Our day started with more beautiful views of the Vermont countryside. The leaves were just beginning to change so there wasn’t as much color as we had hoped, but it was still just lovely. We stopped at several overlooks along the way so we could get better pictures than driving by in the bus.

The highlight of the day was visiting Hildene, the home of Robert Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s only child that survived to adulthood. I knew virtually nothing about him, but his story was very interesting. As it turned out, he was a lawyer like his father before him, and served in the cabinets of several different presidents. The house he built actually stayed in the family until 1975, when the granddaughter that lived there died. He does not have any known descendants still living. An interesting thing about the house, because it was in the family for so long, was that they showed different changes that were made over the decades with different generations living there. I loved that.

The view down on the farm from the backyard – I cannot remember how many hundreds of acres it was – that was part of Hildene. Just so pretty.

Two weeks ago today we boarded the plane early – eight of us from our church, with a tour group out of Rock Hill – and flew into Albany, New York. From there we boarded a bus and set off for Vermont. We spent the day driving around the beautiful countryside and sweet little towns of that state – so pretty. We stopped in some of the towns to walk around the lovely old downtowns, and ate lunch in Bennington at a place called the Angry Egg :-). I had a Monte Cristo sandwich, which was different from ones here, but still delicious – and about the biggest sandwich I had ever seen :-).

While we were in Bennington we visited the impressive Bennington Battle Monument, commemorating a huge Revolutionary War battle there, and then were off to Cavendish, where we spent a couple of nights at the beautiful Pointe Hotel at Castle Hill. I cannot remember the name of the restaurant where we ate that night, but it was different from the one that was originally on our itinerary, because they had so much flooding in that area over the summer that our original destination was completely flooded and not back in business yet. This place was so lovely and fun, though. I even had to take pictures of the cut fruit and vegetable decor on the serving tables.

I am way behind with posting, but am just now getting pictures downloaded from the past couple of weeks. A week ago this past Saturday we celebrated by dear, dear friend Charlotte’s husband Bob’s birthday with a party held at our church. I helped out in the kitchen, & got this picture of Char’s girls: granddaughter Brenna, daughter Carin, & soon-to-be daughter-in-law Nicole. They are all such great ladies.

Bob’s band was the entertainment for the day, and one of the real highlights was their grandson Aidan playing with them – his first time on stage. He did a great job, and it was just so special seeing them play together. That’s Aidan in the pink and Bob to his right.

…has been completed – a fence behind the basketball goal, to keep the ball from rolling down the hill in our front yard.

Wednesday Jeff was busy building a fence to keep the basketballs from rolling down the hill in the front yard, so he kept working on that instead of going to Clara’s golf match, but I got over there to see her in action. It wasn’t her best match, but she kept on plugging along.

Lindee & I rode in a cart together – it was nice having all of that catching up time together. It was National Rehab Week, so they had just received new caps at work that day. I thought they were so cute.

Tuesday night was opening night for our Performing Arts Series here in town, and I met Evelyn and her friend Teresa there to see Helen Welch and her presentation of The Women of Song. It was just great. She sang songs made famous by women from Ella Fitzgerald on. Very talented and a great way to kick off the season.

Monday when I was out and about I stopped by the Yarbroughs’ house to wish Mason a happy 14th birthday. He celebrated by taking the day off of school. Alas, the present I ordered him didn’t come in, so I stopped at Piggly Wiggly & got him some Dr Pepper ice cream to hold him over til it does :-). He was having a good day playing video games with June and just being lazy. I got this one picture of him. They had been to Duke to take in a football game on Saturday to celebrate.

Although Adam turned 15 last month, just this past Sunday Jeff & I got around to heading to Rock Hill after church to take him, his dad, and brother out to eat lunch to celebrate. His mom was working, & I hate she didn’t get to go, but I didn’t know when we’d have another chance. We got him a new cap for his present. My sister-in-law Renee’s nephew Dusty has started a company making duck calls, and I got Adam one of their hats. He seemed pleased – and it certainly went with the clothes he was already wearing 🙂

We had kind of a hard time finding a place that was open on Sundays, but we ended up at the Fiery Crab. None of us had ever eaten there before, but it was yummy – and when I mentioned to the waitress that we were celebrating Adam’s birthday, they came & sang to him, & brought him a basket of yummy hot sort of like doughnuts. Delicious and fun.

Saturday night was the Choraliers’ Spaghetti Supper fundraiser, and during the meal the Choraliers performed. They are so, so good. I got this picture while they were singing Bridge Over Troubled Water to open their program. That’s Clara on the third row, second from the right. And one of her besties, Emery, is right behind her with the dark hair.

They had one choreographed song, and of course just as I snapped the picture they turned around. Ha. But Clara’s one of the blondes, right in front of Emery with the dark hair.