Photos from the Anniversary

 Gayle, Mom, Cindy, Paw, Lu

 Vickie (friend) and Mom. Vickie works with Mom at the Orpheum, among other things

 Mom and Pam. (Pam is Aunt Bea's daughter) Mom's niece.

 Pam, Mom, Gayle and Lu

 Paw, Mom, Gary Krampf

 Me and My Daddy

 Mom and Dad and people.

 Lu, Vickie and Cindy. 

 I was in charge of the cake. Biggest cake available.  Someone else be in charge of cake next time.

 Paw and person

 Gayle, Mom, Shirley Krampf & Gary Krampf.  Shirley and her husband, John, are old...old...friends of Mom and dad.  Shriley brought the neatest collage of photos from the older days. (Yes I will hear about this!LOL!)

 Shirley and Mom

 Kathleen Wilson and Shirley Krampf.  (Kathleen and her husband Lin are part of the old, old group.)

 Dad and people.

 Gary, Neil and Shirley.  In the background, the poster boards, LuAnn did the one on the bottom, and Shirley's is on the top.

 Gary Krampf, Cindy and Lu

 Jane Flowers came from Birmingham.  She goes back to Mom and Dad's BEFORE marriage days.

 Dad and Shirley

 Mom and Mitchell. (Mitchell is  Robert's son, Lu's grandson)

 Lu and Mitchell

 Judy Caulk, Linda Nash, Mom and Faustine Perciful

 Mitchell and Robert

 Mom loves to kiss baby toes.  Cindy thinks she's crazy/

 Officer Mark and Mom

 Over to the right, added people, Fred and Laura Moore.

 Mom and Dad putting on their happy face!!! She promised me today that she would NEVER have another 60th anniversary! LOL!

 Ms Jimmie Hampton, Sam, Bill, Neil Gayle and Lu.  The Hamptons lived across the street in Parkway Village.  They have been the most awesome friends EVER.  I Love, Love, Love Ms. Jimmie!  (The rest of the Hamptons too.)

 Mom, Where's Waldo, I mean Dad and Jane Flowers

 Neil, Gayle and Lu.  (Am I getting shorter?)

 WONDERFUL FAMILY. 

 Paw and Cheryl.  Cheryl is another of Mom's Orpheum treasures!

 I told Brenda we looked like a photo negative in all our black and white!  LOL!

 Diane Fletcher and Gayle.  I liked her hair so much I decided to copy her.  She went gray much earlier than I did!

 The cousins.  Eddie Duett, Lu, Gayle, Neil Pam Compton, Donna izialko, Fred Moore

 The cousins making silly faces.  Don't ask me why.

 Cheryl and Mom and the Bill of Recognition!

 Brenda in her apron, doing her "Miss Kay" imitation.

 Monica and Mason.  (And for anyone not familiar, Mason and Mitchell belong to her.  So does  Robert. Even though Cindy grabs the babies when she can, they aren't hers!)

 See?

 Brenda doing what Brenda does.

As you can see, at least in my opinion, it was a wonderful day.  And I will be getting ready for the next one.  Anyone else nearing 60 years????

THE Anniversary Party

I am going to do the little blog thingie here, and I will do photos in separate entries.  Why? Because I hired a photographer that took awesome pictures and it is going to be hard to narrow down what I add to the blog.  I will build an album on Walgreens or Snapfish, and I will send a link for you to go see all the photos.  Brenda, again...Thank you for the wonderful photos.  They are great!

I will keep this short (ish) and sweet (ish).

My mom and dad have been married over 60 years.  Think about it.  In today's world, or any world, that is mind boggling.  I know that putting up with one person for 60 years is a challenge.  It must be.  Most people can't do it.  Most people will marry 3 or 4 times in their lifetime. Why? because staying married is more work than getting divorced.  It is a disposable world.  Times get rough?  Get rid of him.  Out of money?  Get rid of her.  Someone else look good to you?  Call the attorney.

I know Mom and Dad started with nothing.  And to hear them talk, they had nothing when Neil and I were young.  Of course, we didn't know it.  We had clothes and food and family and fun.  As incomes increased, they got more material stuff. And our lives got even more fun.  I listen to so many people talk about being abused or neglected or hungry when they were children.

I can't even join those conversations.  YES.  We have all had some bad times.  But our lives have been good.  Our family has been blessed. And I am so proud to say that I have had a good life, thanks to my parents.

Last Sunday, we had a party.  We invited folks from the old days, and folks from recent years. And they all came together to celebrate something special.  Two people that have made a difference in a LOT of lives.

Mom and Dad...When and if you read this.  Thank you.  Thank you for giving to me when you had nothing to give.  Thank you for giving to me when you had plenty. Thank you for supporting me when times were so bad I couldn't even think past the moment. And thank you for sharing all my good times. And thank you for shouldering my bad times.

I;m sure there are others that feel the same.  They just don't have a blog.

Mom- I Love you.

Dad- I Love you.

Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad

Just wanted to wish the greatest parents in the world a Happy Anniversary.  I am really looking forward to the celebration on the 30th.

I will be back with Christmas pictures in 5 days, if the Mayans are wrong. Until then, get your presents wrapped and love each other a little more today than you did yesterday.

Blogger Day of Silence

Although I am not officially in the world of bloggers, I'm just a space waster, I wanted to share this.

Between Newtown, and Our murdered police officer, I am having trouble making sense of the world right now. 

I have absolutely stolen this from two other blogs I read.  One says to please share. The other, I guess, it is not right for me to copy, but the words express what I feel to my very CORE.  So, hopefully the plagiarism police won't notice.

When the world feels too loud, we must be quiet.  When the world feels to violent, we must be peaceful. When the world seems evil, we must be good. And when life is hard, I must become soft.

I am getting the most comfort right now by trying to be quiet and soft.

Be Still, Be Quiet

In honor of all the tragedy and noise in my head, I am cleaning out my blog.  I am changing this to pictures of family, friends, fun, vacations and special occasions.  I have deleted several entries, and will continue to do so. I will continue cleaning it out until I am happy that this is a good site to visit.
And probably pretty boring.

God bless Officer Lang.  And God Bless Newtown, CT. 

And God Bless us all.  We need it.

Final Cruise for 2012..I Think!

 When I walked into the room, There were roses for our 16th Anniversary.  ILBH!

 The lovely port of Progresso. We weren't feeling like long bus rides to see anything, so we stayed on the ship

 The pelicans and seagulls entertained for a while.

 Since there was no one on the sports deck, we actually played a round of putt-putt.  I whooped Bennie. 

 When we got to Cozumel, The Oasis of the Sea was docked next to us.  Talk about feeling small...

 Looking into the rear of the Oasis. ( Sounds not very nice.)There and rooms facing the ocean, and rooms facing the "Central Park" inside.  Either way, nice views of something!

 I'm not sure how many pesos Paco and his helpers make for handling the ropes of the ships, but I would say they are worth every peso.

 Elation on the left- Thats us. Paradise on the right. They are twins.

 Any chance to look at the many shades of blue fascinates me.  There is nothing more beautiful to me thant the blue waters of the Caribbean.

 Back to the rear of the Oasis.  Not sure why my pics are out of order, but I'm not going to fix them.

 Bennie in front of Fat Tuesday.

 Me in front of Fat Tuesday, before the purpose of leaving the ship.

 This was a close as Bennie got to a Ruin this trip. 

 AttiTUBE Adjustment.  Thats what it says.

 If you look close, you can see the big blue fish that were waiting on people to throw them food.

 I got down to the Looking Like a millionaire.  I never made it to the "Dain Brammage" level.

 Everyone gets back to the ship on time in Cozumel.  Progresso, the ship was held up for 20 minutes while 2 inconsiderate jerks. lollygagged their way to the boat.

 Parasailers putting on a show.

 Doesn't he look thrilled to be here?

 I think I googled this on our last trip to Mexico, but lack of memory space in the brain...I guess I will go look again.  Go google Big Red Thing on the Cozumel shore...

 The pilot gets off our ship after leaving Cozumel.

 Buh-Bye Mexico.

 There were the prettiest roses I ever had. 

 Bennie and his watch fetish.  Another Invicta. Blue.  Merry Christmas, dude!

 Moving my Roses around for another view. 

 You can't really see the snow in this pic.   I will add the video in another post. It takes forever to upload a video to the blog.  But it was a really cute idea.  The thought of "snow" in the Caribbean was cute.  And the ship did look nice with its Christmas Clothes on!

 Bennie and Drew

 Drew and Margaret                                    

 Rod and Barb

 Shirley and Glenn

 The final towel was a heart,  Looked pretty with my rose.

 Before we left New Orleans, we notice the ship parked behind us.  Google it. (Didn't know you would have homework from reading a blog. Seems like the buy-in is big bucks, and the monthly fee for living on this ship is $10,000 per month. 

 Atrium getting its snow job.

 This was us pulling into New Orleans about 5:00

Also docked was the Navigator of the Sea- Royal Caribbean. I told Cindy I needed to figure out why they were there, on a Monday.  She said, no problem Mom. Today is Saturday, and they always leave on Saturday.  Duh.

This was our short, quick cruise.  #4 of the year.  #9 in our quest to reach #10 with Carnival.  We are looking at a super cheap cruise the end of January to get to #10 and Platinum, Then we are actually changing to Royal Caribbean for our biggie.  It is in December, a 9 day. But that is a year a way.  And we still have to get #10 done.

And before you make any snide remarks,((you know who you are), go back and read my blogs for the year of 2011. The year I did not get a vacation and the year I had to close down the job and bury the boss I had for 15 years.   There was a lot of de-stressing that needed to be done.  Not to mention, Bennie didn't get any vacations 2011 either.  So he sold Vacation hours in anticipation of being able to cruise once my job change was done. Looking at it through my glasses. I see an average of 2 cruises a year..... whatever.  The rum catamaran still goes out.  You should join the living and come on down!!!

This cruise was booked on pretty short notice.  My new boss advised me I had vacation hours, so I used them!  After being invaded by Cindy and Sadielillie, and the stress of scrambling to get her house packed and sold, and covering the shortage due to a sucky housing market,AND Thanksgiving...A few days away was needed. 

Cindy threatened to have a party every night, but best I can tell, she ordered a pizza on Tuesday, and ate on it the rest of the week. So everything around here was good.  I even came home to the good news that her $$ shortage from the sale of the house had been dealt with.  So life is good.  She is still working under the almost guarantee of being laid off in the next little bit.  But since she is out from under the house, that won't be a big deal. She is about to spruce up her resume and get ready.

But- Back to the cruise. Just the two of us. In a room we already knew we would dislike, we were just getting away and getting #9.  We are perfectly happy just being on the boat and wandering around like geese.  The weather was prefect.  We had a little rain on Friday, but that was about it. Seas were calm.  As usual, we went to alot of the comedy show, which have become our favorite.  And we decided to go to the "Big" show. Got a seat. Waited 20 minutes.  Once it started, realized we had seen the show last time we were on the Elation.  Do they not think repeat customers notice these tings?

One of my favorite giggles on the ship is the music.  The musicians, the people playing the instruments do a good job.  Music is an international thing. But when it comes to actually singing the words, They are just mimicking the words, have no idea what they mean and what comes out are some botched songs that they can't remember how to end.  We were on the Lida one night, and I said lets just sit and listen to the music.  First one was good.  2nd song...Here we go. I was giggling, telling Bennie I thought we had musicians, but no...The Filipino Cover band from Hell.  We made it through about 5 songs, and had to leave. 

I made a big zero in the casino.  Well, I put in $100, and I cashed out 99.74.  And I played for 3 days.  So we were just swapping pockets.  But I had fun.

Progresso...Nothing.  I really want to do the Chichenitza Ruins. But 2.5 hours bus ride in Mexico scares me.  Talked to some folks that did it, and said it was great.  So, If I ever do Progresso again, I may try the Chichenitza.

Cozumel.Just not beach people, or shoppers, so what else is there?  Frozen Daiquiri. I do not enjoy haggling with the locals.  And while I am at it, when Carnival send my questionnaire this time, it Will be mentioned that their photographers are as bad as the street people.  They were very harassing on this cruise.  And I didn't have a hair dryer, so not much in the way of fancy pictures.

On to dinner.  As you know, we are hit and miss when it comes to dining.  ILBH is not a fan of dressing up at all, and the food is usually not his thing either. So we hit or miss between the dining room and the buffet.  But this time was different. We met 6 table mates that made our dinners so wonderful.  There were 3 sets of us senior type couples, and one set of young whippersnappers.  And we all had the greatest time.  If any of you read this blog, please know that we REALLY enjoyed sharing vacation times and would really like to do it again in the future. Keep us in your vacation loop!

Well, the night is getting late, and we have been a long way today.  Thank heaven tomorrow is  Sunday, and I don't have to face work for another day!