This weekend, I'm hanging out with John in Bloomsburg, PA. He comes here once a month to pull call, and he's been BEGGING me to come with him. I will admit it (and he knows it), I don't want to be here. It's summer back in Michigan. I want to be outside in the pool, hanging out with the girls, living the fun life. But for all the weekends John does this, I kinda owe it to him. And there's flooding happening in Michigan at the moment...so no pool ;-)
We flew into State College Thursday night and drove straight to Bloomsburg (about two hours away). Friday morning, I drove straight back to State College to get my hair done by Jess. My hair is falling out again, and I'm tired of keeping it long to hide the bald spots, so I had her cut it off. It's less pulling and tugging on it when it's short, and to be honest, I had been keeping it long because I thought we would have a wedding in our family and I wanted long hair for it. But I like my hair best when it's short, so I decided to cut it after she showed me the hair that was falling out when she was washing it. Then, I drove the opposite direction of Bloomsburg, out to Altoona, to pick up a bunch of Boyer chocolate. It's ridiculous to think that I have to bring it back on the plane when I could normally bring it back in the car, but when I spend 12 hours driving to and from my appointment, I just don't want to add the extra hour for the detour to Altoona.
Boyer isn't selling their boxes of peanut butter pretzels anymore (nor are they selling "break away", Glo and John's favorite), but they were selling "imperfects" of the pretzels....which begs the question: WHERE ARE THE PERFECTS? WHY ARE THEY NOT SELLING THOSE? The imperfects were displayed in little baggies on a tray, so I grabbed the entire tray and took it up to the cashier, asking if she sold the boxes of them. She said they were seasonal. ??????? So I went back and grabbed the other tray as well and walked it up to the cashier. Meanwhile, the dude who goes between the factory and the showroom got on the phone, and not three feet away from me, started telling the other person on the phone that "some crazy lady just brought up the trays to the counter". I said to him, "You know I'm right here, right?" but he was too busy laughing at me on the phone to hear me.
Ugh. Central PA.
I then noticed a taped piece of paper to the counter that said if you spent $55, you were entitled to a free 4-pound bag of candy. Mr. Laughing Man walked me over to these Santa-toy-bag size bags of candy, and I just grabbed one. And I told the cashier to give me a tote bag. I walked out with TOO many pounds of candy, that's for sure.
I drove back to Bloomsburg, talking to Meg on the way, and had dinner at Cracker Barrel with John. Unbeknownst to my handsome man-doctor, I had arranged for Ethan, Baby and Brother to come see us. Sure enough, around 9 p.m., I could see them getting out of their car from the hotel window. John was so surprised...although he wasn't going to let them in when Ethan covered the peep hole ;-)
The next day, I planned on us all being together (Ethan had to drive home that night in preparation for singing time the next day). Little did I know that John was scheduled to work FIRST call the entire day....but he never had to go in #miraclesdohappen I noticed that Brother's hair was WAY too long and I know it's super stressful for Rebecca to take him to get his hair cut, so after much cajoling, we convinced Brother that it was time to get a haircut. Actually, it was me taking video of his cowlick ponytail in the back that seemed to convince him. We waited in line at the barber shop, and he was up in the chair...and then he LOST it yet again. And this barber was wearing his girl panties, because he refused to cut his hair. I mean, DUDE, we're pinning hm down. Just cut his hair!
Ethan was pretty upset all around. Upset at Brother. Upset at the barber. Upset at me. Thankfully, we drove over to the rails-to-trails trail, and he and John started running. John said it took him about half the run to cool off.
I then had the miserable luck to walk with Brother for a while. I mean, he was still upset about the haircut, but he was MORE upset about the gravel rocks that were getting in his Birkenstocks. Several times, I just walked away. Baby, however, was a delight as always. We ended up covering about 2.5 miles in an hour and 15 minutes (yep, calculate THAT), but the back half of the walk was beautiful. And fun. And wonderful. Brother stopped crying, and we hit our nature walk stride! I pulled out my plant identifier app, and we were naming all kinds of recurring plants. False strawberries, Axseed, honeysuckles, Bird's Foot Trefoil, and when we could find them, we were eating the black raspberries. The babies were picking flowers. We were taking pictures. We even found an apple tree with baby apples. Brother wanted to try one, and unbelievably, he loved them! So I grabbed a handful for him to eat on the way home. I showed the babies the magic of honeysuckles, and we picked all of the stragglers left over from the spring. It was just another moment where I appreciate how beautiful Pennsylvania is, and I remember how much I love my grand babies!
By the end though, we were sweaty! It was just so hot. So we hopped in the hotel pool when we got back. It's super fun having older grand babies now who don't wear diapers and who are fun to play with! Then, Cheese picked our dinner restaurant, and he went with hibachi. The babies had never seen it, nor had John or Ethan seen the sake that was shot into their mouths...and which they unfortunately swallowed. But the food was delicious, and it was super cute seeing Baby trying to use chopsticks.
And then we had to fulfill a Saturday tradition for Ethan's family: Ice Cream Saturday! I found a local place for ice cream, and when we priced individual cones, THE BIG CHILL ended up being what we ordered! Eight scoops of ice cream with four toppings ;-)
We thought the trio would just come back to the hotel, pick up their things and go, but the babies cuddled in next to Poppie for a nap, and even Cheese closed his eyes.
And then, they were off. It pulled at our heartstrings, seeing them waving goodbye, but how thankful we are that we got to see them at all.
Then began the boredom. John can't be further than ten minutes from the hospital, so like every weekend he's here, he just sits in the hotel room, waiting for calls. I watched Minari last night, and John watched Kolchak. John tells me that this is the worst hotel room he's every gotten (muggy and the a/c doesn't clear it, and no suite with a couch). I'm currently sitting in a tiny chair in the corner because my body just can't sit in the bed any longer.
This morning, we got up and went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. As John said while we were waiting for our table and watching the hordes of people descend on the restaurant, "I don't like Sundays this way. Sunday should be special." We came back to the hotel, thinking we could Zoom into our Sunday meeting, but we got an email saying that sacrament meeting was canceled due to a power outage at the church building. Thankfully, the girls sent us the Zoom link to their church meeting, and we could hear Hannah getting sustained.
So, I've been blogging this afternoon. John has napped and went into the hospital for an hour. We leave at 0'dark 30 for State College and back home tomorrow. John tells me that if I come again, it'll be better. Okay. We'll see ;-)
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