Greetings and welcome our holiday story!
Let's see what presents were in store for Leslie&I this year:
the gift of family:
Family Reunions were big this year. In February we traveled to
Texas for my Aunt Mildred's and Uncle David's
50th wedding anniversary!! It doubled as
the first O'Dell family reunion in recent memory. The timing was fortunate, I guess, as
the fall marked the passing of both Uncle David and my Uncle Bud -- their stories of
goats and blue Chevy's will remain always in our hearts. In June we went to San Antonio for the Poteet family annual reunion and explored
Leslie's Mom's ol' stomping (clogging?) and swimming grounds. In August it was
Tennessee
for a
rare Zimmerman family reunion and visits to the
ol' fishin' pond and ballpark.
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Leslie LOVES the snow!
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Delivering Christmas
presents VA Beach-style |
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Loch ma, no Ness
(ha ha) -- Scotland
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the gang on parade in Webster! |
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the gift of travel:
The Tennessee
reunion trek occurred via VW bus and included a stop in Virginia Beach to visit my
brother Brian. Apart from the reunion sites, Leslie and I each had a week visit
(though at different times) with Wendy&Chris and Colter in Utah. The BIG trip was an MRI
conference stop in Leslie's favorite setting:
Scotland!
Unlike Australia, we were able to cross the entire country in a week, including
journeying to the Isle of Skye (home of poets and sheep), Loch Ness, Loch Lomond,
Edinburgh, Glasgow, St. Andrews
(the home of golf!), Inverness, Stirling, and many others.
Although the dreaded foot and mouth disease worried some in the south, we still had
the frrreeedooommm to visit such historic sites as the Wallace Monument (ala the
movie Braveheart), Stirling and Edinburgh Castles, heard a choral Easter
performance in a 400 year old Stirling
monastery, and saw
a classic Scottish soccer match at
the new stadium in Inverness
(where the refs were
'rrrubish').
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Gifts of Harvest:
On the home-front, our new-ish house and yard have provided us bountifully with
fix-ups, improvements and cultivation needs. Leslie's garden provided us with
tomatos and beans galore, as well as some peppers, sunflowers, potatoes, cucumbers,
sage and squash. Our trees also provided black walnuts, firewood (pine tree downed in a
February storm), beautiful leaves, and plenty of 'cotton' (from our female cottonwood
tree) and willow branches. The local farmers pitched in with apples and strawberries
from which Leslie made lots of syrups and eats. The area also kept us busy with parades,
corn mazes, soccer-volleyball-softball games, and choir gigs. We had also managed to
squeeze in the occasional time-off for work.
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What you may see on your next visit to our house
2533 Lake Road,
Ontario NY 14519
315-524-5449
lesnwalt@juno.com
(As always, bring dessert!) |
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Merry Christmas
and
Happy New Year
to all!!!!
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