In the news
this month: birthdays, anniversaries, weather-shortened/changed
vacations, cute grandkids, a quartet concert, doing my duty as a citizen, home
improvement, and football. It was an eventful month!
Krista and I
celebrated our 39th anniversary on 8/22. That following Saturday we went
out to see “Brian Banks,” a movie based on the true story of a man whose
football career was ruined by a false accusation. It was a good movie,
and I recommend it. Then we went and got Mexican food at Monte Alban
Mexican Grill, which was really yummy.
Other
celebrations this month were: my Mom’s 91st birthday would have been
8/23, my son-in-law, Mat’s birthday was 9/12, and my Dad’s 91st birthday would
have been 9/15.
My quartet,
Achording to Us, had its first real paying gig on 8/25. A man in our area
was having his 90th birthday, and he was someone who had a heritage with
barbershop singing. So, his daughter contacted our chorus and our chorus
president connected us with them. The man didn’t know we were coming, so
he was (hopefully) pleasantly surprised. We sang about 30 minutes’ worth
of songs at the backyard party at his daughter’s house, including Lida Rose,
which you might know from the popular musical The Music Man, and which was
special to him because he had done an arrangement of it. To be honest, a
couple of our songs were train wrecks where we got off and couldn’t recover, but
mostly it went pretty well. The audience was very appreciative and kind
anyway, and it was lots of fun. We made some cash and they fed us, so
that was a win for sure.
On Saturday
morning, 8/31, we left home for our family vacation in Outer Banks. We
had been hearing about Hurricane Dorian and knew it might cause us problems,
but no one knew for sure when or where it was going to hit, so we went anyway
and hoped for the best. Our plan was to drive to Richmond, Virginia, on
Saturday, stay in a hotel that night, and then drive the rest of the way on
Sunday.
The first day
went great. We all (the Mickles and Krista and I and Abigail, Amelia,
Zach, Jem and Levi) got to the hotel with no problems, and Kevin had wisely
chosen a hotel with a Chick-Fil-A right across the street, so we got supper
there. We got a good night’s rest, and headed out Sunday morning.
We arrived in Outer Banks a few at a time, but eventually everyone was there,
except for Cai and Amy, who were planning to join us on Tuesday night or Wednesday
morning. We settled in, found our rooms in the big house we had rented,
used the wonderful pool at the house, and a few of us made the short hike to
the beach. We kept checking news reports about Dorian hoping he would go
somewhere else on his vacation, but he was taking his time to decide.
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| Ansa loving her Chick-Fil-A |
Monday the
weather was still great, so we played on the beach and in the pool, and that
evening we started our Family Fantasy Football draft. We were about
halfway through that when we got the bad news. Kevin found out that the
county just south of where we were had to evacuate by noon on Tuesday.
The only road out of where we were went through that county, so we knew it was
only a matter of time before our county had to evacuate too. It turned
out that was correct, and our county had to evacuate by Wednesday, although we
didn’t find that out until later.
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| Apparently I did well in the Fantasy draft, but I've already messed this predicted perfect season up. I'm 1 - 1 so far, but both the Bills and the Seahawks are 2 - 0, so that's more important |
We decided that
night (Monday) to pack up and leave immediately, destination Brockport (home),
even the ones who didn’t live there. We all said that the most important
part of this vacation was that we wanted to be together, so we decided if we
couldn’t do it in Outer Banks, we’d do it in Brockport. We told Cai and
Amy to go there instead, and we all left Monday night, except for Caitlin and
Ben, who volunteered to stay that night and return our keys to the rental
agency Tuesday morning. Kortney and Mat had to figure out what to do with
their rental car and change their return flight to be from Rochester instead of
Norfolk, but I have to say everyone’s attitude was really great. No one
showed the disappointment I’m sure we all felt—they all just made the best of
it. I love my family!
Ella and Cody
housed all of the out-of-towners except for Cai and Amy who stayed at our
house, with Caitlin and Ben staying in a camper belonging to Cody’s Dad and Mom
in Ella and Cody’s backyard. I’m sure that was crowded and hectic, but
again, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. If they were frustrated and
stressed, they hid it well. So actually, our vacation was in beautiful
downtown Hamlin, NY, because we all went to Ella and Cody’s every day, since we
all already had scheduled vacation, we had planned for all of the meals
together, etc. We just had to change our planned activities to do things
around Hamlin. We went to a local park that had fields and a playground
for playing and a splash pad for cooling off. We went to Hamlin Beach
State Park, which is not quite as exciting as an ocean beach, but still
fun. We did a “British Baking” (well, really a Hamlin Baking) with chefs
Caitlin, Kevin, and Amy, many sous chefs, and even more happy eaters (I was in
this last category). We went Seabreeze again, our local amusement/water
slide park. And we finished with vacation church at Ella and Cody’s house
on Sunday morning 9/8 before everyone had to head home. There were also
many board games and other fun activities which I’m sure I’m forgetting.
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| As I came over the top of the hill approaching the beach, I thought "Oh no, the beach is really crowded today." Then I realized everyone there was in my family. True story |
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| While we were at Seabreeze, I took Ruby to the Kiddie rides for a while so Carissa and Matt could go on grown up rides together. Being a good grandpa, I took lots of pictures of her cuteness |
Here's a brief video where I tried to be a British Baking host.
All in all, I
praise God for keeping us safe (we later saw pictures of how Dorian spent his
vacation, visiting almost every beach on the east coast of the U.S. and ruining
it for everyone else—selfish hurricane), and I’m glad we left when we did to
avoid crazy traffic. And I’m proud of every member of my family, all 28
of us, for being flexible and sacrificial, and salvaging a really fun time out
of disappointment.
Both Hannah and
Kevin and our family had originally planned to have our driveways repaved while
we were gone so we could return to a brand-new driveway that we could
use. Well Dorian ruined that plan too because now we were in our houses
and needing a place to park our cars when the driveways were being done.
Again, we adapted as best we could by parking across the street until our
asphalt had cured enough to use. Both of us are very happy with the
finished product, although our wallets feel significantly lighter.
Before we left
for our vacation, I received the dreaded jury summons for this week in the
mail. So I knew I had jury duty to look forward to when vacation was
over. As it turned out, I had to report on Monday this week and sat in
the juror room for several hours before finding out that the trials had been
canceled, and I was free to go. Just being there willing and able to
serve fulfills the requirement, so I cannot be summoned again for any state, county,
town, or village court for at least 8 years. Whew!
So that’s our
news until next month. Thanks for reading!
