The Family

So the weekend was spent catching up with family some of whom I hadn't seen for 30 years (Granddaddy's 80th birthday in 1978)! On Saturday we drove to Waynesboro passing through Hagerstown to see Nannan and Granddaddy's house, where Papa and his bothers Uncle Bill and Uncle Jack grew up and where I used to spend summer holidays when Nannan and Granddaddy brought me over from Scotland to stay. 

 

It was there that I had first met Saharah Moon, when she was only two, and our Dad was in between being somewhere else in the world, and had returned to the USA. We stopped for a photo, then continued on to have lunch in Waynesboro with our Dad's cousin Martha and Pepita, who was married to cousin Bobby. Both Bobby and Martha were children of Nannan's sister, Aunt Helen, whom we saw when I brought Gerard here 20 years ago, when she was a mere 96 years old! Now as Aunt Dorathy and Aunt Nancy pointed out the next day, that generation are all gone, and they have become that generation, we have become their generation and our children are as we were then.

Lunch was fun. Pepita's daughter Elaine had her two youngsters there, little cutey Grace(4) and the little live-wire Bobby (1). They had driven for three hours to see us so they had plenty of energy!!They ran up and down keeping us all fit and amused. Karen, whom we also saw the next day was there with her son Isaac (16) and so too were Martha's daughters Ellen and Beth. We had a good albeit brief catch up. Pepita is still buzzing with energy (which is probably where Grace and Bobby get it from) and it was so special to be able to see her,

 I cannot imagine when we are likely to travel again... Martha told us a little about Great Grandma Garman and where Nannan and Aunt Helen grew up on the farm, and that it was Aunt Helen that rode horses and Nannan was afraid of them! After lunch we all said our goodbyes and we headed home. 

 

On our way back we stopped to swim in the Potomac River, up stream from DC. The day was so hot. Washington has been having a heat wave for a month or so with every day being between 35 and 38. Saturday was a record breaker at just under 40. The water was beautiful, bath warm almost!!! 

 

The next day after we packed our bags (again) we headed to our cousin Kirk's and his wife Annita's place where Nannan's side of the family met. Aunt Dorathy had driven from Pitsburgh and Aunt Nancy and Uncle Jack had driven from New Jersey. Cousin Karl and his wife Cindy, were there too as well as Kirk's boys, Erik (17) and Patrick (14). The day was another scorcher. The kids swam in the pool. Uncle Jack played piano for us and although he has been some ten years without his eye sight he has an impressive repertoire of some 3-4 hours of music that he plays, not all that day however!! 

Just after we ate there was an enormous storm which took out the power (and the air-con). Eventually things cooled down, by then we were eating Nannan's favourite Angel Cake to celebrate her birthday along with uncle Jack's, Karen's, Kirk's, Anita's and Erik's, by candle light. 

 It was a good day. The cousins were as fun as I remember, though we are all a little greyer, balder, wider or wrinklier than back then!! And our children all played well as we did then.

Nannan made such a wonderful effort to make me part of the family I am sure she would have been pleased to see the results of her efforts paying off even after all these years.

We came home late, were up early and SM dropped us at the airport.

We said our goodbyes, we had a good time there. It is has been fun staying with people at their homes and learning the ins and outs of where they live... when at Tommy's in London we caught the 53 into see the sights, at Saharah's we took the 52 or the 54!! SM has a lovely home and although we didn't get to see her in her new home we know just how it will be. Even though we had allowed a little more than the required 90 minutes we had only just enough time to get our bags checked in and go through security (which was on orange alert) before our plane was boarding. At first they they didn't have seats for me and Frances (the plane was over booked) but they got us on! The girls are so good at catching transport now, I think they could take a plane on their own!!

Camille.

We have really cool cousins in our family! We played in the pool with Erik and Patrik and tried to get Issac to come in but he chickened out. We went inside and then this HUGE storm blew up and actually a neighbour's house almost got hit by one of the branches! Erik, Isaac and Patrik took us to a shop where they bought Abbey and I slurpies. I had coke flavour and Abbey had blue raspberry... We walked back to Erik and Patrik's and swam again. Abbey, Erik and Patrik had a war over who had the blow-up bed. I got the doughnut all to my self! We tried to get Issac to come in again but he wouldn't. We teased him about how good the pool was and how nice the water was. Sahara drove us back really late and we had to get up early in the morning to catch the plane to San Francisco!!!

Write More Soon

Frances