A Week-End of Opportunities

This week-end we had three 'opportunities'. The first one was to go to my 40th high school reunion. If any of you from South Brunswick High School class of 1968 are reading this - welcome and sorry I missed seeing you all. I hope you'll post a blog of the reunion or at least some pictures. Wish I could have been there and I hope to hear for some of you.

The second opportunity we had this week-end was to attend Mark's college's 'Family Week-End" event near Boston. We have been for the 3 previous years and decided to pass on it this year, but we'll be sure to go for his graduation in early June.

Opportunity number 3 was the one we took. It was Grandparents' Day at our grandchildren's school. The big event started at 8:30 am and since we wanted to make it a day trip, we had to head out shortly after 5 am for the 3-hour drive - that, of course, allowed time for a stop at Starbuck's.

What a beautiful drive it turned out to be! We had hoped to see the stunning fall colors of the trees in the mountains, but our timing (driving in the dark) nixed that. However, as we crossed over the Cascade Mountains, we left the rain and clouds behind - that's the norm - and the eastern side of the state was so clear that we got to see the most beautiful, colorful sunrise on the eastern horizon as we were driving directly east - right into the sunrise, it seemed. The wide open, cloudless, treeless horizon made for a beautiful sunrise 'event'. It was at this time, we realized we'd left the camera behind. I guess leaving a 5am , we just weren't quite awake enough to remember everything. However, when we arrived, we saw that Hannah (5) had drawn a picture (a "masterpiece" the teacher called it) for us. It is better than any photograph we could have taken. It's posted here at the top of this entry and will hang it up in our house, too.

Grandparents' Day was wonderful - as always. After lunch with the kids at school, we then went over to their house for a visit. Drew came home early from work and we all went out for an early dinner before we headed back home - just barely in time to see the sunset over the mountains. It was a great day - but very tiring, by the time we pulled into our driveway shortly before 9 pm.

We had 3 choices for this week-end and we made the right one - no airplanes, no hotels, and had we made another choice, there would have been no "masterpiece" from Hannah to keep forever.

Picture details as explained by Hannah: Grandma on the left and Grandpa holding a basket brimming with blueberries from our blueberry bush. Look at the heart between us, she said. On the right is her brother JJ. I guess Hannah was 'taking' the picture, so she isn't in it. Needless to say, we love it.