It’s time for Project 52, Week 35!
35 weeks ago, on my 52nd birthday, I began Project 52. Since there are 52 weeks in a year, each week I’m taking one year of my life and blogging about it. This week, I’m covering the year I was 35 — June 14, 1999, to June 14, 2000.
This is the last day of the 35th week, and I’m not even halfway through the year! I may have to start summarizing. It took four posts to talk about our England vacation, and then another to get through the rest of the summer and both my kids in school.
We were still Castling. On Saturday, September 25, we got out a map and picked a location with several symbols for castle ruins, and then tried to find out how to get there using road signs, once we got to the area. (Would Google maps take out the fun of castling? It would make it easier to know if it were possible to get to a castle. In our day, we had to pick a place with lots of potential choices, in hopes that at least one was findable.)
Castle #85 was Ruine Randeck. We had headed in a new direction, but it wasn’t real far from home in Gundersweiler. You can see that we got there on a beautiful day.
Playing tag at a castle again:
We were the only people there (one of the cool things about castle ruins), so there wasn’t anyone to ask to take a family picture. I gave everyone else a turn with the camera. First Timmy took a picture:
Then it was Jade’s turn:
And finally Steve took a picture:
Timmy was in Kindergarten, so maybe this was a shoe-tying lesson? (Steve taught using a different method than I did, and it was simpler.)
And could anyone look more angelic?
Now here’s a picture that makes my heart happy. Timmy took a few weeks to adjust to Kindergarten. He is one of the most introverted people I’ve ever known, and was very quiet, observant, and tentative the first few weeks. But this showed that he was adjusting and finding his stride. He was Star of the Week! And I love his proud smile.
And the highlight of the Fall was when I took a trip by myself to Virginia to be in Darlene’s wedding! I got a seat on a Space Available flight for almost free. (It flew in to BWI, so Kathe had a long drive to pick me up.) I flew out on October 18 and stayed at Kathe’s house.
I hung out with Kathe and her son Tim, and ran some errands with Darlene and met her new husband Matt. It was strange to be in America, but have it not feel like home. (So much cement! The wide, wide roads! Ugly strip malls!) And it was hard to be on the other side of the ocean from my kids and husband. But very, very good to have time with Kathe and Darlene.
On October 21, Kathe took me and Tim for a drive along Skyline Drive to enjoy the Fall Color. So beautiful!
And here’s the happy couple!
At the Rehearsal:
At the Rehearsal dinner, we were in booths, and here’s the group I sat with. The couple on the left were friends of Matt’s. On the right are Diane and Ed Allen, and Lisa Miller, who went to high school and church with Darlene and me.
And yes, that was when I met Pastor Ed Allen and his wonderful wife Diane! I remember he teased me about the childhood photos of Darlene that I was circulating! So now I can tease back that he had more and a different color of hair than he does now.
And Darlene Sasaki and Matt LeVault got married on October 23, 1999.
The truth is that Lisa put butter on her finger to take this picture to try to shock Darlene after the fact!
The reception was at the LeVault home.
My last day in Virginia was Sunday, October 24. I attended Gateway Community Church in the morning with Kathe, and wished there was a church like that where we lived. It wasn’t too small or too big (Kathe seemed to know most of the people.). I liked the singing, and Pastor Ed didn’t have a “preacher voice” and I liked the style of the service. After the service there was a Fall Fest and I thought that my whole family would enjoy such a church.
After that, I hung out with Kathe and Joe and Tim until Kathe took me to BWI Airport in the evening and I caught a Space Available flight home.
