian version for me). And Tammy actually planted an entire extra garden of corn so she could bring it to the party! (Okay, after our summer drought, the corn won't actually make it in time - but I'm in awe of the generosity and forethought.) I just had to give them a shout-out for all their help.


While cleaning the coop and burning trash yesterday - my labor on Labor Day - I had the inspiration to move the tent down to the back of the property, under the Grandmother Oak. I paced it off and am sure that we have a nice flat 40 x 30 space down there. That puts us a field's width closer to the path down to the Meadow Valley chapel, and puts us adjacent to the bonfire, and opens up the upper field for parking - which was going to be a major headache, with cars relegated to the lawns of several generous neighbors. The only catch will be electricity. We will have electric lights for the tent, and we'll need power for the Nesco roasters and coffee maker and entertainment stuff. I told Rick I wanted to move things down, and he threw up his hands at the thought of trying to get 50 amps of power down there. But I know my sweetie - he'll walk away grumbling, and then have a beautiful solution worked out two days later. :)


Meanwhile, Dan is on the train and should be here in 30 hours or so, and Alicia might just make it after all. And I've got table cloths and napkins and all that stuff staged and ready as soon as the tent & tables get here on Thursday. We've confirmed delivery of the port-a-john. I'll have to check with Rick to see when the roaster will be here. And apparently I need to pick up 8 bags of charcoal for the roaster, which somehow hadn't occurred to me. And 2 lbs of butter for the tables. And figure out what to do about salt & pepper - maybe just have a couple of them on the table by the food? And, and, and . . .


Okay, I'm going to just relax and think peaceful thoughts. It's all going to work out beautifully, because this is not a demanding group and we're all going to enjoy ourselves no matter what.

Grandma's notebook

While Dad was cleaning out some more of Grandma's stuff this summer, he came across this little notebook. In it, we found Grandma's travel diary notes from her trip to Little Rock for our wedding. As always, Grandma was meticulous about the details.


January 14, 1988 flew to Little Rock, Ark.
Left W. Palm on Delta at 2:20 P.M. and flew to Atlanta. Had 2 hrs and 40 minutes wait and ate early supper there.
Plane left half hour late and was dark. We enjoyed the lights of cities from the air. Amy was waiting for us and she & Rick took us to our Days Inn room. Jim & Louise had got in at noon. We all stayed in Days Inn and Dave & Jan came Sat morning.

Friday Amy, Rick, Louise, Jim, Noel, Harvey & I went in two cars out west of Little Rock to Petit Jean State Park. It was a beautiful sunny day and we had a very enjoyable day. We ate dinner at night at Bennigens in Little Rock.


Saturday it was rainy but the wedding was a pretty ceremony at 4 P.M. Amy's dress and her bridesmaids' were made by a friend. We went to Jacksonville Country Club for the wedding dinner. Fourteen people were there. Wedding meal was chicken breast [tossed salad first] over wild rice, carrots & broccoli, rolls & drink. Two tiered wedding cake was spice with peach color flowers.

The left for Hot Springs for the weekend.

Sunday was cloudy and some fog. We went to Parkplace Reformed Prysberterian [sic] church and enjoyed a good message and friendly church.

Dave and Jan left soon after we got back to fly home. We snacked a little and took a nice nap.

About six Louise & Jim and us went to Bonanza for dinner and we spent the evening reading and watching TV. Monday morning we went with Louise & Jim to the Waffle house for breakfast.

They left for the airport about 10:30 AM. It was a cloudy partly foggy day.

Amy & Rick stopped by on their way back from Hot Spring at noon and asked us to come to their mobile home for supper.

Amy took us to the airport the next morning. It was overcast but we left on time. Had a lot of turbulance and went around a thunderstorm and arrived back at Palm Beach airport safely. Ed and Ann Van Wyk met us there. We traveled by Delta Airlines.

What Grandma and Harvey never knew was that a bunch of our friends had stopped by the trailer while we were honeymooning in Hot Springs and "decorated" the trailer for us. We got home and found yarn wrapped around doorknobs and lamps, toilet paper taped everywhere, chocolate sauce and edible undies arranged carefully on the bed, and condoms - with a little bit of dairy product - taped to the doorknobs. And Grandma was due to arrive in 45 minutes.


Luckily, I was able to get Noelle on the phone and scream for help. I think she was just leaving with the last of the incriminating evidence tucked under her arm when Grandma & Harvey pulled in.



I miss you, Grandma.