Sailing

Our friends, Winston and Patty, were planning activities to include in their vacation to Put-In-Bay, on South Bass Island, in Lake Erie. One of those activities was a sailing trip on Lake Erie on August 9, and they invited us to join them for that. We were delighted to accept.

The day was beautiful, with a nice breeze to fill the sails.

Our vessel for the tour

"Captain Jim"

Doug and me. 
That's our captain, on his cell phone, with his back to us. 
Winston was at the helm.

A collage of photos of Winston and Patty. Each took a turn at the helm.

Doug also took a turn at the helm.

Some of the other vessels we saw out on the water

Starve Island

It's said that two-mile-long Starve Island gets its name from the fate of a sailor who was shipwrecked there.

Perry's Memorial

Perry's Memorial commemorates the Battle of Lake Erie, one of the most significant naval battles to occur in the War of 1812.

It was a fun day, and we so appreciated Winston and Patty's invitation to join them.

31 Years!

Yesterday was our anniversary. Thirty-one years! Yikes! Where does the time go?

This wasn't a major anniversary; and, after all, there had already been 30 of them. So we hadn't planned anything special. I had volunteered to work in the church office from 9 AM to 2 PM, covering for another volunteer who needed the day off. After that, we had just planned to enjoy a nap, have a quick supper, and go to church for our mid-week Bible study.

But then...good friends, Terry and Diane, contacted us the night before. They live about 50 miles south of us, but Terry had to come to Fort Wayne for a medical appointment Wednesday afternoon. They wondered if we could meet for a meal so they could celebrate our anniversary with us.

Suddenly, we had plans for celebrating the occasion.

Anniversary Flowers

When I came home from working at the church office, I found a bouquet of flowers on the kitchen table, accompanied by the photo book that I had made for Doug for our 20th anniversary. He has loved that book since I gave it to him on our trip to Alaska back in 2007, and bringing it out again on our 31st gave us both the opportunity to look back over those photos from our first 20 years together.  

The rest of the photos in this post were taken by Diane at the restaurant...well, except for the one of the four of us, which was taken by our waitress.

These final two pictures are of the outside of the restaurant. One wall of the building consists of windows, overlooking the water and the swans and ducks that call it home.

Many thanks to special friends, Terry and Diane, for making our 31st anniversary special.

A Weekend Getaway

On May 19th, Doug and I headed to Michigan for an afternoon visit with family, followed by an enjoyable evening at the home of a couple with whom we had become acquainted through Bonnie, a dear friend from our church. 

Bonnie's sister, Kak, and Kak's husband, Dale, own a beautiful property near Jackson, Michigan. They invited us to join them and Bonnie, along with another friend from church, Vicki, and Vicki's cousin, Greg, and Greg's wife, Sue, for a cookout and an evening of fellowship and singing.

Kak and Dale's lovely home sits on several acres of wooded land. A long driveway passes through a stand of evergreens, past a flagpole, between two ponds, and past a small guest cabin before leading to the house itself.

Bonnie (left) and Vicki relaxing in the house

Doug (left) and Dale chatting while waiting for the fire to reach the right temperature for cooking the barbecued ribs

Relaxing around the tables after the wonderful meal

After eating and visiting for awhile, we all moved into the cabin for a sing-along. Vicki and her cousin, Greg, come from a musical family. Both play instruments and sing. On this occasion, Vicki played a ukelele; and Greg played a bass violin.

Vicki and Greg (top left); Greg and his wife, Sue (top right); trying for a shot of the whole room (bottom left); Bonnie, Dale, and Kak (bottom right) 

After singing for awhile, we took a break for some banana split dessert, Bonnie's special recipe, after which Greg and Sue left to go to their own home, which was nearby. Bonnie, Vicki, Kak, and Dale all headed up to the main house for the night. And Doug and I prepared to spend the night in the cabin.

The cabin is one room, plus a small alcove used as a closet/dressing room combination. There is a sleeping space in a loft, plus double bunk beds. And the couch also makes into a bed.

Doug and I opted to sleep in the bunk beds, with him on the bottom bunk and me on the top. Getting me up that ladder and into the top bunk proved to be more challenging than we had anticipated and resulted in much laughter in the process. Part of me would have liked to see a video of that; but the other part of me was praying that Kak hadn't set up a hidden camera somewhere in the cabin. I'm sure it would have become a YouTube sensation.

The weekend was topped off with a visit to Kak and Dale's church the next day. It was a wonderful time of worship with friends and the perfect ending to this weekend getaway. 

Spaghetti Supreme

There is an unassuming little Italian restaurant in the small town where we attend church. There is nothing about the outside of the eatery that would attract attention, and even the inside is far from elegant. But the food is amazing. The Spaghetti Supreme is our particular favorite.

There are two ladies with whom we sit every week at church. Vicki is a recent widow, and Bonnie's husband has health issues that keep him from getting out much. Bonnie's sister, Kak, lives about an hour and a half away but visits frequently. And, when Kak comes to town, we all get together for a meal at Salvatori's.

Kak was in town last week.

Linda, Doug, Kak, Bonnie, and Vicki

And the star of the show: Spaghetti Supreme

The prices are reasonable, and the portions are huge. Doug and I always split one order and sometimes have some left over to take home. We must have been extra hungry on this night because we cleaned our plates.

A Winter Birthday

My birthday is on December 30. Yep. Right there between Christmas and New Year's. It would be so easy for an end-of-year birthday to get lost in the midst of all the busyness of the holidays. So it's nice to have friends and family who work hard to make the day special, even in the midst of all the activity surrounding it.

Of course, Doug always wants to do something special for my birthday. I'm usually the one who doesn't want to go out in the cold and would prefer to just stay home and maybe watch a movie or something. That was the plan for this year until my dear friend, Sandy, sent me an e-card with an invitation to go out for supper that night with her and Jim, then come back to their house for cake.

She said the magic word: cake. It was worth going out into the cold for Sandy's chocolate sheet cake.

This was what our drive to Jim and Sandy's house looked like.

The Amish were out in their open buggies, making me feel like a wimp.

A waitress at the Italian restaurant snapped this picture of the four of us.

After cake and ice cream at Jim and Sandy's house, Jim shared a moment with their cat, Abby.

Jim and Sandy have a history of celebrating my birthday with dinner followed by chocolate cake and ice cream. Sometimes the dinner is home-cooked in Sandy's kitchen. Sometimes it's shared with her kids or grandkids. Always, it's shared with love. Sandy and Jim are special friends, whose friendship I've enjoyed for some 40 years now. I think it's going to last.

30 Years!

When Doug and I married in our forties, we never dreamed we'd live long enough to celebrate 30 years of marriage. But we did! We celebrated our 30th anniversary on Tuesday.

We've been so busy with our cataract surgeries that we weren't able to get away for any kind of a special celebration. But what we expected to be a very ordinary day turned out to be a very special one.

It happened to be the day of our church's monthly lunch and entertainment outreach to senior adults in the community (PEP). Vicki, one of our friends from church, was providing the musical entertainment for this month's PEP, along with a friend of hers from another church. And two dear friends, Terry and Diane, who live about an hour away, drove up to join us at PEP and to spend the day with us.

Vicki began an introduction to two songs that she said were in recognition of Doug and Linda's 30th anniversary. When she said that, I turned to look at Doug and saw him approaching me with a bouquet of red roses. He had managed to purchase them the day before, bring them to the church, and put them in a cooler to keep them fresh. Then he'd conspired with the pastors and with Vicki for just the right moment to present them to me.

The roses were a big enough surprise, but then Vicki began to sing "My Jesus, I Love Thee," a song that we had requested to be sung at our wedding. Doug had asked Vicki to sing that song at PEP, as another special anniversary surprise for me.

On our first anniversary, Doug had given me roses and a framed copy of the music for "My Jesus, I Love Thee," knowing it had special meaning for me.

Our First Anniversary-1988

Our 30th Anniversary-2017

Denise & Vicki (the musicians), Bonnie, Doug, Me, another Linda, Diane, & Terry

Associate Pastor, Dick B. (on the left) and Senior Pastor, Dave T. (in the middle of the four ladies)

After PEP, Terry and Diane went with us to visit the History Center in Fort Wayne, pictures of which were featured in my last post. I'm including a new picture below, taken from the rear of the building.

The History Center (from the rear)

That awning you can see in the lower right corner of the picture of the History Center is part of a block-long area which is home to a Farmers' Market on Saturdays during the summer.

At the History Center with Terry and Diane

After the History Center, we took Terry and Diane to another nearby community, where there's an observation tower overlooking a very large stone quarry.

At the stone quarry with Terry (Diane took the picture)

Then we had supper at a restaurant in the same community where the stone quarry is located, after which, we returned to our house for dominoes and dessert.

Playing Dominoes (Sorry, no pictures of the dessert)

It wasn't a typical way of celebrating a major anniversary; but, at the end of the day, I couldn't think of anything else I'd rather have done. (Although, when we were at the stone quarry, Diane did suggest that our next stop should be a junkyard. Diane's a funny lady.)

Remembering Dave

Our dear friend, Dave, went home to be with the Lord on Saturday, after a relatively short battle with cancer. These final weeks of his illness, and now his homegoing, have found us thinking back over the 20 years of our friendship and remembering some of the special times we've had together.

We met Dave and Kay in February, 1996, when we visited the church that they were attending. They were warm and friendly and invited us to come to their home that evening to join a group that met there on Sunday nights for Bible study. That was the beginning of an enduring and very special friendship.

The four of us flew to Myrtle Beach for a few days between Christmas and New Years in 1997. Their daughter, Kelli, worked for an airline; so Dave and Kay could fly standby for free; and they were able to get companion tickets for us. For a minimal additional fee, we could fly in the first-class section if there was an opening. There were only two seats available on the first flight to Charlotte, North Carolina; and they were in first class. Dave and Kay let us take those, while they waited for the next available flight.

As we waited in Charlotte for the arrival of our friends, I struck up a conversation with a young woman who was also waiting for someone, and we chatted for quite awhile. When the announcement came over the public address system that a plane was arriving from where we'd last seen Dave and Kay, I turned to the woman next to me and said, "I hope our friends made it on this flight. We were all flying standby and my husband and I got on the first flight."

Imagine my astonishment when she looked at me and said, "Are you Doug and Linda?"

Here, I'd been talking with Kelli, the daughter of our traveling companions, all that time without knowing who she was. She lived in Charlotte, and Dave and Kay had called her to tell her they were coming through the Charlotte airport. She had come to the airport to see them before they went on to Myrtle Beach.

The four of us have been together in our beloved Smoky Mountains several times over the years. In 2000, we rented a cabin together there. During the day, we would go out exploring the national park. For our evening entertainment, Dave had brought four "Star Wars" movies with him: the original trilogy and the first movie of the prequel trilogy. And we watched one every night. 

Dave and Kay at the Lee Roberson Gallery-April, 2000

Dave & Kay and Doug & Linda at the Scenic Train Ride in Bryson City-April, 2000

Dave and Kay at Toms Branch Falls-April, 2000

Dave & Kay at The Sinks-April, 2000

Dave and Kay had previously lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Dave always raved about Mazzio's Pizza in Tulsa. He always said we were going to have to go there for pizza someday. Well, in 2001, we did. We drove nearly 800 miles to get a Mazzio's pizza.

There were no cars at the restaurant that Dave had frequented when he lived there, so we went to another Mazzio's. The pizza didn't live up to Dave's expectations. He was so disappointed and disheartened. The rest of us all thought the food was good, but it just wasn't the way Dave had remembered it. It came close to ruining the trip for him. But a stop in Branson, Missouri, to enjoy some shows there on our way home, went a long way toward making up for the Tulsa disappointment.

The four of us with some other Christian friends at a little bakery in the small town where Doug and I live. This was probably in 2004.

On New Year's Eve, 2004, we all went out to dinner with Kay's sister and brother-in-law, Pat and Wayne. Then we went back to Pat and Wayne's house, where Pat had made a delicious German chocolate cake in celebration of my birthday, which had been the day before. After cake and ice cream, we enjoyed fellowship and card games, ending the evening with prayer for the new year.

At Kay's sister's house on New Year's Eve, 2004

Dave and Kay, after we'd all gone to Zesto for ice cream and then taken a long walk to work off the calories-September, 2005

At their house before going out to eat and to a Philharmonic orchestra concert

Another trip to the Smokies-November, 2008

Gatlinburg Overlook-November, 2008

On Doug's and my 22nd anniversary in 2009, we asked Dave and Kay to go with us to a Spike and the Bulldogs concert at a local outdoor theater. (It's a group that plays the music that was popular during our teen years.) They accepted and invited us over to their house for a cookout before the concert. 

Dave and Kay at Spike and the Bulldogs Concert-August, 2009

 They joined us in the Smokies again in 2011.

Dave & Kay at Roaring Forks Motor Nature Trail

The four of us at the Bud Ogle Cabin on Roaring Forks Motor Nature Trail

At the Greenbrier Restaurant in Gatlinburg

Dave enjoying an afternoon with us at Ouabache State Park-July, 2013

Dave loved music and was a genius with anything technical. He used those talents in service to the Lord, working with sound and lighting in more than one church. And he was always willing to help us out if we had a problem with anything in his area of expertise.

I remember one time, we were having a problem with our stereo system. Dave read our stereo manual while the four of us were playing Euchre. (For those of you not from the Midwest, that's a card game.) Dave never missed a beat during the game; and, when it was done, he knew what was required to get the stereo working better.

As you can imagine, in 20 years of friendship, we've accumulated more memories than can be recounted in one blog post. We're grateful for the memories. And we know we'll meet again. But we're going to miss our friend in the meantime.