Lake of the Ozarks State Park in Missouri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Photo by Robert Culbertson  (my Dad) . . . . enhancement by Chris Duffy

Now this is a vacation picture from many many years ago.  When we were kids our parents always made sure we had a good vacation each year.  We may not have had much money, but they made sure we got to go places and see different parts of the US.  Several years we went to Lake of the Ozarks State Park and camped.  We'd pitch our tent and it would stay in that spot for three weeks and each day we'd head out in a different direction to see the sights.  Then we'd come back early afternoon and we kids would hit the beach.  Gosh, this picture brings back so many memories.  I nearly drowned once under that floating dock out there.  We were all trying to swim to the other side of the dock by swimming UNDER it and I ran out of air before reaching the other side.  I found myself sucking seaweed off the bottom of the barrels that held the dock afloat.  Never tried THAT again. 

Warwick in England                                    Photo and enhancement by Chris Duffy

One of the things I loved about England was that most everyone had flowers growing in their yards. It didn't matter if they had a large garden or just a tiny patch of earth, they had flowers. This house had flowers the width of the building and the bed was around 12 to 15 inches in depth.  I just loved the random way these were planted.  I'm thinking a lot about England these days, because my hubby has booked us a trip there for our 39th wedding anniversary.  We'll be leaving the last of March and coming back (reluctantly I'm sure) the 9th of April. Of all the vacations we've ever taken, the one to England is my favorite, and I'm hoping this one will be even more wonderful. And THIS time I'll have my digital camera with me and won't have to be worrying about how much I'm spending on film. 

Chesapeake City                                                                                Photo and enhancement by Chris Duffy

This was a wonderful little town Alice and I stumbled onto when we took our Chesapeake Bay area vacation together last year . . or was it the year before?   Yes, 2002.  (It's the pits getting old. ) We strolled the town and took pictures of houses and buildings while we waited for shops to open.  Most of them didn't open though, because I think it was a Sunday.  It's hard to tell one day from another when you're on vacation, but we dropped by again the next day and took in a concert in the park and had some ice cream.

Photo by Chris Duffy . . . . . . .  A house somewhere in the Chesapeake area.

I can't remember where this house was located except for the fact that it was somewhere in the Chesapeake area.  My sister Alice and I took a vacation together there back in 2002.  We had a ball together.

Speaking of having a ball, that's what I did yesterday.  It was a holiday for both my husband and me and we both decided to do no work . . . just whatever we wanted to.  I wanted to see a movie (Calendar Girls) and he definately didn't want to see that one, so a neighbor and I went out to lunch and a movie while he stayed home and read for about 6 hours straight.  He loves to read and unlike me, his eyes don't go blurry after reading for any substantial length of time.  We both enjoyed ourselves immensely and then we spent the evening together, cooking and watching TV.   

Sensative Briar                                                                                                                                           Photo by Robert Culbertson (my dad)

This flower is called a Sensative Briar.  It's one of the many pictures of flowers that my mother wanted a print of when my sister Alice got a scanner that had the capability to scan slides.  That's what our father took mostly . . . 35 mm slides.  We went through boxes and boxes and boxes of slides as mom picked out the ones she wanted for us to print out.   Dad had taken these years ago for mom because she loved flowers and was in some sort of club where they went out and found all kinds of wild flowers.  Dad wasn't particularily interested in the flowers, but he was an outdoorsman and an avid photographer so he was a natural as her documenter.  I think he'd approve of what Alice and I have done with some of his old pictures, and I think he'd be intrigued with what we can do with our new fangled digital cameras and computer software. 

Another Eureka Springs Victorian house

Well, I talked to my sister this evening and the first move is basically behind them.  They cleaned up the old house after all the furniture was moved.  You know how clean you always think you keep your house and then how dirty it looks when all the furniture is gone and you find all that dirt that was hiding from you?  No different here.  Alice said they had no idea the carpet was showing foot traffic patterns as badly as it was, but they had it cleaned and took care of that.  Then they did the walk through on the old house and that went well and tomorrow it's officially not theirs any more. 

Now they're trying to get settled into the apartments so they can feel some semblance of normalcy again. Alice sounded pretty tired, but she's trying to think of this next 5 months as "an adventure".  I imagine that before the week end is over she'll be back on line, that is barring any cable problems at the new place.  And then she can fill you in on her adventure.

Johnson House B&B south of Springdale, Arkansas

This was the dining room in the Johnson House Bed and Breakfast my sister and I stayed in one night during our recent vacation to Arkansas.  If we'd been thinking straight we'd have stayed here more than just one night AND on a different night than we did, because we had to get up very very early the next morning in order to catch our train ride to Van Buren and back.  We would have loved to linger here a little longer. 

Speaking of my sister Alice, she's going to be "off line" for a couple days until her computer is set up in the apartment they are renting while their new home is being built. I'm going to miss her while she's not on line. 

A yard in Eureka Springs, Arkansas

I was surprised when I logged into my work computer this afternoon and found 152 unread email messages.  I thought everyone was supposed to be OFF the last two weeks (ie NOT WORKING !!).  But I suppose it could have been a lot worse.  Let's see, I usually get around 65 to 70 emails a day at work and I was off for 10 days so I could have had 650 emails stacked up, so 152 doesn't seem so bad.  I worked a couple hours this afternoon and got it down to 60 I haven't read yet and I'll probably knock out a few more tomorrow afternoon after worship service.  

Another house in Eureka Springs

Well, all good things must come to an end, and this last two weeks is no exception.  Our company had everyone take vacation for the week of Christmas and "strongly encouraged" us to also take the week of new years as well, which I did.  It has been wonderful and I'm wondering how I'm going to drag myself out of bed at 6:30 Monday morning.  It's not going to be easy, I know that much.  I've been sleeping in till 7:15 and 7:30 most mornings and a couple times I got up at 8:00.  The only good thing about going back to work after this two weeks off is that everybody else will have been off too, so there shouldn't be too much "catching up" to do.