Skip to main content

Number 28

28 years.  That's pretty amazing.  I mean, when I was a kid, and I thought about people being married for 28 years, that meant they were OLD :-)  I don't think of John and me as old, but 28 years is definitely a long time to be together!

Since we aren't traveling these days, getting away to Altoona feels like quite a treat (I know, right? Who would have ever thought?). John is still moonlighting for the hospital in Altoona.  They are short on OBs who will cover call, and we're extremely short on money, so why not?  Plus, they put us up in a nice hotel and pay for John's flight.  I drove Greenie there because we were exchanging televisions (why keep the nice TV in an empty house?), so the hospital got off paying for a rental car for John.

Number 28 spent in Altoona, but spent how we normally do--eating out at every restaurant that offers a free meal to a veteran.  Here's a small recap of the day:

First, a clean car.  We live off of a dirt road in Dexter, and it doesn't take more than one jaunt over Wylie road for our cars to look filthy.  Thankfully, the car wash was giving a deal to veterans.  And cookies.  They gave us free Veteran's Day cookies.


Look at Greenie!  231,000 miles and seven years later, he still looks brand new!

As much as we like our new Texas Roadhouse in Ann Arbor, there's something special about the one in State College. SO much chicken eaten there over the past ten years :-)


But while in State College, I remembered what I do NOT miss:  John on the phone, taking OB calls.  I do believe the kids will always remember him like this:


So, while a free pedicure wasn't on the list of Veteran's Day offerings, my nails needed some serious help after a week of SCUBA diving.  And in the past year, John has discovered that those lovely Vietnamese women can do good things to his trashed up, runner's feet.  And yes, I was holding Michigan proud on a Penn State football game day (I only got one comment all day, but the disapproving looks said it all).


We also went to Athenian Cafe in Altoona for our favorite kebabs (or as they call them in Central PA gyros), but I forgot to take a picture because I dove into the tasty food immediately!

And dessert at Sweet Frog's in Altoona.  I mean frozen yogurt with fresh fruit and chocolate chips?  Yes, thank you.  



Thank goodness John is tall!


Finally, let's not forget about Veteran's Day.  I'm incredibly thankful to the Air Force which offered John a scholarship to go to medical school so many years ago.  Little did we know the good effect it would have on our family for at least a generation.  It never felt like a sacrifice on John's part, or on our family's part--we felt like we always got more than we gave.  Except in the way of photographs.  John never had an official photograph taken of him in the Air Force, so this is the only proof that he even donned a uniform:  his military ID which he supposedly should have turned in when he left the Air Force, but nobody told HIM that.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Like Dominos....

It all began with glare.  Simple, obnoxious, I-can't-stand-it-anymore glare. Our 60" rear projection TV in the family room was basically unviewable except after 10 o'clock at night.  The glare from the windows was making it impossible to see anything during my 10 minute lunch break each day, and something had to change. Too, the TV didn't fit in the entertainment center from Germany.  John, wanting bigger and better, hadn't considered that the space is only 40" wide.  For the past five years, I have been nagged by 6" of overhang on both sides of the TV stand. I went to Lowe's to price blinds.  $1,043 for five blinds, and that was at 20% off. I figured a new TV would be cheaper than that.  I was right, even with the state-of-the-art receiver and new HDMI cables that sly salesman told us we needed to have. But where to put the old TV?  It just needed a quiet, dark place to retire. Glo's bedroom.  Her TV was a relic from the paleoneoneand...

SURPRISE!!

When the pizza guy came to the door last night, here's what John saw: It took a few seconds for John to process who the pizza delivery man was, but when he did, he was incredibly happy (and couldn't stop saying "heeeeyyyyy....".  It was Jared Moran, John's best friend. And me, I just knelt down, right then and there, and began repenting of all the lies that I have told over the last four months, hiding this most amazing surprise :-)  I told Sarah the other day that I was glad to see the light at the end of the falsehood tunnel, because if I kept this up much longer, I was destined to end up in liars' hell... Jared ran the Air Force marathon with John last year.  It was his first marathon, and from what he told us, his last.  However, he called in June and said he was coming again, but I was supposed to keep it a surprise from John.  I'm not sure what changed his mind, but we sure are glad he did.  John hates runnings marathons alone, and ther...

A Quick Trip to Mackinac Island

Allow me a pity party for a paragraph.  As much as John is earning buckets of money for us and for our retirement, his weekend calls have been infringing on our time together.  Like I said, it's a complete pity party, because my logical mind reminds me that I should be happy he's making so much money, but my heart feels rather lonely at times as I reminisce about trips we have taken that we don't have time to take again. I love John.  I don't need him around all the time, but I find that the best quality time with him is when he doesn't have other distractions like work, and call, and hospital credentialing. Anyway, I guess that was two paragraphs, and I don't need to take it any further than that, because I don't want the body of this blog post to be about me and my loneliness. I've been wanting to go to Mackinac Island for two years now (I can hardly even believe that it's been that long since I was there).  With Lake Michigan getting colder and th...