All Saints Day...

This morning Jack and I met my sisters, Sue and Jenny, at First Presbyterian Church for an All Saints Day service. This is the service when a church remembers all members who have died since last All Saints Day. We were there to celebrate and remember our mom (and of course, Mike was in our hearts as well).  It was a lovely service and it felt good to be there together because I knew how much it would have meant to Marmar. My mom and Sue love(d) their church and their church community. At the passing of the peace, so many of my mom's peers/friends came over to say hello, including Clare (short for Clarence) and Gloria. It was good to connect with so many of them. As the service resumed, we noticed that Clare and Gloria were having a little discussion and shortly after that, Clare got up and left the sanctuary. There was a lovely sermon and communion, then we closed with that awesome hymn "For all the Saints". After the recessional, we picked up a white rose in Mom's honor and gave a quick hug to Pastor Nancy. She was in tears, saying how much she missed Mom. Jenny decided to make a stop in the restroom before we left, but quickly returned saying that Clare was curled up on a sofa in the parlor with Gloria standing over him. Clare had no pulse. He was gone and had been for a while.He had died! Clare had come over to shake our hands then less than thirty minutes later, he went to Heaven. Oh. My. Gosh. We could not believe it. Word spread quickly to the few folks still in the narthex, including Pastor Nancy, but so many of the congregation had already gone downstairs for fellowship time, unaware that their friend had just suddenly left this world.
What a way to go. Seriously. Quickly, quietly and at church. Before the All Saints service had ended, First Presbyterian had a brand new saint.
It was another reminder to us how quickly things can change in this world and to take nothing for granted.

Babies!

Two of my awesome SLP buddies at work just had babies. Meggan had her son, Connor, on Oct 25th. She also has a darling little girl, Ellie who is 2. Meggan subbed in my classroom for Ellyn for a day a few weeks ago. While she was there, I seized the opportunity to take a picture of Meggan and my sweet Andrea, who was also due about the same time. Andrea has worked across the hall from me her entire 5 year career. She is such a wonderful person and a talented SLP. Andrea had her baby boy, Nolan, on October 22nd. Everyone is doing great and I couldn't be more thrilled for all of them! Congratulations!!!
(Meggan is on the left in gray, Andrea on the right in the printed dress)

Halloween. *sigh*

For the faithful readers of my blog, you know how much I treasure my Halloween experiences. Great memories of getting over to Teri's to begin the trick or treating with our 7 (combined) children, then the dads meeting up with us later. Once we entered elementary school days, we added in friends and new stops. Of course, Cath and Mark come to mind immediately. Even when the kids were past the age of trick or treating age, we still went out on our visits. But now we are entering a new phase. We spent the entire evening at home. Both of us. I miss my friends and days gone by, but I know new traditions will be formed.

Saturday night

Jack and I are hanging out tonight after a busy day, working on research for a family project with Aunt Sue (always need to clarify since we have 3 Sues in the family... Susie my sister, Downtown Sue Jack's sister, and Aunt Sue Mike's wife). It was a productive day and we really enjoyed being with Sue. She is such a strong person and a good egg. Love her.
Last night we had a lovely dinner at Chuck and Teri's. Very relaxing way to spend a Friday night, with three other fun couples. Brittany came home from Nashville for the weekend as we were finishing dinner and we got a chance to catch up with her. Such a doll.
This weekend is going by waaaaay too fast.

Catching up

There is nothing like a quiet weekend once in a while. It certainly has been a great opportunity to get some rest (10 hours of sound sleep both nights), clean my house, and just recharge.
Really, things have been so busy at work with 3 annual reviews last week and Ellyn still out. I have a permanent sub for Ellyn now, rather than having several different ones. Eileen hired Tamara, who I have enjoyed getting to know via my Bunco group. Tamara had expressed interest in working and this was a good chance for her to do that without too large of a commitment. Tamara is doing an awesome job of filling in for Ellyn. She is warm and cozy and really gets kids. They love her and vice verse.
I am still in the midst of teaching or facilitating a continuing education class on using iPads to enhance student engagement and outcomes. It's a 7 session course(1 1/2 hours each time) and we have just completed the 4th session. It's great fun, but work to pull together all the info and then present it.
I also just completed a 5 week photography class. Still getting the hang of using my new dSLR. Very cool class but a little bit of mental gymnastics are involved for me!
But it's all good. And the trees couldn't be any more beautiful this time of year. I took this picture on my walk with Jean this morning.

Jack's 40th County Fair

In the busy-ness of this time of year, we had to make time for a day trip to the Hillsdale County Fair. It was a big one...Jack's 40th consecutive fair. Amazing to think of the history there.
We left early in the morning on September 29th. We went into the city to pick up Wayne, who came out of his apartment armed with a pillow since he planned on sleeping all the way to the fair. Which he did. Sally was not able to attend because of coaching. She was a good sport about it.
We arrived at the Fair by noon. We did the corn dog and Fiske fries, played the squirt gun game (I beat Jack and Wayne!) and saw the Barnyard Babies. We were thrilled to see a new Photo Button booth...but the guy's button maker was not working so we will have to order it online again this year.
We made our traditional stop at Hillsdale College, with the lightning fast wireless Internet. We found our brick and strolled around campus before heading to Schuler's in Marshall. Oh my goodness. There is nothing like Schuler meatballs, salad and peppermint ribbon pie.
It was a great day to be together and continue a tradition that is so important to our family. And we had Wayne back at his apartment by 9:30....plenty early for him to join his friends for a night out in the city.

corn dogs!

father and son stroll on Hillsdale campus

red ball is the stand in for Sally

So far behind

I am feeling like I am way far behind on so many things right now. I have so many things I want to blog about and so many things to do for work and so much that needs to be done around my house...and so many people I want to catch up with. I am feeling like I never talk to anyone outside of work these days, including dear sweet family and friends. I know from past experience that the best thing to do is just get a good night sleep and try to get a little bit caught up tomorrow.
Good night. Tomorrow is another day.