In September, Tom and I got an invitation for apple cidering at Pete and Cathy Hahn’s house.  Pete and Cathy are friends from Vanderbilt days.  They live in Hilliard, which is the other side of Columbus, but we don’t get to see them as often as we would like.  Pete is a professor at Ohio …

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Tom and I recently helped out with the Wilson Weight Challenge at church.  We have been getting more involved at church and trying to plug in where we can.  The Wilson Weight Challenge is a local mission project that only took a couple of hours one Sunday.  Perfect for our schedule. The Lewis Center United …

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I wrote a eulogy for my friend Sandra Shaw back in August.  You can read it here if you are interested.  The family asked me to do the graveside service.  After hundreds of funeral services, I thought I knew all the various ways that people could be buried.  But Sandy chose Natural Burial and it …

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One day toward the end of September, Tom and I took Mom and Dad to see the Pumpkin People in Ashland, Ohio.  I had seen some pictures in the Roadside America group on Facebook.  Ashland is only a short drive from Mansfield, and Mom and Dad could enjoy seeing the Pumpkin People from the car.  …

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One fun thing Tom and I did, when we had time in Europe, was check out the local grocery stores.  We learned to recognize several of the big chains, especially Tesco and Sainsbury’s in the United Kingdom, Meny in Norway and Netto in Germany and Denmark.  We liked walking around looking for things that we …

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Are there differences between Europeans and Americans?  People are the same everywhere, aren’t they?  There are certainly lots of friendly and wonderful people anywhere you go.  For the most part, the Europeans were extremely welcoming and accommodating.  After all, a lot of their income relies on tourism.  But, after almost four months in Europe, Tom …

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While we were in Europe we saw lots of interesting signs.  Tom took pictures of most of these European signs that struck him as strange or funny.  Many of them feature stick figure warning man in his many iterations.  Tom especially likes taking pictures of bathroom signs.  Some of the signs are very creative and …

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It seemed that the closer we got to home, the more it drew us in.  It had not been our intention to travel from Boston to home in four days, but that was what we ended up doing. The magnetic pull of family and friends was just too much to resist. We completed our visits …

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The same day we visited Saratoga, we also visited Fort William Henry in Lake George, New York.  Our preference is to visit National Park Service sites, but the NPS can’t take care of every historic site.  The NPS has rules about what they can and can’t do.  For instance, they can’t build a reconstruction unless …

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Our second city in Nova Scotia was Halifax, the capital city.  We went to Halifax on that long ago trip to Nova Scotia that I mentioned previously.  The only thing I remember from that trip, however, is the excellent Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.  The museum is so good that Tom and I both remember …

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