Sad day...

On August 5th, the world lost a very special man. I feel so fortunate that I was able to spend time with him in June when we went to Ohio to visit. At 93 years young, my Grandpa continued to do the things that he wanted to do. He watched Fox News, listened to Rush Limbaugh on the radio, watched the Pittsburgh Pirates, kept up with the latest news on Ohio State football and played Words with Friends with most of the family on his iPad (and won almost all of the time!). His mind was so sharp for his age and he still told me stories from his times living on the farm when he was younger or when he spent his college days at University of Cincinnati. I always laughed a little when he'd ask me, "Is that big building still there on campus?" or "Is the Pi Kappa Alpha (his fraternity) house still on Clifton Ave?". He would have been amazed to see how much campus had changed since he graduated in 1941. My mother-in-law introduced him to Sudoku and he had a huge book of puzzles. It didn't take him long to solve every puzzle in that book and start making up his own puzzles. He spent every day for as long as I can remember beginning the day by doing the crossword puzzle in the paper. He even made up his own crossword puzzle and submitted it into the newspaper. Unfortunately, they didn't publish it. He loved to make bets. He often had weight loss challenges with our family. He'd say that if he didn't lose 10 lbs by a certain date then he'd have to pay my Mom or my aunt a certain amount of money. When he would go golfing every morning, he would make everyone guess what his score would be that day before he'd leave. When I was younger, he'd often say "Steph, I need a volunteer." I would often respond with a groan because it usually meant that he needed someone to crawl up into the attic or into a crawlspace in the house. I was usually relieved when it involved an issue with his computer because I could typically fix the problem quickly and he'd respond with "Now how did you do that?!". He had so many quirks and he always wanted to be as independent as possible. He was known to eat shredded wheat and a banana for breakfast, fix mustard and cheese sandwiches for lunch, eat large amounts of popcorn at random times of the day (sometimes for a meal) and eat lots and lots of chocolate! He loved the German chocolate that I would send home to him. They never lasted very long in his hands! I remember when I was younger he would try to take everyone's plates before they were done with their dinner because he just wanted to hurry up and get on to dessert. A "Gee-dunk" was my favorite which was basically a Coke float. He also smoked a pipe which I hated, but no one could tell him not to because you can't tell a 93 year old what to do. :) Every year at Christmas, he would send my cousins and I on scavenger hunts throughout the house. He would make up little poems for us and send us in search of clocks, TVs, the car, the pool table and we'd make our way through the house following the directions in the poems in search of the final prize. It was always amazing how an envelope with our name on it and some spending money would magically appear in the Christmas tree when we completed our hunt. All of these things were some of my favorite things about him. I was very fortunate to have him in my life for so long and have so many great memories. Although he will be missed so much by many people, it is reassuring knowing that he lived the way that he wanted up until the very end. (There are a few things that I love about the picture above. First of all, you can see the eye chart. He told me that he keeps that up so that he can look at it every so often and he can tell if his eyesight is getting worse. I remember at another time during this day, we had him hold Brayden for the first time. Brayden hiccuped and Grandpa said "Ohhh I better give him back now". He thought that he was going to make Brayden start crying or something. Last of all, most people would assume that there is coffee in that coffee cup. It's not coffee. It's melted butter that he had just taken out of the microwave to pour onto the popcorn that he had just popped.) :)

Where did Summer go?!

Well, I have fallen wayyyy behind on this blog. Where did our Summer go?! We have had an unbelievably busy few months with a trip back to the States for Brayden and I, 3 trips back to the States for Jeff, trips to Amsterdam and Croatia, yet another move and getting things ready for the arrival of the newest Keenan! Here are some Summer highlights! In May we went to Keukenhof which is an annual tulip festival in the Netherlands. It was beautiful! We also visited a wooden shoe and cheese factory. I'm pretty sure that the highlight of the entire trip for Brayden were all of the horses and sheep that we got to see. Later that day we had time to travel into downtown Amsterdam which we absolutely loved! Such a cool city to visit!

Over Memorial Day weekend we traveled to Zadar, Croatia. Instead of taking another trip where we rushed to see everything that the city had to offer, we took a trip to just relax! We stayed at an all-inclusive resort called Falkensteiner Hotel Fumination Borik which was very family friendly and Brayden had a wonderful time also! We used the 3 day vacation to lay by the beach, swim and relax! It was wonderful and we couldn't have asked for better weather!

In June, Brayden and I took a trip to Ohio for 2 weeks. I decided to give Space A a try which is where you take a military plane over and only get on the flight if there is room. On the first day that I tried to get on a flight, I got on a plane heading to Charleston, SC. I was so relieved that we were able to get a flight to a major city and I could easily get a flight from Charleston to Ohio. After the long flight (over 13 hours since we stopped for about an hour in Jacksonville, FL), we finally made it to Charleston...or so we thought! Due to bad weather in Charleston, our pilot decided to stop and refuel at a small Marine base in Beaufort, SC before heading into Charleston. After refueling, our pilot informed us that the duty day for the base in Charleston was done and they were not able to fly us there until the next morning (It was a 10 minute flight and it was only 3:00 in the afternoon!). After much frustration, we caught a shuttle to the local lodging facility, walked in the rain to Subway for dinner and stayed the night in Beaufort. The next morning, we were 2 of 6 people on the flight to Charleston because the passengers with us found other ways to get to there the night before. I wasn't able to rent a car because I didn't have a carseat with me and the company didn't provide them at that location. :( The shuttle that was supposed to take us to the terminal from the lodging facility didn't show up so a very nice Soldier offered to drive us. When we arrived at Charleston Air Force Base, I called multiple cab companies to try to get to the International Airport. A Soldier that worked at the terminal was nice enough to offer to drive us after every cab company said that they couldn't pick us up. Thankfully the Soldier got us to the airport in time to make our flight to Akron. To top off our day, our flight out of Charleston was delayed due to mechanical difficulties causing us to miss our connecting flight in Charlotte. After a LONG day, we made it to Akron about 3 hours later than we had anticipated, but WE MADE IT! :) We had a wonderful time visiting with family! We got to see my cousin Erik get married and saw a lot of family that we hadn't seen in years. It was a great time!