Baptism Day!

Ian is eight and now he is baptized! I drove with Grandma and Grandpa up the mountain so we could be there too. What a cute kid!

Four generation picture - they all look so nice in their suits!

Ian with his favorite aunt - I'm sure!

Temple Photo Shoot

While I was up on the mountain I decied to do a temple photo shoot. Here are some of the ones I like, but what I really want to know is what you all think, tell me which is your favorite.

Hip Surgery

This last week I couldn't work because Amphi school district is on fall break, dad was going in to have his hip surgery so I decided to go home for the week, and I am so glad that I did! I got to spend some time with everyone and help out a little, and my car went on the spritz again. I tell you I don't know what I would do without brothers, Jon has been working on it, and calling Daniel for his opinion. They are great and I really don't know what I would do without them. Dad and Scott both got to add in what they think it is. Everyone thought it was the Alternator or the connections to the battery, well we found out that it wasn't the alternator so now to check the connections.

The night before dad's hip surgery we had a party. Dad fixed the spa up and as a special surprise Elise, Ian, Jaden and Melissa all got to 'swim' with Grandpa!

There was a lot of splashing, jumping and tickling...

We also played charades with Ian and Elise.

Let's see... A movie...

Three words... Who knows but we all had fun and it brought back a lot of good memories!

Tuesday October 14th, bright and early, earlier than needed- but that's dad for you, Dad and Aunt Louise went to the hospital to check in. Dad poses for his 'before' shot.

I went in while he was still in recovery. He was there so much longer than the lady at information had told me that I was getting worried. The reason I found out later was that his blood pressure had dropped to 70/40! They were all really worried about it, but finally took him out and I followed him up to his room. He was semi awake and but mostly out of it. He would look at me, and wave. This went on for the next few hours. He would start to fall asleep, wake up look around see me and wave and say, "Hi, Mary." Then close his eyes again and snore for a minute. He had to be bundled up to get his body temperature up after being in the cold OR. The report on his surgery was that it went really well, the new hip was in and appeared to be right on. The big surprise was that he had a lot of tumors. We all knew there was one, but the way the doctor put it, they were like gravel in his hip area. The doctor isn't worried about them, but he sent them to biopsy anyway. He thinks some were actually bone break off from a fall. I guess a while back, dad fell off Daniel's horse, Robbie, and landed on his hip.

Wednesday, he was doing better. In typical Dad fashion, he was asked to get up and walk to the door and back to his bed, he got up and walked all the way to the nurses station. On Thursday he walked all the way to the room of a neighbor who was just out of knee replacement surgery. I had to talk to him about the difference of pushing yourself to get better and over-doing it.

He had a hard day Thursday, despite walking all the way down the hall, maybe partly because of it. They had problems keeping his bandages clean. They also had problems keeping his IV in. He has bruises all up and down his arms were they tried to poke him but it didn't work. The one that actually went in, proved to be a bigger problem, because it backed out of the vain and made his arm swell up. At this point they decided not to put one in anymore and that he could do all his medicine orally.

Thursday also brought visitors. Jon and family came in to say hi. While walking in with Jaden I tried to tell him that he couldn't push any buttons. He looked up at me in wonder and said, "There are buttons!"

All the kids got a ride on Grandpa's bed and a candy from his get well stash.

Aunt Louise spent this morning (Friday) rearranging the family room, which will be dad's room for the next three weeks because he can't do stairs. I slept through it all! That shows you just how much help I am!

Around three today, dad came home from the hospital and made his way slowly to the bed, where he is now, in reach of the phone where he has already put out a few calls. As Jon would say, "Shocker!"

Day Six - Saturday

Today we started our long trek home.

This has been our home away from home, and trust me when I say the hospitality here rates higher than a five star hotel. Thanks to Robin and family we had a wonderful time.

If our day could be summed up in an over-used cliche it would be; "Hurry up and wait." It was honestly over-used on our way home. First we woke up and hurried to get out the door and on our way, Robin quickly made us her famous egg sandwiches and we got in the car for the drive down to Baltimore. Once in Baltimore we decided that if we were quick we would have enough time to go to Fort McHenry (where the flag stood after a War of 1812 battle and Francis Scott Key immortalized it in our National Anthem). We used Roada (Dad and Aunt Louise's GPS system) and found ourselves in downtown Baltimore, with about the entire city. We were stopped at one intersection for about a half hour before we made it to the next, thinking we were on our way again. We were wrong, we sat at the next light while thousands of people ran past - yes that is right - thousands. You see we picked the day of the Baltimore Marathon to try and drive through the town. You can't really see the runners from the picture but they were there running past. After about 40 minutes of this we were able to get through and tried unsuccessfully to turn down the needed streets. We finally found a street we could go down, only to find that it lead to Camden Yards home of the Orioles. And thousands more people were flocking there for I can only assume was a game (or the end of the marathon). We rerouted, got on a freeway and drove around to another entrance to the park. No luck, it was closed for the run as well. Maybe the run started at the Fort. We gave up and followed the signs to the airport and turned in the car, checked in, went through security and waited. And waited and waited. There seemed to be some problems with airplanes all over the place. I was sitting next to a guy who was trying to get home to Detroit, he was supposed to leave at 9, but was still there when our late plane left at 3. So I can at least be grateful that we didn't have to wait that long. But there were delays and repairs going on all around. One flight had to wait for their flight crew to get there, the woman at the counter kept announcing their progress. "They are on the freeway." "They are parking." "They are going through security." When they finally walked in the entire boarding area burst out in applause.

We finally hurried on to our plane, settled ourselves and waited for landing in Atlanta. In the meantime...

We flew right around the dead air space of DC, but you could see the capital!

In the picture below you can see the Mall (long strip of grass) with the Capital building at the north end and the Washington Monument on the south. In the southeast corner, across the Potomac River into Virgina you can even see the Pentagon.

North Carolina, hazy from above.

Atlanta, Georgia above the clouds...

Atlanta, Georgia below the clouds

We waited in the Atlanta airport for a few hours, not as many as were going to have to wait due to our last flight being delayed. We remembered the last time we were here and the fact that they changed our boarding gate, so we made sure to check, and it had been moved. When it was time to board we found that again they had moved our flight again, this time to the other side of the concourse. We had to practically run to get there, but once there we just... waited.

Finally we were on the plane, seated and up in the air, flying without gaining on a never ending sunset.

Day Five - Friday

Today was all about York, we started the cemetery search up again.
Here we go...


Greenmount Cemetery


Honestly the trees at this cemetery were 100 times more appealing to me than the headstones.



Prospect Hill Cemetery

Baltzer Spengler who was a great-great...grandfather's little brother.

Johannes Roth and his wife Susanna, our great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather and mother. This one was an exciting find, one that had been moved to this cemetery sometime ago and was amazing we could even find it at all but we had the help of the cemetery office to look it up and point us in the right direction. Now we need Rosa's help to interpret the German.

Next we took in some of the historic sites of York, ate at the White Rose (Which is what York is), and went to the Historical Society to research records.