Summer Vacation: Ohio (and Pennsylvania again)

As I mentioned yesterday, we left Pennsylvania late Thursday afternoon headed towards Ohio to visit with my Mom’s parents. Because we left PA so late, we arrived rather late for dinner that evening.

Despite our tardiness, my Abuela served up a delicious birthday dinner in honor of Dad and I that she had been keeping warm for us. We had ribs, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, bread with butter, and cantaloupe.

She also surprised us with birthday cake! She bought a delicious ice cream cake that tasted just like a big Reese’s peanut butter cup, Dad’s and my favorite candy. It was good!

Photo Credit: Roma.

After dinner we opened birthday gifts and then went to bed. Our original plan for Friday had been to spend time relaxing at their house, go for a morning run, and spend the afternoon at the pool. But our plans had changed on Monday night when we received a phone call from one of Dad’s best friends who lives in Pennsylvania. His wife had died very suddenly that afternoon. They weren’t sure what caused the death, but whatever caused it was exacerbated by the 100+ degree heat wave that week.

We were very shocked as this friend was only in her 50’s. After thinking it over, Mom and Dad decided we would all go to the visitation on Friday afternoon.

We left shortly after breakfast and drove for several hours into the mountains.

Before arriving in town we stopped at Arby’s for lunch. We stopped a little bit early to avoid the traffic back-up caused by a visit from the President in a nearby town.

The heat that day was incredible. It was well over 100 degrees which is really unusual for this part of the country. I started sweating just walking from the van into the buildings!

After staying at the viewing for awhile, we turned around to head back to Ohio. On our way, we stopped by a gas station to get a light snack. We felt very refreshed after enjoying some icy drinks. Dad says that any time the temperature goes over 100 we’re allowed to get slushies! J

That evening we had a light dinner of sandwiches and watched a movie before bed to unwind a bit. Everyone slept in quite late Saturday morning after all of the traveling we had done in the past two days.

As we slept, Abuela fixed a HUGE feast of food for a late brunch. We had ham, cheese and spinach omelets, hash browns, bagels with butter, grapes, strawberries, cantaloupe, banana bread, and mugs of cool orange juice. Nobody ever goes hungry at Abuela’s house! J

After breakfast we kids finished the movie we had started the night before. Once that was done we slowly packed up and left around lunch time.

But we had one more stop to make! One of my Great Aunts and Great Uncles just moved up to Ohio from Florida because my Uncle is very sick and needed to be closer to the rest of the family. We stopped by their home to visit, since we hadn’t seen them in several years. It was so good to see them, and also to see one of my Mom’s cousins who had stopped by their house as well.

After that we made the long trek home. It was a different sort of vacation, but I’m thankful for all the opportunities we had to serve others and visit with lots of family and friends that we don’t often get to see!