Thanksgiving & Snow!

I can't believe it, I am sitting here watching the Thanksgiving day parade (I keep switching back and forth from Macy's NY and Philadelphia parade), and it is snowing here in Collegeville, PA!  It just started in Philadelphia as well!  I love it.  I have my yams cooking for my special Sweet Potato casserole, and my Turkey will go in the oven very soon.  The first snow of the season.  I love watching the snow.  It makes me want to burrow down and make soup.  You see that is what I use to do when we had a full house of kids still living here.  School would be called off and everyone know Mom would make soup.  We would all shovel the driveway, come in have Hot Chocolate and start the soup!  Such great memories.  Now we are empty Nester's and downsized to a little community.  I will be taking the turkey to our daughters house where all the family will gather, since she has the big house now.  I still insist on making the Turkey.  I found this wonderful Brine at William Sonoma a few years ago and have been using it ever since.  My turkeys have never been as moist as they are now since using this wonderful Brine. 
I just want to wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving Day, hopefully everyone will be spending it with their loved ones.  I will be giving thanks for what a wonderful family and friends we have and thankful for all we have in our lives.  God bless you all!

A Birthday 'thank you".

Well, it was a lovely birthday party.  It's so much fun when we get together.  I will try and post pictures later.  My birthday gift was a Laptop!  I was so excited.  I think they felt sorry for me trying to go upstairs to our office on my butt!  You see our computers are upstairs in our loft, and with a broken ankle it is a little hard getting up there.  My laptop is loaded up with everything.  I am so lucky that my son has an IT business!  He is coming over tomorrow to transfer everything from my desktop to my laptop.  I am so excited!  I can't thank everyone enough.  It is a wonderful gift!  So now between the cooking shows, the HGTV channel and the Hallmark Christmas movie channel and this new laptop, I am set!
We get another day with the family this week~Thanksgiving!  Really looking forward it!  What a great week!!  If I don't blog tomorrow, I just want to wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving, and I hope you are all spending the day with the people you love.

Saturday night.......

Right now we are watching The Polar Express with the grand kids.  Interesting movie.  Their eyes are glued to the tv.  It is such a life like animation.  We love spending time with our grand kids.  They say the funniest things.  Tomorrow we will be with the whole family.  We are celebrating my birthday.  Can't wait to see everyone.  We all live close by, the farthest is 25 miles, but everyone leads such busy lives it's hard to plan a get together so when we do get together we
all really enjoy it.  My husband and I feel very fortunate to have such a awesome family, we thank God every day.  Right now I think Grandpop is a little sleepy.  He has both kids on his lap and his eyes look a little heavy.  Maybe when this movie is over it will be time for bed.
I will let you know tomorrow how the party went!   Have a wonderful night.

New to Me!

Well, now that I have this blog I was told I should keep it going.  You see, I am usually working full time and blogging takes a back seat.  Now I have some free time on my hands so I decided to give it a go again.  I am open to advice and any tips people would like to send my way.
My husband just called to tell me he is sitting on route 422 in a rain storm.   The thing is, I think the drivers on route 422 start to panic when it rains.  Traffic goes to a craw, for no apparent reason.  I realize people want to slow down, but this is a craw.  I could probably run home faster, if I didn't have a broken ankle!  The drivers on route 422 also don't realize that the left lane is for passing!  Aren't you supposed to get a ticket if you ride in the left lane?  I need some clarification on this.  As you can tell, this is a real pet peeve of mine.  Please pass this advise on to eveyone......left lane is passing lane!

How we spent our Summer Vacation

It was a vacation that we were so looking forward to. We left on Saturday, Oct. 23rd for a wonderful Cruise visiting five islands. We planned to rent Mopeds in Bermuda and Zip line in Antigua, beach in St Thomas and so many more things were planned. There were six of us, 3 couples, my brother and sister in law, Andy and Nancy, friends of theirs Lou and Anne and Jim and myself.  I was a little nervous this time and I didn't know why. Jim woke me up early that day and kept saying, "Susan, just keep thinking of those little drinks with the little umbrellas in them."

Our first day was at sea. We watched the Eagles on the big screen out on the deck by the pool. I decided to have a massage, and it was wonderful! Jim even remarked how relaxed I finally looked. I felt great. We had a great dinner that night and talked about our docking in Bermuda the next day
.
Bermuda was beautiful, and we couldn't wait to get to our Mopeds and ride into Hamilton. Nancy and I both wanted to go to Trimminghams, which was one of the nicest stores in Bermuda. We went to Bermuda on our Honeymoon and that was one store I was dying to see again. I was so excited to be in Bermuda finally for a second time.

Now this was our first clue: I couldn't find my sneakers that morning. I know I packed them and remember putting them in the closet. No where to be found. I would just have to buy a pair on the island because I would also need them for zip lining.
We rode our Mopeds into Hamilton and found the  parking places for mopeds. On the way Lou and Ann had a mishap on their moped and ran into a gas station. Clue # 2, the mopeds were dangerous! Oh, I forgot to mention we all almost ran into each other on the way, looking for the Elbo Beach Club, where Andy & Nancy stayed on their Honeymoon.

We had lunch in a nice little restaurant and Ann said she was riding the ferry back to the boat and she was not getting back on the moped. The waitress told us we could even bring our bikes on the ferry with us. This was clue #3. We should have gone with her. But no, we decided to ride the bikes back to the boat.
We found a sneaker store and bought a pair of sneakers.

We were on Toast House Rd and I got a little close to the curb and down I went! As this was happening, I was thinking to myself, this can't be happening, as I was sliding across the sidewalk on my face & body. It was just a dream from there. Jim stopped and help me sit up, as I was sitting up my ankle just flopped over. I told Jim that I broke my ankle, and he kept saying, " now maybe not", but I knew it was broken. I couldn't even cry. I think I was in shock. A car that was following us pulled up and a lady got out to help. I truly believe she was an angel sent to help us. She called 911 and also the bike company to pick up their bike. The ambulance came and off to the hospital we went. Andy and Nancy told Jim they would take care of the luggage. We were supposed to be back to the boat by 4:30pm and it was now 3:45. The boat captain called Jim to find out how we were doing and if we would make it back to the ship. Jim told the captain that he didn't think we were going to make it, but we needed to get out luggage due to the fact that we needed our passports . As it happens, the lady following us came to the hospital to see how I was doing. She volunteered to take Jim to the boat to pick up our luggage. After they picked up the luggage she suggested he buy a phone card to make long distance calls to the family, since we didn't have international calling on our phones. She also suggested and made calls to find Jim a Guest House where he could stay. She was our angel.

I needed an operation, they called a surgeon. After a two hour operation I had a plate and 7 screws in my ankle plus road rash down the side of my face and body. Jim was by my bed for two days as I drifted in and out of a drug induced sleep. I finally started to feel better, and we decided we needed to get home. I wanted an orthopedic surgeon at home to look at the ankle and confirm that everything was ok. Thank God we took the insurance for our cruise. The company, On Call International helped us through everything, they kept in contact with our family at home and made arrangements for our flight home, first class! I can't begin to tell you how nice everyone was to us. Our angel, Molessia went out of her way to help us. Everyone we came in contact with helped us.

I was never so happy to be back home in Philadelphia. The surgeon here said Dr. Peckett did a wonderful job with the operation. I am to be off my feet for three months and I must say my husband has been so helpful, and a good sport.  It has been three weeks now, and I still can't believe this happened.  The road rash on my face is almost gone.  As for my leg and ankle, it still has a little more healing up to do.  Oh, by the way, Trimminghams is no longer in Bermuda, they went out of business.

We are hoping to get back to Bermuda some day, but I don't think we will be riding mopeds!