Deja Vu

Where have the years gone? I'm feeling this sense of sadness all over again....my baby is off to school. After babysitting Jayna nearly every day (Mon-Fri) for the past 5 years, it's hard to see her go. I wasn't sure how she would respond when it came time to step up onto the big yellow bus for the very first time. Jayna is one spunky little tyke...she isn't afraid of anything...until she comes face to face with it. At the roller coaster, she was so excited...until time to get on. Daddy talked her through it and she LOVED it (wanted to go again and again). She could hardly wait until she could take that first airplane ride...until time to get on. Again, Daddy and Mommy coaxed, coached, and urged. She enjoyed the ride. But this time would be different ---- no one would be accompanying her into the unknown. My grandma heart was breaking for her....knowing that she would soon be changed forever.... no longer that small, sheltered innocent little girl. I've been here before. just yesterday it was --- with 3 of my own. SIGH!!!

Anyway, we walked to the bus stop, where about 12-15 other children and their mothers were waiting. While waiting for the bus to arrive, she complained from time to time about her belly hurting, and cried several times, saying she didn't want to go to school. April reassured her that it was because she was scared, that it was okay to be scared, but tried to tell her that everything would be okay, going over and over again that she would have fun, etc. etc. etc. Blah, blah, blah!! It would work for awhile, she'd smile, let us take a picture. Then we'd start all over again. The bus was about 20 minutes late, and when it did she really panicked. She began to cry and said she wasn't going on the bus. All the others had boarded and it was her turn. She chickened out big-time, so April decided perhaps it would go better if she took her to school, then she could ride the bus home.

That worked! April said she was fine. When they got to school, someone dressed as a penguin greeted them and someone else came and offered to walk Jayna to her room. She cheerfully gave Mommy goodbye, and walked away smiling. April had a hard time with all of this. She said she cried all the way from the bus stop to the school, then again as she left the school. I'm not sure if these first days of school are hardest on the kids or on the mommies (and grandmas). But we all made it!! When we met her at the bus stop after school, she hopped off the bus smiling and said she had a good day --- and would ride the bus tomorrow. I guess that remains to be seen. But she makes friends easily and enjoys playing with them, so I'm sure it won't be as hard now that she's already been on the bus.

Waiting for the bus

Goodbye, Kaylee.

Now it's her turn. (She's crying, saying she doesn't want to get on.)

THE DAY'S OVER --- SHE'S HOME!!

One happy little girl -- she made it through her first day!

All smiles!

We went to the cabin to work on Tuesday. Since school was starting Wednesday, we decided to take Jayna with us for one last day at camp. We took her bicycle along, and she enjoyed the day playing at the playground, riding her bike and playing at the stream just behind the cabin.

Jayna enjoys the stream!

View of the back side of the cabin, looking up from the stream. There was no window on the back wall of the living room, so we put one in. What a view it has!

The view from our living room window. Gorgeous!!

The back "yard" -- a nice place for a picnic table, and relaxation!

I finished painting the kitchen (salmon white), but decided to wait to lay the vinyl until we finish the living room and bedroom. There's a lot of drywall compound needed on the ceilings, so that means a lot of dust and dirt yet! UGH! I have mini-blinds and curtains to put up, but will wait until the dust has settled. (Perhaps until spring, since our warm days this year are limited, and they'd just get dirty over the winter anyway.)

Our Busy Weekend

This has been a busy week. Friday evening I attended a bridal shower for one of our church girls who is getting married in November. It was a fun evening of games, food and fellowship.

Alisha was SURPRISED!

The attractive food table.

One of the games

We were given a minute or so to look at this apron, then had to see how many items we could remember after she left the room. Then the apron and the items were given to Alisha.

Saturday we had a pancake breakfast at our local airport. JAARS (Jungle Aviation And Radio Service) had a "Missions at the Airport" this weekend and asked our church if we would like to sponsor a pancake breakfast. Our missionaries in Zimbabwe have been telling us of the overwhelming situation there and the dire need for funds to help their people. So we decided to do it and send the profits to Zimbabwe. It fell my lot to organize the event, and I was deeply blessed by the generosity of our people. Donations of food and money came in to allow ALL the money given at the breakfast to go directly to Zimbabwe. Lots of good help made it go smoothly. I regret that I didn't take pictures of that part of the day, but JAARS gave airplane and helicopter rides. Joel's family and John and I went on an airplane ride and buzzed Burnham. That was fun to see our houses from a birds-eye view.

Our house and Joel's

Our house is on the left side of the street

On the top left is a big tree in the middle of two horizontal lines.

Our big garage is just in front of that. Our house is to the right of the garage.

Joel's is on the right side of the street, 2nd house from the bottom.

The full shot from which I cropped the one above.

April and Jayna enjoying the ride.

Joel and Jayna beside our plane -- after the ride.

We arrived home about 1:00 and I had to clean up the pots, pans, etc. from the breakfast. Then we left around 5:00 to go to a retirement dinner for Bill and Elaine Baublitz, pastor of the Roseglen BIC Church. They are moving to Chambersburg, so when we spend time at our cabin, we plan to visit them since they'll be nearby.

Sunday afternoon our church had a picnic at Greenwood Furnace Park at 4:00. Then our evening service was held in the chapel on the park grounds. It was a good time of fellowship in singing and praising the Lord. Everyone seemed to enjoy it.

The Byler family sang a special song.

After the service was over, we took our time going home and went home the "back way" through the valley. We were going through Reedsville when we saw ambulance lights blinking and the traffic was stopped. When they let us go through, we saw Sheri (Ritchey) Byler standing at the side of the road ready to cross over. John motioned her to go across, and when we got closer, realized it was her car that was in an accident. We stopped to make sure everyone was okay, and they seemed to be. The 3 young people in the picture above (who sang a special in our evening service) were the 3 in the accident. Alisha is the one getting married in November, Jaron is her brother, and Sheri is his new bride. Cousins who were in from Michigan for the bridal shower and to come for school at Penns Creek were all on their way to Jaron and Sheri's house for a time of fellowship. They were waiting to turn left onto their street when a truck hit them from behind. Never saw them. The trunk literally was pushed into the back seat. Alisha had some pain in her neck, so they took her to the hospital to make sure she is okay. She had played her violin at the evening service, and had put it in the Michigan van with her cousins. Otherwise, it would have been in the trunk of the car. Thank the Lord for that decision.

We were glad to get home and RELAX after our hectic weekend. Now we'll see what this week holds. Will we be making a trip to Tennessee???? We'll wait and see.

Our New Cabin

Cabin 5

"The cabin with MANY fond memories"

Even before I was "hatched" my parents owned part of Cabin 5 -- on the front row next to the tabernacle. It was co-owned by family members and we always enjoyed staying with cousins. After I was married, they bought 1/2 of the first floor (side A). We had one room that included our sitting and sleeping area and a SMALL 1/2 bath (a toilet and sink -- cold water only!) But it was a great place to go for camp and we eagerly looked forward to each year. Our children grew up attending camp -- except for the years we were living in Florida, we went every year. Many memories were made in this cabin. However, we had been thinking in the past several years how we could incorporate a shower and hot water in our unit, plus have enough room for our children and grandchildren to join us for at least part of camp --- IN THIS ONE ROOM!!! Well, it just wasn't possible. So when a nearby cabin came up for sale during this year's camp, we looked into it and felt it would be a great possibility for us. So we put a bid on it -- and it's officially ours. When we talked with my cousins who own the other part of the cabin and told them of our interest in Cabin 44, they decided that if ours was the winning bid, they would sell Cabin 5 as a whole unit. So with VERY MIXED EMOTIONS .... Cabin 5 is for sale. To my family members reading this blog, we all share many GOOD memories of times spent together here and I want you to know it's harder on me than I can say in words to move to another location. It just won't be the same. But then I have to remind myself that everything in life has its cycles and things change over the years. Nothing remains the same. So along with this reminder to all of you, I want you to know you are CORDIALLY invited to visit us at Cabin 44 any time you are at camp. We want to make many good family memories here!


NOW......

THIS IS CABIN 44

(as we bought it)

I will post the "after" pictures when we're done with it.

John sitting on our front porch

The bathroom is to the right -- with a bedroom behind it.

View of the kitchen from the living room.

Living room

(We'll put in a futon and studio couch which will double as beds, when necessary).

View of the kitchen from the front door.

The living room is through the doorway, the bathroom (which includes a sink, toilet, and shower) is to the right. So now we won't have to go the camp's shower room -- and will have hot water right in our cabin. YEAH!!!

There is also room to build on an extra bedroom if we need more sleeping space. We'll see about that. Maybe we'll try it awhile and see if we need to add on. We were down to Roxbury one day last week to begin painting the outside. Hopefully, we'll be able to go down again this week and do some more. I'll post pictures as we get things done. At the back there is a nice space to put a picnic table and sit for relaxation. It borders the creek and we especially like the tranquil setting. We're looking forward to going down on our days off just to "get away."

Camp

We went to our church's annual camp meeting at Roxbury, PA, the first week of August. Our grand-daughter Jayna was there with us and thoroughly enjoyed being with her (3rd) cousin Colin Patterson. He and his mother and sister stayed in the other side of our cabin, so they had lots of fun. He had brought his Jeep along, so she had driver's lessons. Smile! Every year the children's leaders plan a parade and give prizes for various catagories. Colin's mother (Patty Patterson -- her dad is my first cousin) came prepared with animals for Noah's Ark. Since the children's theme was "Jesus, King of the Jungle" many of the children decorated their bikes or wore outfits based on animals. Jayna was "Noah" and drove the "ark" while Colin dressed as a penguin and his friend Allysa Payne dressed as a tiger. Patty fastened 2 of various kinds of animals to the Jeep. The Patterson Crew won 2nd place in the Best Decorated Vehicle.
Jayna wasn't ready to leave camp when the time came to go home. She's already looking forward to next year!

Before and After

I've been reminiscing today about what we were doing a year ago. Things were rather hectic -- we were remodeling an old house, getting it ready to move into. We had owned this property as a rental unit for several years. The people who had rented it for the past 4 years were moving out and due to several different circumstances, we decided to sell our house in Belleville and move into this one. So we spent a full 3 months getting it ready. I thought it would be interesting to post before and after pictures, but alas, I forgot that they don't fall in the order in which I wanted them. So the top ones are the ones I wanted last. Oh well, you'll get the gist of what we went through to get it ready ------ and the great transformation of it all.

Our latest project (done this spring) was to add a one-car garage to the house. This is what it looked like last fall after we moved in. Before the garage.
Now it looks like this.
We saved the old kitchen cabinets and put the best ones in the garage. With a nice new countertop, it makes a nice storage area.
I have an extra refrigerator and 2 freezers in the garage, which is just off the dining room. Since it is so easily accessible, we also use it for entertaining. I've claimed this space as mine -- told John he can keep all his "stuff" in the big (31' x 52') garage out back. It's worked.......so far! You can see his garage in the outside "before" picture above.

One of the greatest transformations in the whole house was the upstairs bathroom. It was UNREAL -- BEFORE!! The built-in overhead cabinets made you feel claustrophobic. There was a little sink attached to the wall on the right of the toilet and the toilet leaned against the chimney next to it. The floor sloped about 1 1/2" -- apparently it had been an outside porch 'long time ago, so we totally gutted it, took up the floor, and started all over. Hence,
Now -- It is lovely.
Took out the old clawfoot tub.
Now in it's place is a lovely new sink and toilet. In re-designing the layout, we put the sink and toilet where the old tub was, and put a 48" shower and closet where the old toilet and sink were.

Our bedroom had this tiny little closet about 12" deep and 6' long. We tore it out and built a walk-in closet.
AFTER -- the new 4' x 7' closet
Before -- It had nasty 60s shag carpet.Now -- it has lovely teal carpet and nice new bedding which matches perfectly. (The picture doesn't show the true shades.)
Another view of our bedroom -- after

The dining room -- before The door is to the upstairs. We took it off and.....voila
AFTER --- What a transformation!!! We put a door into the attached garage, and took the nasty carpet out and put in laminate flooring.
Another view from the dining room. Living room to the right.

Doorway in the middle of the picture leads to the kitchen.

Laundry room -- There were no cabinets, so the guy that custom-built the kitchen cabinets made these to match the pine paneling. He did a great job! (This picture was taken before I had my curtains at the windows.)

The living room BEFORE. There was a closet that took up almost one wall. We tore it out! And got rid of the dark paneling and put drywall on.

AFTER -- The couch is sitting in the old closet!!

Before
After

Now, the
KITCHEN

Before

AFTER!!

Before

After

I so much enjoy my kitchen. I've never had a tile backsplash before, and John told me if I wanted it, I'd have to do it myself. SO I DID!!! It turned out better than I had even hoped it would. Don't want to do it for a living though.

The outside -- Before

After (We painted the siding a light beige, but that doesn't show up well.)

Before

After