It's Christmas-time in the City

Christmas came early this year with the arrival of family from Alaska on the 17th.  

My sister, Lori arrived with two of her daughters, 

Hali and Emily 

and Emily's boyfriend, Joe.

We have not spent Christmas together since before Lori moved to Alaska 25 years ago!

We had a lot planned for the ten day visit.

After giving them a day to adjust to the time change,

we headed to NYC.

Emily, Hali and Joe had never been there.

 After taking an early train from New Haven to Grand Central Station,

we headed out to begin a long day of site-seeing.

 First stop - Rockefeller Center.

 We went all the way to the Top of the Rock for a view of the city.

 It was a little windy, even though the glass panels helped block most of the wind.

 This is my beautiful sister Lori with Hali (left) and Emily (right).

 Emily didn't know it yet, but not only was she at the top of the rock, she would be receiving a rock from Joe a few days later!

 I must be shrinking, because Kerry has never been taller than me before!

 I find the resemblance among the cousins remarkable!

 The crystal chandelier in Rockefeller Center was beautiful!

 The Salvation Army workers were quite fun to watch as they danced to music on their boom box.

 We proceeded down 5th Avenue and stopped at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Hali lit a candle for her grandparents.

 The stores on 5th Avenue were dressed for Christmas.

 I really liked the Tiffany window.  

(Emily would be receiving a similar turquoise box in a few days) 

 After taking the subway to Union Square for lunch and spending time shopping at the Christmas market there, we made our way downtown.

There was another big Christmas tree on Wall Street.

We waited in line for the 9/11 Memorial.  The tall shiny buildings are some of the new World Trade Center towers. 

 The memorial's twin reflecting pools are each nearly an acre in size and feature the largest manmade waterfalls in North America. 

The pools sit within the footprints where the Twin Towers once stood. 

The names of all who died are carved and backlit around the outside of each pool.

 Our last stop of the day was Times Square.

 It just had to be seen after dark!  

 We walked around a little before meeting Vance for dinner.

He was there on a business trip.

There were plenty of characters walking around the streets - kind of creepy.

 I didn't get a picture (darn), but Spiderman was very taken by Lori and swung down off his pole to say hello to her!

There we are on the Forever 21 video board... 

Right in the center, Hali has the black coat and white scarf.

After leaving the house at 5:45 AM, we got back home at 11PM.

It was a long day, but we had a lot of fun together!

And it was only the beginning!

Look Who's Going To College

Childhood is not from birth to a certain age

 and at a certain age the child is grown 

and puts away childish things.   

Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.

  Nobody that matters, that is.

~ Edna St Vincent Millay 

I took Annie back to college yesterday after her Thanksgiving break.

She had brought her laundry home and had packed up her clean clothes along with her laptop charger, her blankie, 

and Bun-Bun.

It's only right that Bun-Bun isn't being left behind.

She's been with Annie for many years, 

comforting her and helping her get to sleep.

Holding Bun-Bun went hand in hand with thumb-sucking!

Just being near Bun-Bun made everyone suck their thumbs!

(shown here visiting cousins in Alaska)

 Bun-Bun has gone camping with us...

She attended Great-Grandma's 90th birthday party!

She went to the bus stop with Annie on Kerry's first day of kindergarten!

She even posed with Annie on Halloween!

Bun-Bun went for many stroller rides.

She played with Annie every day.

Notice how nice and pink Bun-Bun was back then!

Sometimes Annie would make a nest in the laundry basket and sleep with Bun-Bun.  

This is Bun-Bun playing at Grandma's house!

Other stuffed animals have come and gone,

but only Bun-Bun went the distance.

And now Bun-Bun is going to college!

Imagine that!

Keep In Touch!

A few days ago I shared an article on Facebook called

"Ten Signs That Deceased Loved Ones Give Us To Let Us Know They Are Around"

I received messages from a few people who lost parents recently thanking me for posting it and wanting to hear from their loved ones and wondering if I had experienced anything myself.

I have had many instances that I believe were signs from my Dad.  I firmly believe he was able to communicate with us after his physical body left this world -  something I would not have believed before his death.  Some people are spooked by things like this, but I feel comforted that death is not final and our loved ones are still "around".

1) My first experience occurred about a month after my father died.  We had sold my parents' house in Vermont and had cleaned almost all of their belongings out.  I went to Vermont with my daughter Annie to attend a graduation party for my niece.  Even though the house was empty, Annie and I decided to sleep one more night in the house before the upcoming closing.  We slept in sleeping bags on the living room rug and watched "Pretty Woman" on my laptop.  It felt good to just be there.  In the morning, while Annie was in the shower I went upstairs to look around one last time.  As I was walking up the stairs, I smelled my Dad.  I stood on the stairs and breathed in the scent of his after-shave as if he was right next to me.  After a minute, I went upstairs to his office and wandered around.  On my way back down the stairs I stopped in the same spot and smelled nothing.

When Annie was out of the shower and dressed, the thought came into my head to show her the basement.  In all of the years we had visited my parents, she had never been down there.  It was an old house and the basement was full of bugs and spiders and cobwebs - it was where my Dad would go to putter around at night with his tools.  The new owners requested we leave the basement as it was - they wanted to go through my Dad's old tools.  We were just as happy not to have to clean it out.  I had been down there when we were cleaning out the rest of the house to see if there was anything I wanted to keep, so I knew what was down there.

 When I brought Annie down, we looked around once again.  Before we went back upstairs, she noticed something on top of a box near the stairway.  When my parents were first married, my Dad was a partner in a wrought-iron business.  He designed and made furniture and decorations out of wrought-iron.  Laying on top of a box near the stairway was one of his creations I had never seen before.  It was old and rusty.  It was a musical staff with notes made out of metal washers.

Annie was in high school at the time and was planning to go to music school for college.  She asked me if she could have it.  I firmly believe it was my father who put the thought into my head to take Annie to the basement because he left this there for her.  He wanted her to have it.

Nobody in my family had ever seen this in the basement before, yet there it was right out in the open waiting for Annie! 

Annie sanded it and repainted it, and it now hangs in our kitchen as a reminder of my father.

2)  In the months after my father's death, my brother was driving my dad's work van to make sure everything was working ok before he sold it.  As he was driving, the radio stopped working.  He tried to see what was wrong with it but couldn't figure out why it stopped working.  Then it started working again.  He told me about this and said he thought it was Dad fooling around.

A few weeks later, my sister, Lori, in Alaska was driving her daughter to the horse barn to tend their horse when her car radio stopped working. And just as it happened with my brother, it started working again all by itself.  She had heard my brother's story and wondered if it was my father.

About a week later,  I was driving Annie home from her music rehearsal in West Hartford and we were talking.  I was telling her what had happened with the car radio with both my brother and my sister.  At that exact moment, my car radio stopped working.  We looked at each other in amazement.  It couldn't be possible, could it?  After two or three minutes, we were close to home and I said out loud, "Ok, Dad, enough is enough!  Turn the radio back on!"  He must have heard me because it was back on within seconds after I said that.

3)  The third major "sign' from my Dad happened after he had been gone for more than two years.  I wrote a blog post about it back then:

  Click here to read it.

I haven't had any experiences lately that are as blatant as the ones I just described.  There were a few times I had dreams where I awoke feeling like I had just spent time with my mom or dad, and it was so nice, but these don't happen often.  One morning after a dream with my Mom in it I called my sister to tell her about it and she had had a similar dream.

I've thought a lot about death and spirits since the passing of my parents.  I am a believer that death is not the end of one's spirit.  I believe I will be with my parents again one day, and that makes the prospect of my own death (whenever that may be)  a little less scary.

Until then, Dad (or Mom), I'm here if you want to get in touch!

Everyday Life Through the Lens

Back when I was growing up,  we didn't have cameras with us very often.  When we did, it was used mostly for big events like proms and graduations.  I hardly have any pictures of my friends.  I went looking today and came up with a few, but the earliest was from high school.
And honestly,  these were almost all of them!  Sad!

This was Starlene.

Char and Julie

Karen

Jeanne

Jim

Mandy

Barb, Beth, Erin and Mandy

Margaret and Mary

This is a little later on, but it is my softball team at work after college.

I wish I had more pictures of everyday life with my friends from grammar school and high school!  Even after high school!

We always complain about kids and their phones.  They are always texting, checking Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

If there is one positive aspect of having a phone in your pocket at all times is that they have a camera in their pocket at all times!

Taking pictures of everyday life!

Back when phones had cards inside them to store photos, I used to take them out of their phones once in a while and back up the photos to the computer.  I'm sure they will love to look back at all of these fun times!