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Published: September 18th 2009
Alabama Beaches
These beaches were breathtakingly beautiful, not crowded and had powder-soft white sandYOU CAN CLICK ON "PREVIOUS ENTRIES" AT THE TOP LEFT OF THIS BLOG PAGE AND SEE OTHER BLOG ENTRIES.
September 16, 2009 We hope this finds you all well after having enjoyed a fun and recuperative summer.
Since last year (08) we went to Alaska and the Pacific Northwest for the summer, which is mainly Kathy’s family, this summer we went the other direction to see friends and family, mostly Bernard’s. It had been awhile since we’d been "back east" and had 8 new grand-nieces and nephews to meet! Bernie’s sister
Claudia Tyrrell has 7 children, and brother
Tom Dougherty 5, and they are all having children, hence the mini-population explosion.
Our trip began on May 22 and ended on August 15; we drove 10,000 miles in our VW Euro (camper) van.
We drove through
Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, up through
Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio to New Jersey; down again to
Virginia and Washington, D.C., back to
New Jersey, up to
New San Antonio, TX
We not only got to visit with old friends Mark & Yolanda, but with Yolanda's oldest daughter, Lizette, who lives in SA too York, Massachusetts, and as far north as
Vermont; down to
New York and New Jersey, again. Yeah, Bernie’s sister Claudia in New Jersey had us for a veeerrry long visit. Thankfully she is a good sport and easy-going.
Texas
We started the trip with a visit to
Mara & Larry Cohn in
El Paso, TX, and
EXACTLY like our previous visit, since they were our first stop, we totally forgot to take any photos of them. (M, L, J & A, can you all forgive me, AGAIN??) We met the Cohn family in 2001 when we were all living in the Netherlands, and it is always a delight to spend some time with them and see how the kids are doing -
Josh is in college now, yikes! and sweet
Alicia, 8 years later at 16, is a lovely young woman.
Next stop was
San Antonio, TX to see
Yolanda & Mark Graber, old friends from Alaska. Yolanda’s oldest daughter,
Lizette, is also living in SA now, so we had a wonderful visit with her too.
From San Antonio we did the most camping of the summer - mostly on beaches in
Louisiana, Alabama and Florida.
Largo, FL
Claudia's youngest daughter, Maria Barney, lives in Largo, FL with husband John and 5 mo. old Charley In Florida we also camped at a natural springs area, Manatee Springs. There are many of these lovely springs all over Florida where the water temperature is always cool and creates a wonderful micro-climates and lush forests surrounding them.
Florida
Our first family visit was in
Largo, FL (near Tampa) with
Maria (Tyrrell, Claudia’s youngest daughter), husband
John Barney and 5 month-old
Charley - what a cutie - and Maria and John are the most laid-back, natural parents ever.
Next stop was
Boca Raton, FL to see our Argentine daughter,
Marcela, and her family - husband
Tim and almost 1-year old
Cal. We were also there to celebrate Marcela’s 40th birthday! She reminded me that when she and the other exchange student’s were with us in Alaska, I had celebrated my 40th birthday! (See photo below) Too weird. Cal is, of course, adorable, and Marcela and Tim amazing parents, but we expect no less.
On our way from Boca Raton to Charleston we stopped for a romantic respite, as it was our anniversary. We lucked into a quaint little B&B in the beautiful old Spanish-style town of
St. Augustine, which is a tourist mecca, but still very
Boca Raton, FL
We visited Argentine daughter Marcela Jensen, husband Tim and son Cal enjoyable.
South Carolina
Next stop was
Charleston where good friends
Ernie Byers & Kaye Carmichael-Byers - the couple we traveled with in 2006 for 3 months in southern Africa - have completed their fabulous home overlooking Clark Sound on James Island. We had dinner one evening with
Ken & Jan Poole - Ken is the brother of our good friends from South Africa and was actually the connection between Ernie, Kaye, us, and
Peter & Sue Poole who became our good and dear friends the year we lived in
Pretoria. Always a delight to spend time with all of them.
North Carolina
In North Carolina we had a ton of stops to make as half of Claudia’s kids have moved there, well, 3 anyway. Nephew
Chris/Charlie Tyrrell lives in
Charlotte and was our first stop. He is doing great; his older son
Christopher is going to college in North Carolina.
Niece
Colleen (Tyrrell), husband,
Dean, and daughter,
Jonna,
Williams live in
Taylorsville and were our next port-of-call. We actually just stopped briefly to caravan with them and Dean’s cousin to the French Broad River in near the Tennessee border for a VW camper van get-together. It was
Charleston, SC
Ernie Byers, Bernardo & Ken Poole at Ernie & Kayes home on James Island - you can see a hint of the beautiful view behind the guys a weekend of tie-dye clothes, 60-70s music, old and new hippies everywhere and a bunch of fun. It was billed as “kid friendly,” (read: no pot smoking) but there were plenty of spirits around, including home-brewed beer and even more potent “shine” - said still having been set up after the kids went to bed, which was darn late as there was a community fire-ring where Samore makings seemed endless.
At the camp-out we actually saw niece
Denise Tyrrell and daughter
McKayla, who live in New Jersey, as they joined us - McKayla had been at a swimming camp in Tennessee, so they dropped in and surprised us.
Next to
Asheville, NC which is one our favorite towns and where nephew
Thomas & wife
Kim Tyrrell live. We had a nice visit with them, but I, once AGAIN, forgot to take any photos. We also spent a fun evening with good friend Randy Latta, who now lives in Asheville.
Kentucky
Louisville, where niece
Marie (Dougherty), husband
Chris, and children
Elise and Griff Gould live, was our next stop. The Gould clan had been to visit us in Tucson in 2007, where we’d had a superb time with
Charleston, SC
Kaye, Jan Poole & Kathy at Kaye & Ernie's beautiful home them, so it was great to see them, especially the kids, again.
Also in Louisville are my brother’s son,
Tom Merryman, wife,
Jen, and 2-year-old son,
Levi, who has William’s syndrome and is thus small for his age, but a delightful little guy who always has a smile on his face and a cuddle for everyone. We had a delightful visit with them, albeit a short one.
Ohio
From Kentucky we drove to
Tiffin, Ohio to see a friend,
Rebecca, from
South Africa. Rebecca was a neighbor of ours in
Pretoria and it just happened that she was going to be visiting family in Tiffin when we were in the area, so we managed to meet for a short visit. She bought a beautiful old home in Tiffin and was busy fixing it up as a rental before having to head back to Johannesburg in a few days - she had her work cut out for her, but had rallied family to get the job done and was making great progress.
New Jersey/New York
We then high-tailed it to New Jersey. We had arranged for our Guatemalan daughter’s, Jackie’s, nieces
Aixa and
Melissa, along with their mother,
Charlotte, NC
Bernardo and his mini-me, nephew Chris Tyrrell Letty, to come for an “exchange” to New Jersey. The idea started out simple - Melissa, age 8, comes to NJ to spend time with McKayla, age 10, and to learn English. Then McKayla goes to Guatemala to learn Spanish. It got much bigger than that - 3 from Guatemala came and then in late August Denise & McKayla went to Guatemala.
Letty and the girls came for 3 weeks; Claudia and Denise had to work some of that time, plus McKayla had a ton of swimming classes and meets. So we came to NJ to host the Guatemalans. They also had a cousin who lived in New York City, Jimena, who came to NJ and took them back to NYC for a weekend, which was great for them as they walked for hours every day and saw so much.
Virginia
One of our excursions out of NJ was to
Richmond where niece
Adrienne (Dougherty), husband
Rob and boys
Shep & Lee Martin, plus nephew
David Dougherty, wife
Deb, kids
Cole, Ella and Julia, all live. We also went to
Jamestown and Monticello. It was unusually cool and not humid in Richmond, which was a delight for us
North Carolina VW Camping Get-Together
On the French Broad River near the Tennessee border - ❡"let's do the time warp again"❡ all. We had a fabulous 4th of July and overall visit as Adrienne & family and David & family kept us busy and entertained to the max.
Washington, D.C.
We headed north again but stopped in
Washington, D.C. to visit niece
Regina (Dougherty), husband
Tim, kids
Patrick, Mairin, Luke & Owen Hall. We spent 4 days seeing everything D.C. has to offer, well, it felt like everything, but of course we only scratched the surface. We did the monument walk and a different museum or two every day. Note there are no photos of Patrick & Mairin - they are teenagers and hard to corral for photos.
New Jersey (again)
Back in NJ we went to the
beach, again, or swam in Claudia’s pool, had social gatherings and then our last excursion was to the Statute of Liberty and Ellis Island - a great way to end a once-in-a-lifetime trip for our Guatemalan family.
We’d like to thank all of the family who so generously took in 5 visitors! It is one thing for two of us to pop in for a visit, but 5, well. . . . It was amazing how genuine and warm the welcome
Louisville, KY
Bernard w/Elise & Griff Gould; did I not get photos of Chris & Marie because Elise & Griff are so darn cute? was for us and our Guatemalan visitors. Adrienne, Regina, Claudia and all their families opened their homes and their hearts to us and made our “visit” more of an occasion - we had sooooo much fun!
Vermont
Vermont was our next destination to visit friends near
Middlebury - fabulous home, picked raspberries, went to a concert in the park, visited Revolutionary War forts, ate scrumptious meals - one of which was almost totally just-picked sweet corn - fabulous - thank you
John & Alice! Massachusetts
Heading south again we visited Bernard’s brother,
Tom, and wife
Janet. Tom has a form of Parkinson’s, but looked better than the last time we’d seen him and they both seemed to be doing well. Janet’s sister
Nancy and husband
Charlie came for an afternoon and since we adore them, that was super - thank you Janet for your thoughtfulness, not to mention the amazing dinner!
Rhode Island
After leaving Tom & Janet’s we stopped for lunch with Bernard’s
Aunt Rita (oops again - no photo, but in my defense it was pouring cats and dogs, so getting my new camera out was NOT an option) in Rhode Island. She is in
Louisville, KY
Tom, Jen & Levi Merryman her 80s, but has had no diminution of her faculties and is a hoot - we had a delightful afternoon with her.
New York
It wasn’t far to Bernie’s cousin,
Frank, and wife,
Dottie in
Pauling, New York for our next stop. Dottie sure knows how to feed ya! Fabulous dinner shared with Dottie’s daughter
Monique and her lovely family.
Because of scheduling, we went back to Claudia’s before making our final family visit, to
Tom Dougherty, wife,
Holly, their two little ones
Quinn & Riley in Bronxville, NY. They have a lovely home in a great little enclave. Bronxville has a definite village feel to it - you can walk everywhere, lots of local shops and
restaurants, nice people, a few minutes walk to the subway for the commute to NYC. Great location.
Germany
From New Jersey, on August 1, we flew over for a week in
Berlin, Germany where B was teaching in the German Red Cross summer school and Kathy was looking for an apartment. B had been invited to be an “external lecturer” in international humanitarian law for a year, which means he gets to teach all over Germany and Europe. Suffice it
Aquarium in NJ
Grand-niece Mac with our Guatemalan guests, Melissa, Aixa & Letty to say here that we found an apartment and the first of September we came to Germany for a year.
Back in the USA
On August 9 we flew back to New Jersey from Germany to find that a cousin of Bernie’s,
Tom Killip, had unexpectedly died. He was only 60 years old, had no medical problems, but had a massive heart attack just outside his apartment in New York City. A sad, sad day, and moving wake and funeral. Tom had not married, so his brother
Edward, whom he was very close to, and his sister
Mary Fontaine and her fabulous family made all the extensive and beautiful arrangements. As always, funerals and weddings are great get-togethers, but this one was so very sad.
After Tom’s funeral we had to drive back to
Tucson (3 12/14 hour days) quickly to get our things together and ready our condo to be gone for a year. The German possibility was in the works when we started our summer adventures, but was only firmed up while we were traveling - hence our rush to get home and organized.
We are in Germany now, well, that isn’t totally true because
Richmond, VA
On Adrienne & Rob Martin's fabulous patio, which overlooks the James River - no other houses in view, just river and forest - a magical place! (Adrienne w/Letty, Aixa & Bernard) I am sitting on a hotel balcony overlooking the Mediterranean Sea in
San Remo, Italy as Bernardo is attending a conference here. Yeah, we were in Berlin barely a week before our first excursion - I think I’m gonna like this year!
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jill
non-member comment
looking so fit
You guys look great! How do you keep growing younger??? any plans for a return visit to Ecuador?