Another year ...

It was two years ago now that I officially retired from ... employment! After floundering around for the first few months of retirement, and volunteering here and there, I think I have finally found a "groove" that is a good mixture of work and play. I'm really thankful for good health and fabulous opportunities in our church community to be of service to others. I have really enjoyed working with little children and volunteering in many different capacities involving them, as well as meeting their parents and making many new friends.

Starting this new school year, I will resume a healthy schedule of volunteering and making myself available for new areas to serve. I'm excited about what God will show me this year!

And my sister has inspired me to begin memorizing Scripture. This is my second week of that endeavor, and I have memorized the first ten verses of Ephesians chapter one. I have been so comforted and spiritually renewed by this passage of Scripture that I feel like ... a new person! Verse four alone needs to be made into a song! "Long ago, even before He made the world, God LOVED us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes."

We are packing for our Texas trip. We leave first thing in the morning, heading first to El Paso and then Bandera, and then Austin! We are not able to stay very long in any one place, because we have to get back to our volunteer commitments ... but we plan to enjoy every minute we can with our families in Texas. We'll try to keep in touch while in the road ...

We finally got Mr. Jones's shelf and beautiful train hanging up in the family room ... thought you might want to see it.

For Nia Madelynn ...

It is a very special little granddaughter's second birthday today ... Nia Madelynn! It has been about five months since we have actually seen Nia, so I have stolen these more recent pictures of her from her mom's blog. She is such a darling little one! Grandpa Jones and I are traveling to Texas to see all of the family there, and every single one of our grandchildren, so we will see Nia in just a few weeks. Since we will be LATE for Nia's birthday and EARLY for Nathan's, we are going to have a combined birthday party for them on one of the days we are in Bandera. We are looking forward to it very much. Happy, happy birthday, Nia! With love from Grandpa and Grandma Jones.

The Jones Reunion and the rest of our Ohio trip ...

Before we drove out of Coshocton Sunday morning, I asked Mr. Jones to take me to see the house his family moved into in late 1951 or early in 1952 (Mr. Jones is unsure of the exact year) so that I could take a picture of it. He told me it looked a lot different back then ~ the red brick was painted white, there was no fence with pretty flowers ... in fact, when his dad first purchased the house (he paid $2500 for it and then borrowed another $2000 to renovate it) ~ there was no heat or indoor plumbing! His mom very wisely refused to move into the house until both of those problems were resolved. So his dad went to work on it! He must have finished work on it sometime before January of 1953 because we know for a fact that Aunt Kathie was born right here ... her mom didn't make it to the hospital in time!
We decided to take the scenic route to the reunion, which was being held outside of Columbus in a little place called Westerville. I snapped a picture of this extremely unusual office building ...

This is the headquarters of Longaberger Baskets ... a seven-story office building ... my oh my ... a picnic basket big enough for Yogi Bear! Remember how I told you there are odd names in this part of Ohio? Let me give you some examples: Tuscarawas, the Walhonding River, Licking County, Gnadenhutten (don't even ask me HOW to pronounce it!), Frazeysburg, Conesville ... and that's just a few of them! We didn't drive through all of those places, but I just thought I'd tell you about them anyway.

We did drive through Newark, which was kind of on the way to the reunion. This is the beautiful court house in Newark ... I just love the architecture of these old buildings. Anyway, Newark is where Mr. Jones's grandparents used to live, 37 miles away from Coshocton, and when he was little, his family would ride the train all the way there. Another reason why he loves trains so much! Good memories.

We were driving around the tracks in Newark and stopped to take a few pictures of this train that was moving. I was out in this field and suddenly I heard Mr. Jones exclaim, "Why, that's Roger!"

Roger is another train buddy ... he lives and works all around this area of Ohio. On a prior trip to Coshocton, we "ran into him" while he was operating a different train and Roger actually allowed ME to DRIVE THE TRAIN ... for just a little bit! It was really fun. This time, we only waved to him at a distance and he and Mr. Jones shouted to each other for a little while.

This is the very nicely restored Pennsylvania Railroad depot in Newark ... Mr. Jones remembers this place very well!

We finally arrived at the reunion over at Blendon Woods and joined a bunch of family for a delicious potluck and lots of chatter ...

I'm not very good with names on this side of the family as we don't travel to Ohio often enough for me to get good at it! Aunt Mildred (in the white sweater) turned 90 earlier this month. There was a birthday cake for her and lots and lots of birthday cards. Aunt Mary is standing up talking to Tom and her Chuck and Tom's wife.

And here are the four siblings, NOT in order of their birth but coupled as to which side of the family they look like! Mr. Jones and Kathie resemble more the Jones side (although Kathie looks a lot like her mom), and Peg and Rick have a lot of "Stage" in them.

I neglected to take very many people pictures (again!) ... but perhaps you can see some folk and actually name them if you double click on the picture above. We had a good time visiting with everyone. I heard the story about how Aunt Mary and Uncle Chuck were robbed a year ago ... really sad that someone would rob such dear folk as they are! We ate all of the good food and made our rounds with everyone possible ... and then it was time to go!

Mr. Jones and I drove as far as Marion and spent the night. We had talked to a young fellow while in Marion the prior Friday who told us that Fostoria was his favorite place to watch trains ... and had we ever been there? We looked at our map, and plotted our course through Fostoria for our ride home Monday. Here are a few pictures along the way ... I hope you'll excuse these rather NONtrain pictures ... I was looking to get a nice cornfield + Queen Anne's lace + barn picture to go with some beautiful scriptures and found it on our route to Fostoria!

"God is the one who gives seed to the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, He will give you many opportunities to do good, and he will produce a harvest of generosity in you." 2 Corinthians 9:10

"Don't get tired of doing what is good. Don't get discouraged and give up, for we will reap a harvest of blessing at the appropriate time." Galatians 6:9

We enjoyed our drive to Fostoria. What a great little place. Of course, Fostoria is known for its GLASS and used to have 13 glass factories in its day.

But we were here to see TRAINS ...

and we saw a bunch of them!

A woman from the Fostoria Rail Preservation Society came by where we were trainspotting and gave us a bunch of good information about the history of the rails around here. She was really interesting and knew a bunch of cool information.

When the boys were small, we would actually go to a section of tracks in Grand Rapids and wait for a train to pass and then count all of the cars ... so it's not just Mr. Jones who watches trains!

But he enjoys trains as much as I enjoy Lake Michigan and lighthouses ... and that's saying a lot.

We ate a yummy lunch of Lake Erie perch (!) at Dell's Family Food ... which was a weird place to eat lake perch ...

This sign across the street from the restaurant cracked us up ~ it says "Bureau of Concern." I've never heard of that kind of bureau before!

This is just one of the old depots in and around Fostoria ...

We enjoyed our Ohio trip very much ... I love little travels like this and am thankful we could take a few extra days and see the sights!

Last Saturday in Coshocton ...

We celebrated my 56th birthday in smalltown America ... Coshocton, Ohio to be exact ... the birthplace of my Mr. Jones. Oftentimes, folk up north here in Grand Rapids will have a rather blank face when he mentions "Coshocton" ... because they've just never ever heard of such a place. Coshocton is almost 100 miles due south from Cleveland. It's about an hour west to drive to the West Virginia border, and about an hour east of Columbus. When I am there, I feel I have stepped back in time ...

It's kind of like watching "Back to the Future" ... it feels exactly like the movie!

The Canal Days Festival was taking place this past weekend in Coshocton and since we didn't have any big plans for my birthday, we decided to just hang around town and enjoy what was going on! When Mr. Jones was growing up, his family didn't own a vehicle. Everywhere they went, they walked! So we left our motel early Saturday morning and walked up Main Street. They have a beautiful old county courthouse there and two war memorials ... the one from Vietnam had two names Mr. Jones recognized from his graduating class ... twin boys that never came home.

The main square of the town was all set up for the Festival with food vendors, craft booths, etc. and there were lots of little shops that I thought perhaps we could peak into ... but Mr. Jones was heading (with determination) to the tracks ... after all, Ohio is about trains!I was told a lot of history about these tracks and the trains that used to run on them ... but I have a very poor memory of those details!

I honestly think that if Mr. Jones had his "dream" retirement home, it would be right here on Fifth Street, directly across from these very tracks. Mr. Jones says perhaps this is true ... but only if he could live there in the 50's when this was a double track main line of the Panhandle Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Whew! I was barely born then!

It was a gorgeous day for a walk, so we decided to head north and see what we could see ... more tracks and more trains was definitely in store for me ...

I did get a kick out of this house (the yellow one trimmed in green) on Chestnut Street with a sign that read, "The Art Asylum" ~ with assorted art work strewn about the lawn and another sign cautioning, "Please Don't Eat the Art."

We just kept running into more and more interesting trains parked on tracks all throughout this little town ...

It was regretable that we had NO grandchildren with us to see THIS sight! This trailer truck was emptying wood chips into a huge pit at the Stone Container plant north of town ... I've never seen a truck at such an angle. The wood chips were then transferred to a moving belt that traveled up to the plant to be made into paper.

I was attracted to the graffiti decorating the railroad cars ... even though it is a felony to do this kind of artwork!

And while Mr. Jones was busily inspecting who knows what on each and every train car, I found some pretty flowers to photograph. Because it's not just about trains ... it's about light and shadows, texture, perspective, color and all sorts of other stuff!

I actually like trains very much ... not as much as boats, but I grew up around model trains because my dad was into that sort of thing for a little while.

It was a beautiful day to photograph ... and combining flowers with trains was very fun!

Did I mention there was an antique car show going on in town as well? My Jesse would have spent the whole day walking up and down Main Street talking cars with everyone. I tried to find some old Fords to snap pictures of ...

Mr. Jones took me down Orchard Street and showed me the house where he was born ... well, he was born at the hospital (which is in sight of the house), but this is where he lived for almost the first five years of his life. The present owner of the house was sitting on the porch steps talking on her cell phone when we came by. She did not wish to be photographed, but we spent about 20 minutes catching up on the history of this street. She was very friendly and we had such a nice conversation with her.

And this is the church where Mr. Jones grew up ~ Central Christian Church (on 8th and Main). I wanted to go inside and see the sun shining through those beautiful windows, but it was all locked up. Do you see the tiny window just to the right of the smaller front door? That used to be the office of Mr. Jones's dad. Grandpa Jones was some kind of secretary to the Sunday School there and that became HIS office, after a larger one was made for the pastor.

We walked back to our hotel to meet Uncle Dan, Kathie and Peggy at 4:00 and then walked back down Main Street for the parade. I'll tell you what ... this was the best parade I've ever been to! I guess small towns take their parades seriously! There were any number of marching bands, military folk, interesting vehicles, and about as many homecoming queens, county fair queens, princesses, and former queens and princesses as I could count ... all dressed in beautiful gowns, riding in the parade.

It was so much fun to be there!

Since Nathan is a volunteer fire fighter, he was in the parade as well ... he is in the front passenger seat of the red fire truck. He had a microphone and said hi to us as he drove by. Later, he told me if he'd known it was my birthday, he would have made sure the whole town knew!

We were invited over to Aunt Kathie's for dinner. She and Dan built this house 3-4 years ago. It looks like it is in the middle of nowhere ... but it is actually close by to everything! They do have a beautiful piece of property though. Grandma Theda Jo joined us for dinner, as did Nathan. Peggy and Kathie cooked up the most delicious meal! I ate so much food! You are probably wondering where all the pictures are of Theda and Nathan and Kathie, Dan and Peggy ... but I didn't take very many and those didn't really turn out very well. I always forget to take pictures of people when I am in a beautiful setting ...

Kathie says deer come right up to her house and eat her flowers! I would have loved to have seen that!

Dan is a woodworker. He made this mantle piece ... I think it is so beautiful!

We sat around this fire pit after dinner (and dessert) and enjoyed the sounds and smells of the woods around us ... it reminded me of being a kid at summer camp ...

This is the driveway that leads from the main road, through the woods and to their house ... I bet these trees are amazingly beautiful no matter what the season. What a wonderful day and great place to celebrate my birthday! I have a bunch of other pictures to show you from Sunday and Monday, but I have to get them in order first!