November Begins

We voted!

Since we've emptied the deck planter boxes, Honeysuckle often naps in them. 

Driving down our little road

The trees are so pretty.

We see lots of birds, squirrels, deer, foxes, raccoons, and possums in our woods.

The trees are lovely this fall. This is in front of our neighbor's home. 

Right before you turn to go down the hill to our driveway.

Just as you turn the corner

You can see our drive way going off to the right. 

The hickory tree is in its last stage of brown before the leaves start to fall. 

The trees by the garden are starting to change colors more rapidly now.

Ellie made me this Grandma bracelet 💓

She's also made some fall/Thanksgiving bracelets and she's selling them for $4.00 each. She does also custom orders you can pick your colors and words for your custom bracelets. She enjoys making the bracelets. She also makes necklaces, earrings, and rings. She's talented and enjoys sharing her talents. I think we need to go shopping for Christmas and winter beads soon.  And yes, I do support her in her crafting and jewelry making adventures.

 

The Last Few Weeks

Gary and Ezra went to Ace Hardware and Lowe's one day and Ezra was so excited to show me his new Halloween decoration that Papa let him buy. He loves Halloween decorations.

Last year's mums are still going strong.

We've had some great porch reading days. 

I watched Ezra while the rest of his family went to youth activities at church. 

Another day, Ezra was home sick and Sarah had an appointment so I went over to stay with him. 

We played with his ferry & cars, his airplanes, and his airport runways and hangers. 

The cars got to park in the airplane hanger since the planes were all flying.

He loves playing 'Going to Ocracoke' with the ferry & cars.

Then the planes were putting on an airshow that I got to watch.

Check out those aerobatic skills. 

Ezra said, "They have to be careful to do this"

The planes all landed, the ferry docked, and you can see the lighthouse too. 

Next we played with his golf carts. I'm glad he was starting to feel better. We had a lot of fun playing with his toys. 

We tried a new chicken sausage sheet pan dinner and had enough leftover for lunch the next day. 

The leaves are starting to change color

Fall in the woods is lovely

The hickory is the first to start changing color

Most of the other trees are still green.

True! I do love our garden and front porch and enjoy reflecting, reading, and relaxing in both spaces.

We got some new blinds for the living room. Clay helped Gary hang them up. 

We are enjoying our fall and checking off some of the things on our To Do Before Winter list. 

We've had a few doctor appointments and a few more are coming up. I have my eye exam, we both have our annual dermatology exams coming up in the next few weeks. 

Forty Seven Years

It is hard to believe that we have been married for 47 years. 

Gary was already stationed at Iraklion AS, Crete Greece and our wedding date changed several times due to his duty schedule. Even though our original wedding date was September 22, 1979, we had to move it to October due to Gary being deployed. He flew home to Indiana on October 8. His parents drove me and also Gary's sister in law and nephew (not my plan but you just kind of roll with it) to Louisville, Kentucky to pick Gary up. We hadn't seen each other since Valentine's Day when he left for Greece. 

Newspaper wedding announcement. 

When Gary left in February, I was still telling him no when he proposed. It took me until May to decide to go ahead and say yes and start long distance planning for our wedding. This was long before cell phones, texting, facetime, and the internet. We didn't even have home computers yet. Gary called me once a month when he was available. This was also in the time of no call waiting or caller ID. We just had a corded telephones, one in our kitchen and one in my parent's bedroom. When Gary wanted to call he would mail me a letter a couple of weeks before telling me days he would try to call. He would have to call a international telephone operator in England and then give them the phone number he wanted to call in the United States. Then he had to wait for them to call him back when they had a line available. Sometimes it took an hour, sometimes it took several hours. Since all the phones were landlines hardwired to the wall, he had to stay in his room waiting for them to call. It wasn't an easy process to make an international call in 1979. We wrote lots of letters and had those monthly phone calls to plan our wedding. It was challenging, but it was worth it. 

Mom, Susie, and I getting ready.

Lighting the unity candle

You may now kiss the bride.

Our wedding party. 

Gary's parents and his Grannie

My parents and my grandma and her husband

Cutting the cake

Mrs. Yunker, who was my Girl Scout leader made my cake for me. Mom, Susie, and I made peach and blue buttercream mints and cut them into heart shapes. 

Yes, Gary dropped cake into my gown. We laughed about it then and now.

Thirty six hours we boarded a flight to Chicago, then headed to Athens. In Athens we went through customs and then went from the international part of the airport to the local part of the airport to take our flight to the island of Rhodes for our honeymoon.

We had a fun time exploring the medieval old town.

Lots of fun shops.

We had some delicious food too. 

After a week, we flew to Crete. Gary had found an apartment in Kokkini Hani which was a little over two miles from the base where he worked. We had the second floor of this building. I found this photo on the internet. I'm glad to see our apartment building is still there. The little town has really changed, but everything has changed in the last 47 years. The building has been painted, it was just plain concrete when we lived there. It also looks like there an is air conditioner now too. It had no heat or air conditioning when we lived there from October 1979 until August 1981. It was also just a couple of blocks away from the Mediterranean Sea and we would often walk to the beach. We did a lot of snorkeling while we were there. We often refer to our time in Crete as our two year honeymoon. I need to scan our old photos so I can share them electronically. 

We recently went to the Outer Banks in North Carolina and hope to do some more traveling. It just depends on Gary's health. 

Forty seven years and we still continue to choose one another every day. We are looking forward to more adventures together.