A November with Many Memories. November 2 to 30, 2019

Catching up on the blog while sheltering in boat (home) in Longboat Key Florida.

So, our November started with a planned trip to Seattle and on up to Bellingham to visit our daughter, son in law and granddaughter. What a fantastic trip!  Lots of walks, parks and Lucy time!  It was so good to see Sarah, Joe and Lucy Jo again.

 Grandma and Lucy at the park.

 First ice cream with Grandpa...no she just watched!

On the way back we were also able to stop in Denver and drive up to Brett and Natalie’s new house in Loveland.  

They had just moved in so it was a work weekend.  Here we all are painting! 

They bought a very nice home in a nice neighborhood and it was so fun helping them out and seeing them in their new home!

Sunset on the way back to the airport.

After returning to Jacksonville we did a good deal of boat maintenance and restocking for traveling about 500 miles to Longboat Key in December.  

Our plans to go to Michigan to spend Thanksgiving with Mom changed on November 13 though.  We received a call that Mom was unable to get out of bed and was being transferred to Harbor Hospice.  So we moved up our planned flight on the 25^th to the 15^th and flew to Grand Rapids.  We arrived at the Hospice facility and Tom’s other siblings were all already there.  Mom went to be with our Savior on November 16 with Julie, my two younger sisters and I all with her.  My older siblings had gone to 4 PM Mass and she passed at 3:59 while they were in church praying for her.  What a blessing for Mom to live 96 years! It is still hard to believe she is gone, the last of Julie and my parents to pass away. All 10 of her grandchildren were in attendance at the funeral.  Rest in the Peace of Christ Mom.  You were the best!  Our favorite recent photo (July) of Mom  Josephine) and Lucy Jo our granddaughter.

Before we left Florida, we rented a small Airbnb cottage near Spring Lake (actually had a view of the lake) for two weeks given this change of events.  

It proved a great find as we could cook, have overnight guests and even hosted a small gathering after the funeral.  It worked our well to have Sarah, Joe and Lucy for a few days and to host Thanksgiving dinner with Julie’s brother and sister in law Craig and Erin and Tom’s brother and sister in law Larry and Eileen.  All of our children and spouses were at the home and celebration of life as well.  A special thanks to Jordan for being chauffer to and from the airport for many.
Looking through some old photos with my brother Larry.

 Cooking the Thanksgiving turkey.

 Tom, Larry, Eileen, Erin and Craig on Thanksgiving.

A trip out to an angry Lake Michigan at Grand Haven.

We were also able to visit Julie's 101 year old Uncle Bud who was in the hospital.

Sadly, he passed away a few weeks later.  He was a wonderful man with a keen sense of humor and caring personality to the very end.  Rest in peace Uncle Bud.
On our flight back to Jacksonville we used the Aqua Map boating app on the iPad to track our progress. Not sure it is used to seeing speeds like this!  If you zoom in you will see 679mph on our descent into JAX.

We arrived back at Ortega Landing on November 30 and did some scrambling to get provisioned and be on our way prior to 9 AM on Dec 1.  Why?  Well the dockmaster had called us earlier in the week to remind us our month reservation was expiring and to be sure we were leaving as the marina was full and our slip was already reserved.  So we do like staying here and wanted to leave on good terms, thus we complied.  

A bit of a scramble as noted, but we did leave early on 12-1 as requested.

That’s all for now.  We will hopefully update the blog again soon.