Busy Summer - Happy Stuff

We've had such a busy summer! Of course, Lar being retired now, it isn't as crazy for him as it is for me....we've had things almost every weekend...but thank goodness, they have all been wonderful, happy, family times. Last weekend we had the delight of driving upstate to Wilkesbarre PA for the celebration of our darling nephew and his girlfriend from college. We were really looking forward to the trip and were all the more delighted when youngest son Pat and his wife decided to go too. We did a caravan for about half the way until we oldsters had to make a "pit stop" and they didn't want to take a chance on the babies waking when they stopped the car. Traffic was horrendous, but we all arrived safely, which, after all, is the most important thing.

The celebration was at my youngest brother's firehall - he is Fire Chief there.

Brian had graduated Summa Cum Laude from Norwich University in Northfield in VT with a Masters Degree in Architecture. He also received the Henry Adams Medal from the American Institute of Architecture for outstanding academic achievement. He was ranked first in his class and won the outstanding project award as well. Needless to say, we are very, very proud of him.

The food was outstanding - having been lovingly prepared by Brian's mother, Jan, his girlfriend Noy and her mother.
Baby granddaughter Maddie received no shortage of attention from everyone and took it with great charm for a long time. When she finally had a "melt down" I wasn't surprised, as I might too, if I'd been entertaining so many for so long.

Maddie's Great Aunts Carol (my sister) and Sue finally met both Maddie and her big brother Ian.

Ian had a blast running and playing with the other cousins. It is whispered that he also fell somewhat in love with his big cousin 'Randa.

Noy had been wanting a picture of us together...so I didn't forget!

Brian's mom's sister is an artist and she did this amazing rendering of him as a gift. I am amazed at the likeness! Another amazing feature on the gift table was a framed newspaper clipping from when Brian was in SECOND grade! He had won mention for his project in an Architecture class. His proud mom still has the little house he designed! Imagine! Finding your calling in second grade!

It was finally time to say goodbye to all and set out to find a room. We had all 6 decided to stay overnight somewhere on the way. Lar had decided that it looked on line like there were rooms abounding, so no reservations had been made. (Except mine....I definitely had reservations about that!) We went out to our cars, and as we were about to set off, I called the 800 reservation number. After checking all the hotels to which she was connected, she found only two rooms available - about 15 miles or so North - the wrong way. Apparently there were a number of major events going on this weekend and everyone was booked full. It was obvious, we'd have to take them. She made the reservations and we set out. And then Pat called from their car to see if maybe we could have made them connecting so that we could chat together for a while. I hadn't thought of that, but knew that there were only two rooms to be had anywhere. Nevertheless, I called the 800 number again to get the actual hotel number. I told the person who answered that we had made reservations at the Wilkesbarre-Scranton hotel (because that is what the GPS listed it as) and she gave me the number. I called. I explained that we had just made the reservations and wondered if there was any chance at all that the rooms were connected. The young man was shocked that I had been able to make reservations...he said, "but we have no rooms!" I was barely breathing at this point. Then he checked and came back and said, "well, I guess I was wrong....you can have two double rooms and I will see what I can do about getting them adjoining. You see, we have been having a housekeeping shortage and I didn't know we had enough rooms made up." Whew!

So on we drove.

And then we got lost.

And I called the hotel again to get directions.

And the girl at the desk said, "I'm pretty sure you don't have reservations here!"

Turns out - GPS took us to the right hotel, but called it the wrong name. Therefore, I had reservations in the right hotel, and apparently they were trying to clean rooms for me in the Wrong hotel! It was incredibly confusing but the bottom line was, we got great rooms, for a great price - Pat and Amy got a suite so we were able to have the kids sleep in the bedroom and we could hang out and chat and eat pizza and drink beer and wine far into the night.

All's well that ends well.