Good Evening … from Mt. Juliet, TN (just East of Nashville, TN).
Today is Sunday, June 24th.
Roxie and I have logged 1,488.9 miles so far since we left Charlotte at 4:15AM last Wednesday. Tomorrow we will drive the final 327 miles (according to my GPS). It has been a fun & relaxing trip although many challenging moments as this is the exact trip that My Janelle and I have taken for the last several years. This is good (learning to deal with the hard times), this is necessary, so I am pushing forward. My Janelle would expect nothing less of me (& You).
High level of the trip…… Upland, IN (Ivanhoe’s Ice Cream); Winona Lake, IN (Sister Lynne & Mike’s Lake House); Crawfordsville, IN (Janelle’s Extended Family); Decatur/Pana, IL (Hayes Family Reunion); HOME.
Creature of habit, I almost ran out of gas north of Lexington, KY just trying to go a little further before filling up the car and then not being able to find a gas station (last year Janelle was fussing at me at the exact same place for a similar situation). Fussing of course is a bit strong, she was stressing about running out of gas and she kind of went into her quiet / I am going to pray mode and wondering why her husband does some of the things he does.
Here is my traveling companion. One of my three cars (I will go into detail on that perhaps sometime in the future) is a VW EOS convertible. This car was My Janelle’s. It has been our road trip car for the last several years. Bucket seats & small backseat, kind of difficult for Roxie to get comfortable so I took the passenger seat out for this adventure. Roxie was very appreciative….
I wanted to share another blessing that started off my week. One of you asked me whether I had clicked on the Father’s Day Link that runs down the right side of this blog. I was not sure exactly what she meant however after she clarified I kind of understand why Janelle tag her blogs into categories. Clicking on that link, I was sent immediately to her blog posts from past Father's Days (my custom fathers’ day cards from 2011, 2010 and 2009). She sure knew how to make me feel special :). I do of course have all three of those cards in my private Janelle stash. By the way, if you venture to these links…she was way too kind. I definitely got the better end of the marriage deal 31+ years ago. Thank you Jan Hill for pointing me to this link, it made my day!
Below is My Janelle picture(s) of the week. You can’t see the smile too well in all of these but the story is fun, so here goes. Starting point of the story is that this is last July 30th at the wedding. Certainly by this time we knew something was not quite right with Janelle’s health however we were not anywhere close to thinking it was as serious as it turned out. The other piece of info important to this story is that one of us (not Janelle) may look big and strong on the outside but is basically an emotional wimp who cries at weddings when I don’t even know the person that well, cries at the same point in certain movies (Brian’s Song, It’s a Wonderful Life, etc.). Needless to say, we had a lot of fun talking about how in the world I was going to get through this event. Janelle on the other hand, certainly had a tender heart which caused tears from time to time, but she was much better at the control aspect.
Upper left #1 picture is the two of us waiting outside the church as I was going to seat my best friend in the front row. I am mainly thinking “Let’s get the show on the road” and “Do we have enough food/beverage for all of these people”. By the way, my main involvement in the wedding preparation dealt with financing it however my one request was that I wanted to walk both of my girls down the aisle. Going clockwise, #2) I was taking extra care walking Janelle because of the health concern and all of a sudden I hear her make a noise; not exactly sure if it was a sound of pain or excitement but it startled me and I looked at her and whispered “Are You OK”? #3) I leaned down so she could tell me what was up…..my strong lady was laughing through the tears as it was obvious that She was the first to lose it on this special day and #4) that’s just us sharing the funny moment (her crying & me being strong) with one of our looks at each other.
By the way, I held it all together until I had to answer the question of who was giving this wonderful young lady to this man. I had decided I would look back at Janelle before answering "Her Mother and I” and the simple answer took about an extra 30 seconds as I struggled to regain my composure.
OK, time to call it a day / week. Getting up early tomorrow to start the final leg of my mini vacation. House Cleaner is coming tomorrow so I get to go home to a clean house. Busy week ahead (mainly fun again) which I will tell you all about next Sunday night if you are kind enough to return. Thank you for sticking with me and encouraging me. I appreciate it more than I can possibly express.
Ken
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Strength and Peace to You ….. Psalms 29:11
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