Weddings, Storms, Butterflies and ORBS.....

Another name/# is added to the family tree. In Donnys family, one of his cousins made a cross stitch several years ago - kind of a family tree.
Donnys dad had seven brothers and sisters (actually 8 - one sister died very young).
On the family tree, each family was given a color (for the thread). Each family member was given a number - when they came into the family.
Granpa was #1, Grandma was #2, Lou was #3 and so one. You got the next number when you came into the family. Donny is #19, I think I'm #54 and Melissa & Nick are somewhere in the latter 50's or early 60s. I'm guessing Katie is in the 100s now.
Going to try to find out WHERE she falls - and where Mere, Drew & Max are. Kind of a neat way to keep track for geneology purposes. Anyway - we have a new member of the family...Welcome Katie!
Some interesting stories from THIS wedding. One of the grooms uncles picked up his suit from the dry cleaners right before coming to the wedding (from Dayton, to Michigan). When he was getting ready for the wedding (about 45 min before), he got into the dry cleaning only to find that his PANTS weren't there. He was at Men's Warehouse @ 1:30, & $136 later, he got pants, they were hemmed and he was at the wedding at 1:55...GREAT advertising for Men's Warehouse, eh? The boyfriend of one of the bridesmaids split his pants an hour before the wedding, was at Macy's a half hour before buying a new pair of pants....
AND the story of the wedding (which most people probably don't even know yet) - after the reception, the bride and groom went back to their room, obviously checking their luggage to make sure they had everything, and the bride couldn't find her passport. They DID find it (at Kinkos, where she left it the day before) and I'm guessing they are sipping frozen drinks on the beach right now...at least I HOPE they are! and they'll live HAPPILY EVER AFTER.....


The Bride and Groom...Congratulations Katie & Ben!


Pam and the Fort boys....some of them. The uncles of the groom...Rob, John & Rick.


Donny & Doug (his best friend, neighbor, my 2nd cousin, and the grooms Uncle. AND the person who gave Donny my phone # 41 years ago...Thanks Doug!


Donny's dad had 7 brothers and sisters. Aunt Jo was married to Lou, the oldest brother. This is her with her boys...Bill, John, Rob & Rick. Ben is Bill's son.


Donny and his good friend Tim - former co-worker from NCR (lives in Michigan close to where we went for the wedding. His girlfriend, Catherine, was diagnosed with breast cancer in Sept. Last fall I wrote about when she had her biopsy, Tim was with her and looked up and there was a butterfly on the light - right about the time I was writing a lot about butterflies! Said he felt like it was someone watching over them - and he hadn't read the blog in awhile. Told him "of course it's Melissa watching over her!"



Summer Storms

Actually should have put Norris Lake FIRST. We got home from Norris on Sunday, this happened on Monday, July 11. Normally the news interrupts with Storm Warnings whenever a storm like this is coming. That night, they never interrupted broadcasting, so we had NO idea what was coming. The sky was OMINOUS. Ugly clouds, lots of lightening. Then the winds started. Our power went out around 9:30. (it was out from that night until Friday morning!) Took the first picture after the rain stopped that night. We had a couple of big branches down from our tree in the front yard, and our lawn furniture was scattered in the back yard. The wind was blowing from the west to the east, but the grill on our deck was blown from the east side of the deck to the west side of the deck. Hmmmm? Lots of branches down on our street.
We had NO idea how much damage there was any where else. We drove around a small part of Kettering when the storm passed, and it was unbelievable. Power lines down, trees uprooted, lots of large branches off trees. We found out a later the next day that the roof was torn off an apartment building a couple of miles away.
In another neighborhood not far from us, I think every house either had an uprooted tree or branches down. It was a mess...
I've heard 80mph winds and an F1 tornado. Not sure WHAT it was. But every time we get a storm like that, we lose power for a minium of 4 days. Fortunately we are blessed with great neighbors (across the street), who NEVER lose their power and bring an extension cord (not safe, I know) across the street so we can plug in our refrigerator and a fan so we can sleep. Fortunately it wasn't a catastrophe. Uprooted trees and roof damage can be taken care of. I think it was God's way of boosting the economy here...more tree trimmers and Power & Light trucks in this area than I've seen in a long time. They'll have work for the rest of the summer!



The lid on the fire pit in our backyard was flipped over by the wind and stayed on the firepit collecting rain! Nothing else sat still like that in our backyard!




Tree on house...




Uprooted tree in MY parking space at school!


I'm guessing this was probably a 50ft pine tree, uprooted. Next to my school...


The next pictures were taken on my four mile walk -
Several uprooted pine trees in a row...


Notice one tree is uprooted and leaning, others still standing!


Solid metal 30ft flagpole...bent...


Uprooted tree in Delco Park (on my walk)


This is probably a 40ft evergreen, uprooted.


Tree on house...I took this picture last week. Walked by this morning and it's STILL on the house..

small uprooted tree on our street...


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Norris Lake and butterflies....

Took a long weekend for a relaxing couple of days at Norris Lake in Tennesse. If you've never been there, it's BEAUTIFUL. Very peaceful.
This is our view from the pontoon boat. We stayed in the hotel on the hill. Were able to tie the pontoon boat up at a dock right below the hotel. The dock in the foreground is Shanghai Dock. Nice restaurant and little store too. We'll take this vacation EVERY summer.


We found a great cove to swim in for the day - or just relax on the rafts...


This butterfly stayed around the boat and landed on the boat several times the first day...



We found a relatively quiet cove, pulled the pontoon boat up to the shore and tied up for the day. This butterfly kept flying around the boat, finally landing IN the boat. First eased my foot close and "she" didn't fly away. So I put my hand down, and she climbed onto my hand - even let me move my hand toward Donny for a picture!




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Drewisms and Maxisms...

ALWAYS a good story from Drew and Max too...
Nick & Mere took the boys to the grocery with them on Sunday. They had one of those carts that looks like a race car. Fun for the boys. As they were walking through the aisles, two different "grandmotherly" women commented on how cute the boys were. Nick & Mere were delighted, of course, but realized that they had been pretty quiet for some time. They got in front of the cart to see what they were doing, and they were each eating a pop tart, Max holding the box (and had part of the foil from the package in his teeth). Two very happy boys...I'm sure they were thinking "isn't this great? We can just pull whatever we want off the shelves!"...one of those UNINTENDED purchases...(Grandma says "OH, they were happy AND behaving. That's all that matters...")
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Last week Mere and the boys and I went to a friends house to go swimming. On the way home, Meredith was telling me the story about the day she walked in to Max's room and he was sitting on his Elmo car, pants down, pooping. We chuckled about that, and I asked Drew, "That's not where Max should poop. Where should he poop?"
Drew said "IN THE BACKYARD".....
Which leads to the story of Max's first birthday party at our house last summer.
He was COVERED with cake and icing after we sang happy birthday to him, so Mere took all his clothes off so we could "hose him down"...my sister Sue looked up and said "hey Pam, look at Max..." He was SQUATTING by the fence in the back of the yard...pooping. (And we didn't get another dog after we put Bandit down because I was tired of cleaning up poop in the backyard. Never thought I'd be cleaning up after my GRANDKIDS...)


(maybe THIS is why Drew thinks this is where Max should go "potty"...hmmmmm...)



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ORBS

and you KNOW I love to put "new" photos of FORT when I find them....

Went to visit the medium again...it was ANOTHER good session. This time we talked about Melissa, JP, my friends Jackie and Ruth. I told him about the picture with orb (that I posted on the blog a few months back)...he said you can actually INVITE them in to a picture! After he told me that, he said, "something floral. Is there a bedspread or something floral. Mauve"...that would be the quilt on my bed. He told me to take the picture there. Then he said "I always say the Lord's Prayer first. JP can be there too. Is there a Nursery Rhyme, or something she always said?" (I can do it myself")...he said "Say that." Then he said to wait a couple of days - she used a lot of energy that day - and let her know a couple of days ahead. So I did.
So we got home from the wedding on Sunday, and we were BOTH anxious to take the pictures. We took about ten pictures.

Now I KNOW you probably think we are crazy. And maybe we are. But we do whatever we have to to get through one day at a time. And believe it or not, this really helps. I also know how skeptical WE are (and MOST people), but we did it anyway. And for you skeptics - we checked all the pictures I took on this camera this summer...Vegas, Kiawah Island, Norris Lake, Michigan wedding...and there are NO orbs in any other pictures. (We even enlarged other pictures to see if there were any)...
So, believe or not, here a two of the best pictures...

This is the first picture I took. Click to enlarge photo - look at the bottom/middle of the wall hanging, right above the pillow. Two orbs - a bigger and smaller one...


Click on the picture - it should enlarge and you can see the orbs. Two right next to Donny, a bigger one and smaller one and some others in the pic.