HE'S HOME!

It is October 1st, 2008. It has been just a couple of days more than two years since we have seen our youngest son, Jordan, who has spent the last two years as "Elder Bratt" preaching the gospel in the Florida Jacksonville Mission...and now he is coming home. His plane is due to land at 12:23 at Logan International Airport. So here we are...

Beth chats with Bishop Phllips of the Derry (NH) Ward as the three of us wait...


and wait...the plane has landed, passengers are coming out of the door - where is Jordan we wonder as we wait...and wait...


and suddenly... 

the wait is over, and it has been all worth while. Here he is and he looks...WONDERFUL!

And it just feels so good to see him and hug him.


And we all get just a "little" emotional (Does Heavenly Father feel like this when he welcomes us home?)


And here with the bishop.

A few minutes of chatting and welcome
And then it is off to see Stake President Thomas Watson.  Jordan is still a missionary until President Watson officially releases him.  So off we go to the Georgetown (MA) chapel.  Jordan goes in with President Watson and we wait, anxiously.  We both know that this is going to be hard.



And then we are invited in.  President Watson provides some inspired counsel to us, and speaks of the joy of missionary service that Jordan has shared with him.  He returns Jordan's name tag, having asked for it as a symbolic gesture of Jordan's transition now from full time missionary to returning to move forward with his life, school, family and future.

What a joyous time.


And then... the movement back to "civilian" life.  What's that?  A cell phone - don't worry son, dad will show you how it works.

Why, I think you have the hang of it already.

And tonight,  October 2nd, 2008? Oh, he is out to a dinner appointment with the Derry missionaries!

We love you Jordan, Welcome Home.

Labor Day - 2008

Well, I could stand it no longer. Hernia or not, it is a balmy, sunny, clear 75 degrees with a slight breeze - motorcycle weather if there ever was such a thing. The call of the wild is too strong, I have to go. Only had to mention it to Beth and she was dressed and waiting. So, on the bike and we are off. The map above, if you can see the yellow line, shows our trip. It was about 170 miles through some gorgeous country side. We took a few pictures, so here they are:

We stopped in either Bennington or Antrim along a rocky stream and took these pictures.  Fish were swimming along the rocks and through clear pools of rippling water.  The sun was warm-if I had a fishing pole I would have stayed right there.

All Beth needed was a good book and the afternoon would have been gone.





Obviously Beth had the best view of the whole trip!


September 1 and leaves are already starting to turn.

Following another biker along the twisties in NH.

This is the "little" town of Washington, NH.  It boasts having the highest elevation of a town center in the state-somewhere between 1700 and 1800 feet.  It was really quite pretty, but very small.

The first town in the U.S. to be named after George Washington!


The buildings on the left comprise the Congregational Church, a school used between 1833 and 1933 and now the police department, and the town hall.  I think they were all built prior to 1800.


The only store in town.



And the only place to rent video's in town!

The childhood home of President Franklin Pierce (yes, there was too a U.S. President named Franklin Pierce and he was so from NH!)








This and below are some of the scenery shots we drove through.  So many ponds and lakes and bogs of every description.  No lack of water up here.


More trees turning.

This shot and the next two are taken at New England College, in Henniker, NH.  This is a family tubing down the river.

Another tuber.


This is the covered bridge they were tubing under.
You perhaps cannot tell but in the middle of this pond were Canadian Geese.

Following some bikers into Weare (Where? Yes, Weare).

No Labor Day trip would be complete without the traffic.  Luckily we only hit it for a couple of miles before getting off the highway again.  Actually, we had very little traffic but a lot of motorcyclists were out.  What a gorgeous day.


Well, I do feel better, almost six hours and 170 miles later - it was worth it.  A very enjoyable day, beautiful weather, beautiful scenery, and of course a beautiful companion to share it with.  The hernia is fine, but even if it wasn't...it would still have been worth it:)

Hope everyone had a relaxing holiday weekend.  Back to work tomorrow.  I found some pictures of Beth's earlier trip to Arizona and Ethan and Heather and the kids visiting.  I hope to get a couple of them on here in the near future.

LaborDay Weekend

I cannot believe the weather here this week, or this weekend.  It is like early fall, cool nights and warm days filled with sunshine and relatively clear skies.  Absolutely perfect weather for motorcycling, oh yeah.  Except...I can't ride the bike yet.  Still waiting for my "procedure" to heal.  Not sure what to do this weekend-feel badly for Beth.  She was looking for a weekend away on the bike, maybe to Maine or to Vermont.  She leaves at the end of the week for Arizona to spend time with her parents (and a few days with Emily and Rob and JAMES!).

Oh well, thought I would at least add a little something here...nothing else to do...

I know I have not blogged in like forever...and I apologize.  I do not have any pictures to add but will write a short update now.

I will work backwards from today.  I am home from work because I had to have surgery this past Monday.  Nothing really major, an umbilical hernia (they called it an "incarcerated umbilical hernia) which I have actually had for years, but this past weekend it got increasingly larger, VERY painful and began to turn red.  I was able to get into he Dr.'s office Monday late morning and by late evening I was in surgery.  Overnight in the hospital and home late Tuesday evening.  Out of work for the week!  Speaking of which, I have 95 calendar days left until mandatory retirement!

Speaking of surgery, Beth's mom had to have emergency surgery about a week and a half ago on her abdomen and Beth is flying out next week to spend a week with them.  Her dad had suffered some problems to his head and arm from a fall a few weeks before Beth's mom's surgery and Beth's sister, who lives close, could use a break.  It is nice that Beth is able to go and I am happy to see her spend some time with her folks.

And, speaking of surgery, at the end of July I was traveling with the church youth to go on a pioneer trek when I noticed my left eye was blurry.  It continued to remain blurry so I called the Dr. who ordered me to an opthalmologist right away.  Sure enough-I had a tear in the retina.  Have no idea how it happened, retina just tore-but if left untreated it could tear right across the back of the eye and cause blindness.  Nice.  So I had laser surgery to suture all around the tear so that it could not progress any further.  No pain involved but if someone ever tried to torture secrets out of me by hitting me with a blinding light in the eye...I would spill my guts in about 10 seconds.

And of course I have been a regular at the chiropractor over the last couple of months for back issues.  They seem to be doing pretty well though.  Geez, I love getting older.  As someone, whose name I cannot recall (another sign of aging?) said, "If I knew I was going to live so long, I would have taken better care of my body."

Other things going on...Jordan, our youngest comes home in just 35 days from his mission.  We are really excited to see him and have him here, even if only for a couple of months until he leaves for school; Emily, our daughter, and her husband Rob are expecting their second child in February.  They have one, James Kenneth who will be two next month.  Ethan and his clan are doing well, we hope to see all of them at Christmas in Phoenix.  Aaron, of course, is still serving his Spanish speaking mission in the Phoenix area and is doing well.  

Going back over the past few months, Beth and I did an overnight on the motorcycle to Palmyra and had a wonderful time.  Beth also went out to Phoenix for almost three weeks to take care of James while Emily and Rob went to Hawaii.  Rob's younger brother got married there and Emily and Rob took an extra week.  With James being watched by Beth it was like a second honeymoon (and if you count backward from when Emily is due...well, nevermind).  Beth had a great time bonding with her grandson and while she was there Ethan and his family came down for a few days so Beth got to see all of her grandchildren.

Didn't do a lot of motorcycling because of the back problems and because the weather has been very wet.  Also, we had my great-nephew, Derek for about a month and a half while his mother, my niece, took care of some issues she needed to address.  Beth spent a lot of time with him on school work (he is 11) and some berry picking and had him enrolled in swimming classes in town for a couple of the weeks. 

Not much else to bring you all up on, that I can recall right now.  I won't promise to update this more often (although that is my intention) because I have made those promises in the past with obvious results.

Hope everyone who reads this is well, leave a comment if you get a chance.