Good bye Shenandoah, Hello Hershey!

Well our southern vacation began just over a week ago. We hurried out of New York, heading south to miss yet another possable snow storm. On our first night we made it to Belden Hills Campground just as the sun set. They were scheduled to open on the first, I called while at work and asked if they would mind our spending the night there, and he graciously said yes. So we were off, we got home at 4:30 and were on our way by 5pm. It was a dry drive to the campground. We would have a quiet night but Chey thought she was there to bark at all the deer living in the field around us. She cried and whined hoping to get us to let her out to play with the deer. So sleep was not a part of our stop.
The next day we headed for Lickdale, it was only a few hours as it was supposed to be our first stop. The truck traffic at the campground was noisy, although I did not notice it. Tom said it kept him up! We did not unhook, just got some fried chicken at the store and had dinner and relaxed.
First thing the next morning we were off to Virginia's Shenandoah Mountains. All I can say is what a beautiful area. Not only do they have beautiful mountains, but the farms and valleys are pristine. The campground is woodsy and had a beautiful waterfall,

with a creek running thru it. The only complaint about Shenandoah Valley Campground was that the sites were small and close to each other. It was windy while we were there and we were not comfortable having a fire as it was so close to our trailer. We set up and headed out for dinner, ribs, chicken, shrimp all the things that make you think south. The restaurant was called Rackem Sackem Ribs, very good meal. The next day we were off to The Blue Ridge Parkway, it is full of beautiful views of the mountains and valley below. Laura loved riding with me, daddy calls her our truck puppy, she loves it!

We rode for a few hours and then escaped the parkway to grab some lunch. Our first Hardees ever. It was ok, for fast food. People here are amazingly friendly and helpful. I can't think of a place that when entering with the wheelchair somebody did not help us. Awesome! After lunch we went back to the camp and relaxed. Had a nice relaxing evening.
The next morning we were up early and off for Skyline drive in Shenandoah National Park, yet another beautiful drive. Although the mountains are still bare from the long winter it is beautiful! Gives you a differant view. The national park is said to be loaded with animals. Within the first few miles of our drive we met several deer crossing the road. I stopped so Laura could see them. Chey was up and barking at the deer, who just stood there and stared at her. We went about 50 miles of the parkway and spent almost the whole day there. It was awesome but very long at the same time. I don't believe that anyone could drive the entire 110 miles in one day, it was exhausting and beautiful all in one.
I must say this is a place that I would enjoy much more without a child in a wheelchair. A place that needs to be seen from the numerous trails, I am sure we missed the best parts of Shenandoah. Don't get me wrong, I would not give my life with Laura up for this or anything. Let me just say, it is one of the things I miss about my single life. Just to have the ability to chose to hike down one of those trails to see a differant vista or waterfall. What it will it be like, to see the national parks in this country with a child in a wheelchair will be differant for us. Our experience will be from the road side! It is what it is! I am sure we will love experiencing the parks together but I will always feel we may have missed something.
When we left Virginia we were ready to go, maybe not north but we had seen what we came to see. I would love to come back someday when the leaves and flowers are in bloom. The season is late here also, the very nice lady who cut Lauras hair told me that usually by the first week it is in full bloom here. So we leave beautiful sunny Virginia and headed north.
Here we are at Twin Grove Rv park, getting ready for our visit to Hershey today. I must leave now to get that kid ready!

Laura, Tom and I at Shenandoah!

These photos are of the three of us on top of the Shenandoah Mountain range on Skyline Drive. It was a relaxing beautiful place to spend the day! More later!

So our spring adventure begins just in the nick of time!

I spent a good part of the day stressing about the looming noreaster, the weather guys love to instil fear in all of us. I had to take matters into my own hands, with the assistance of the internet I found a campground just north of Bighamton that would put us up for the night. Hopefully we drove just far enough south/west to miss the snow. I really do not care if it rains, after all that is what spring is all about. So for now Tom and Laura are snacking and a game of yahtzee is in my immiedate future. Matter of fact the game is in my hand. A night of rest and then we will be on the road to Pennsylvania and finally Shenandoah National Park. I can't wait to get there, it has been a long time coming, let the adventure begin...............

Shenandoah here we come!

This will have to be a quick post, just to let you know I am hoping to post pictures and info about our great adventure. This week has been very busy packing and organizing the RV. Last week I said good bye for the final time to Aunt Mary, as Karen said "Til we meet again". The weekend was all about packing, errands and a few hours for family Sunday. Almost all of us were there, Tom stayed home to do some chores and Theresa, Bill and Will were on vacation in Florida and Heather was home with Miles who is sick wih a yucky ear infection. I invited Melissa and Hayden who both enjoyed there time away from all the craziness of the last few weeks. Melissa really has had a long hard time watching and waiting for her Mom to pass. Now she has to deal with a brother that thought he could get rich on his Mother's death, sick little yuck he is. What a terrable life he must have to be hanging on to his Mother's money to feed himself. I listened as he planed on buying a car and building a house. Craziness, they paid for his education, he actually has a Masters degree in music education. Really he needs to make it on his own now and this might just be what he needs to give him the kickstart. For the past few years he has been living off his brother but he has plans of movig to a smaller space which puts him in the streets, there is more to this story but I must give myself a kick start and go to work,LOL! Have a great day!

Life is beautiful and sometimes it is really hard, but life is beautiful!

Aunt Mary passed away early this morning, I do believe that my prayers were answered. I knew that I could not change her fate, so I prayed she have a peaceful pain free death. At least it seemed that way to me, she went into a coma a week and a half ago. She truly seemed to be resting peacefully thru the entire time, she really did not seem to be there anymore to me. Each time I visited her she seemed more like she had already left us and that last time, she tried to open her eyes to look at me but was unable to. So with a sad heart I said good bye, my hope now is that she is in heaven with God and our family that left before us! The services will be sometime this week.
Today was Tom's Aunt Jos 86th Birthday! It is strange to me that she has her 86th birthday, on the day my Aunt dies. For the last three years of my visits with Aunt Jo she tells me each time, sometimes several times that she wished she was dead. Even asks why God doesn't want her. It proves we have no controll of our final death. So anyway we stoped in the AM to give her medication to her. She has dementia and if she does not get her pills her memory gets very bad, soemtimes even dangerous. When we were there we said we would be back later for supper, reminding her not to eat til we get there.
We left on Laura's special outing and a few errands. We have been encouraging Laura to start going out on outings at day program. Every year the entire winter she refuses to go on outing with them. Every spring we start to encourage her to go out more often, the goal is twice a week. So for two weeks now she has had a special outing for being a very good girl. That is what Laura says! We ran to get propane for the RV, then made a stop at the RV store to get a filter and then Olive Garden for lunch. She ate very well and had chocolate cake for dessert. Laura and I then went home and baked cookies for dinner at Karen and Jims tommorow while we waited for her Mommie and Scott to come for there weekly dinner visit. Once they got here Tom and I went and got dinner for Aunt Jo and a cake. While we visited her I hemmed the pants I bought her. This weeks chore at Aunt Jos was to clean out her torn, stained burned clothes and replace them with new ones. I bought her 4 pairs of pants with two mathcing shirts and a matching jacket for each set, she was actually pleased. Everytime we do something for her we expect her to get upset but she now seems to like our help. It is almost as if a big part of her dementia is fueled by stress, as soon as she gets anxious about something the dementia becomes more intense and it takes sometime for her to return to her normal self. Today we visited for sometime while I hemmed her pants, she was alost totally normal the entire time with no confusion. It was actually a nice visit and she was appreciative for the clothing and the visit. I left there with a smile.
We were not home long before Laura came home, the usual hour with Tammy and Scott invading our house and my wishing that they leave soon so I can relax and unwind from a busy somewhat stressful day! It seems weird that I am not terrably upset about Aunt Mary's passing away but the truth is I know for sure she is now in a better place, no more pain! I invision she is sitting at the table with her husband, parents, cousins, aunts uncles and Jesus at the head of the table breaking the bread and dipping it into the sauce, yum that is what Jesus says! Sound good to you, wait til you join them, they will all be laughing and eatng some of Aunt Antoinette's pastries coffee and anisette! Memories that is what we have, my cildhood was unique! We all grew up on the same street. We were on the corner, my grandparents behind us, up the street was Uncle Patsy and through the woods was Aunt Mary & Uncle Jim and my cousins! The entire neighborhood seemed to be Italian or Polish and they all had something to offer from there gardens to share with a neighbor. Fruit, and veggies, homemade breads, pizza, jelly, sauce etc. That is why I invision them sitting at the table with Jesus having dinner, it is how I grew up being together, meant having a meal or a snack! So someday I will join them and wait for those left behind! See you soon Aunt Mary!

Laura's Saturday!

Most Saturdays Laura is up early excited to start the day. I find myself on Friday night trying to down play the weekends activities. I am hopeing that I can convice Laura to sleep late, so I can sleep late. She is excited to see her Mommie and Scott. Tom and I have to keep her enteratained. Today Tom took her out to run some errands and have lunch while I cleaned the house. When they came home her insulin pump needed to be changed, she needed her medicines and help getting cleaned up to go back out again. Laura has to wait all day for them to come, because Scott works during the day at Stewarts, he gets out about 2pm, they usually pick her up at 3pm. Many weeks they end up not showing up and then she is disappointed. Laura gets upset and may say something about it later. I often know she is upset and then I have to come up with something for her to do to fill the void. The last time we baked brownies and played the Wii. I can change her thought process but only temporarily. She will ask about them again later in the week, tell me she loves them and misses them. She seems worried that they won't come back again. It is a sad situation for her to live with. For years she did not see her Mom more than a few times a year, Laura did not ask about her at all then. Now that we are back to having fairly regular visits, it is hard for her to wait for each visit not knowing bugs her. Laura is a creature of habit, she does not like change at all, so when they decide at the last minute they can't come it is tough on her.
I really think she is just happy to see Scott. Her Mom has many issues of her own, she walks in the door barely speaks to Laura and spends the first 10 minutes of the visit telling us some story about being sick or someone else who is sick. She can go on and on about an issue. This evening when she returned Laura home to me she repeatedly told me that Laura was complaining about her face. Whe she left and I asked Laura what was wrong I could not find anything wrong and there were no complaints. Its like she had nothing better to talk about, I would prefer she just shut up, kiss her good bye and leave gracefully. That is not how it goes, she gets Laura into her PJs and then they stand at the door and talk to Tom or I for at least 1/2 hour each time, ugh!
The one thing I like about there visits is Tom and I actually get a few hours to ourselves. The house is ours, no sitter, no vistors and no responsability until she returns. We act like honeymooners for a few minutes, maybe go out for dinner, shop a little or just stay home and relax. Thoose few short hours feel good. But I am always happy to have our little girl back at the end of the day. So now Laura and I visit, share a snack and then I put her to bed. So Good night everyone!

Aunt Mary

Well I got an e mail this evening that tells me that Aunt Mary is coming very close to the end of her life. I just thought it would be nice to honor her with a few of my thoghts about her.
As a child when she gave me a gift she was very thoughtful, she somehow knew exactly what I liked without asking. Like the year she gave me the pretzel machine, I truly loved it. I spent hours creating differant flavored pretzels watching them ride thru the oven, soo cool! And she gave me my first album Donny Osmond, that must have been sixth grade.
Her and Uncle Jim were an awesome couple they both had an awesome sense of humor and could almost always get me to laugh. She was a loving but stern Mom. In our house we got away with lots of drinking even marijuana use but not at Aunt Mary's house. While I was in high school her niece Elaine came to live with her, I was a year yonger so we were hooked up as friends. We got along well and I was always getting Elaine into trouble.
She is an awesome cook, made the best cheesecake, I remember asking her for the recipe and she said to me it was the same recipe my mother used, she said she got the recipe from her, I was shocked because hers was so much better than Mom's. Shh don't let her know I said that. Her stuffed artichokes are soft and moist, they melt in your mouth and her spaghetti sauce is simple and yummy always. The things she prepares are filled with slow methodical love.
As an adult our times together have been sporadic, I tried going to her church for awhile. And then my cousin Melissa moved in with me, so I saw lots of them then. Times change lots and I our visits sometimes became rare. Although they were not often they were always good times for me. She once told me that she liked me best because I was not afraid to speak my mind. The funny thing is I feel the same about her. If she has something on her mind she says it even when the truth hurts. It has been tough medicine but at times exactly waht I needed to hear.
She will be missed by many. Her children have all stayed very close to her. They have had a tradition for many years of having coffee every Saturday night. So as she slowly leaves us to go home to her woderful loving husband and all of her loved ones that left her first. I know she is surrounded by love, I have prayed for sometime now that you have a peaceful painfree passing. I love you!