Sunday, August 04, 2013

Spring and Summer 2013 - Post #1


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Hello to those who view this post. We hope you are well and happy. We know we have not posted in a long time, with little or no excuse.

2013 is different for us in many ways. We have chosen to skip volunteering for a long season this summer. We will only spend two weeks on a Habitat for Humanity project in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. 

Our selection of years to take the summer off worked out very well for us. The arrival of Ryan Murphy Miles in May would have made it difficult on us if we had been on our regular schedule. Grandson number 3 is another beautiful addition to Stephen's family. We spent two weeks down south to be around for his birth. Many thanks to the crowd there for keeping us happy.
Little Ryan - day 1
And on day 2
Outside of welcoming Ryan, we have been concentrating on our personal projects.

Tom likes to consider himself a songwriter. He has written many songs, just nothing recorded and playing on a computer near you. Our first long stop was in Nashville for Tom to take advantage of a group he has joined called the Nashville Songwriters Association International. He experienced two mentoring sessions with successful songwriters and met Michael Conrad. Michael and Tom have written one very good song, which will be posted here if we can.
Ryman Auditorium
View of the auditorium and stage
Tom at the Nashville Songwriters Association for a working session
After spending almost all of June in Nashville, we did a return trip to NOLA for Ryan's Christening. It is always a treat to visit down there.
Sweet family
The 3 little Miles boys
Next, we did a hard and fast drive to Dayton OH to visit M and D over the 4th of July. Fun and games included NTN (or Buzztime in some circles) national trivia. We scored well on national boards several times. (Sally is so darn smart. And M had a perfect game.) We also got to visit M & D's five doggies (down from seven). On the 4th, M and D's son-in-law Justin and Tom played a few tunes live for the family. (Justin is a darn good guitar player!)
Two of our doggie friends in Dayton
We also got a quick visit with the Sally's nieces, Whitney & Lauren and their families. Their littles are so cute and fun to play with! Made us wish we could get all the families together for one big party. We were lucky to hear 4th Day Echo play Margaritaville. Lauren's husband Clark is another great guitarist.
Lauren and Whitney with Meg
Our next adventure took us to Wilkes-Barre PA. Sally has ancestors from there and did some graveyard hunting. We parked the motorhome at the casino and enjoyed the experience. Tom spent his time playing guitar and poker. Between the two of us, we made a profit (in the two figures, to the right the decimal.) 
Gravestone for GrandmaMay and Dad's father
The gravestone on the right is for  GGGrandfather and GGGrandmother Lamoreux
It was between Wilkes-Barre and Bethel, Maine, we discovered our refrigerator had died. An RV refrigerator is not something you can stop by at Lowe's and pick up. We spent 11 days in Bethel waiting on a new one, but we enjoyed the company and activities in the little burg, like Mollyockett Days.
Mollyockett Day festivities in Bethel
The tubing scavenger hunt begins at Bethel Outdoor Adventures

Once we had a new refrigerator, we headed to Canada. We'll cover that in our next post.

Refrigerator replacement project - it only took 2 hours to install.








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