Good grief, another year seems to have zipped right on by. Time seems to move even faster as we start to move slower.
Terry is still busy with his contract job with UOP, with his volunteer work for Civitan, and Older Citizen Services (like meals on wheels and inexpensive senior housing), and with swimming laps at the YMCA.
I still stay busy with League of Women Voters (locally and statewide), Red Hat Society, Community Sentencing Council, our church’s ladies’ Bible study, and a reading group that meets every other month.
Our big trip for the year was to France. We spent a part of April in Paris, where we visited the Eiffel Tower, Ste. Chapelle, Notre Dame, La Louvre, and Versailles. Then we went on to visit Normandy. The cemeteries and memorials from World War II were very sobering, but they also reveal the thankfulness the French people have felt for our help there.
We did not get to St. Sauvant where some of my Huguenot ancestors were hung, but we were fairly close in Vouvray, so I thought I at least knew what the landscape was like.
We went back to Paris long enough to get on one of those speedy TGV trains. We enjoyed a smooth ride at 180 mph to Avignon, where we toured around the old Pope’s Palace there, then we rode the bus to Aix en Provence.
We toured St. Saviors Cathedral and the rest of the old town of Aix. We stopped in Grasse to visit a perfumery, where our guide was just sure Terry was a cute little Canadian Frenchman. Little did she know all the scents she was sharing with him had little effect, since he has no sense of smell. Then we visited an old walled city of St. Paul De Vence. The art work and the views there were incredible. The last city we visited in France was Nice, where the main attraction besides the beach was the flower market. There was way more than flowers for sale there. We also took a day to visit Monaco and Monte Carlo. Wow, that is a spectacular place!
Heather and Cameron came from Orlando for a nice long visit. Bartlesville has a baseball tournament along with a July 4 celebration. We were able to arrange for Cameron to sing the national anthem two nights. The local paper had her picture in a couple of times, and she got rave reviews from those who heard her.
We took them out to visit my mom in Texas and Terry’s dad in New Mexico. Those visits were fairly short, but we did visit Bottomless Lakes State Park near Roswell. We had to hurry back to Oklahoma because I had volunteered to drive Pacey to her photography class at the OKC art museum. Thankfully Heather took on that duty. She trusts her city driving a lot more than she trusts mine. There was heavy traffic both a. m. and p. m., so I trusted her driving more than mine, too. Pacey really enjoyed her visits with Aunt Heather on the drive as well as she enjoyed the classes. They had some very creative projects. I hope we get some time to try some of them together.
Heather stays busy keeping Cameron occupied in constructive ways, working at the Scholastic book warehouse, acting with local theaters, entering contests (and she wins a lot) and running races of different kinds to keep her and her friends interested in staying fit. She has had some curious health issues, which we hope turn out to be her body just reacting to that big _0 birthday she had this year.
It was September before Terry and I made our trip out to see Brianna in her new environment of Santa Barbara, California. While Bridget is going to grad school, Bri enjoys her job at Mentor, and she also does some free-lance mapping work to keep her GIS skills sharp as she keeps an eye out for a permanent job in the GIS field.
We took the long route getting there so we could see a few sights, going through Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and in California we toured around part of Lake Tahoe and Yosemite Park. We even managed a short visit with one of my cousins, who directed us the best way from her house to Santa Barbara. We got there just before Brianna got off work on Thursday, so she took Friday off and she had a 3-day weekend to show us the area. Not many cities have city hall available for tours, but that was one impressive part of our tour. It is a beautiful building in Spanish style.
Of course food is another part of any good tour if you are foodies like us, and Santa Barbara has a variety of food. We also saw the Santa Barbara Mission and Stearn’s Wharf. I have a vague memory of the wharf from a visit 51 years ago. Ha, ha. We also visited the botanical gardens and drove up on one of the mountains for some great views. It was lovely weather even though it was cold enough we used extra blankets and turned on the heater a few mornings.
Bri and Bridget miss having the four seasons, but I think Bri does not miss digging her car out of the snow every winter morning before going to work.
Since Brianna went back to work at 6 a. m. on Monday, that gave us a good start on our drive to Arizona. We were on the east side of LA by 9:00 am. And what a relief!
We stopped briefly at Walnut Canyon National Park and visited the meteor crater near Winslow. That meteor is bound to have changed the climate when it crashed into Arizona.
We were so glad we got to visit with our friends Carl and Karen in Arizona. They were kind enough meet us in Holbrook, so we could save a few miles.
We also paid a long-overdue visit to Tom and Jona, Terry’s brother and his wife, in Grants. It was a great evening of catching up and seeing the remodeling they have done to their house, and we got to meet the three grand-nephews, Mason, Conner and Cole, who live in Grants, too. What a crew they are!
We were fortunate enough to stop in Roswell again to visit Terry’s dad. Then we were on our way to Tahoka, Texas, to attend Terry’s 50th class reunion. Terry’s classmates are a neat bunch of people, and they put on a fun reunion.
We then took one more day to visit my mother in Channing. My sister Sandy was good enough to come down from Boise City, OK to visit with us there, too.
All the grandkids headed back to school in August, and it seems like they all have a good match in their teachers. Cameron is in 5th grade, Pacey is in 4th, and Cohen is in Kindergarten. Leah and Tyler have both moved on to middle school and are in 6th and 7th grades. Cameron has been singing with a choir at school, but it requires rising an hour earlier on choir day. UGH! All four of the kids at Libby and Pat’s house are taking piano lessons and have at least one other activity. I have no idea how anyone keeps up with their schedules, but there seem to be very few slip-ups.
Because it has been 18 years since Wendy’s death, we had expected the grief to be waning somewhat, but for some reason this year has been more difficult than recent years. It just seems we get caught off guard by the most surprising things: a song, a picture, a story, a simple comment or thought, and here come the tears. Maybe we are being affected by the news of so many very young people dying so unexpectedly. Or perhaps it is a stage we have forgotten we were warned about. One thing we have learned to be thankful for in all things is that the Lord is right there with us in those tough situations. Libby has had an opportunity to promote a film about domestic violence and I’m sure Wendy was on her mind as she did this bit in the trailer for the movie. For those who have not seen her in a while, she is the first lady to speak. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/726731863/feature-film-brings-awareness-to-domestic-violence
The most enjoyable part of our travels this year has been visiting with friends and family. Even getting to see Libby’s family once every month or two does not always seem like enough, so seeing the others only once or twice a year, REALLY isn’t enough. We are looking forward to Bri and Bridget coming to Oklahoma for Christmas this year (seeing them twice in one year!! And some of our friends we have not seen in years, so what a treat it was to see those of you we got to see! Maybe next year for the rest of you.
These are a few of the highlights of our year, and I guess some of the low ones too. We hope yours has been at least as fun and varied. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and may God bless you with a wonderful new year in 2011. If you’d like to see more pictures go to: http://gallery.me.com/cheriterry#gallery .
