Family Stories

As regular readers are aware, within the last 15 months, Karrie has lost her 3 remaining grandparents.  Living in Virginia for pretty much all the years of our marriage has allowed Jon and I to live no more than 3 hours away from one set of his grandparents.  Since we are going to be moving out of the area, we decided that when we were in the area on this trip, that we HAD to visit them.

The last time we saw them was Easter, so it's been a while.  Every time we see them, I am amazed at how much they are able to do.  I pray that I am fortunate enough to be able to handle as many of the day-to-day chores when I am in my 90's as they do.  Yep, you read that right.  Jon's grandfather will be 94 next month and he still does yard work!  In fact, when we got there, he was power washing patio chairs.  His grandmother will be 91 in a few months and she cooks feasts whenever we visit.

Upon our arrival, Jon was put to work doing a couple things around the house that were a bit difficult for his grandfather to do.  While that was going on, the kids and I played a few games with Jon's grandmother.  My son won the game of dominoes, while my daughter won the game of Monopoly.

I think the part of the trip that Jon and I enjoyed most however, was listening to his grandparents tell the story of how they meet and their first year together.  They were married during World War II so it is quite the story.  60+ years later they are the epitome of the happy couple that I hope Jon and I will be some day.  I think it's safe to say that we are happy we made the trip (even though we spent 4.5 hours in the car to do so).

We are already planning to spend more time with them when we come up to see our nephew in a couple months so we can hear the rest of their story.

We'll be Back... In Just a Few Days

Yep, you heard that right.  The Beckmann clan is going to be back in Virginia in a few days.  We have some friends who are moving from Ohio to Qatar in mid-August, so we decided on the way to see them, that we would stop in Virginia for a couple weeks to see friends and family and to get a few doctors appointments taken care of (medical care while on the road is tough, if not impossible).

If things go according to plan (and you know they ALWAYS do), we will be in Northern Virginia July 17 - July 28.  If you're interested in getting together, let me know and we'll see what we can do.