Family Fudge: Family Matters

This weekend we had the opportunity to go to Ohio to visit Dave's parents and help them get their house ready for winter. What a blessing it is to live within driving distance of family and, especially after losing Papa this summer, we want to take advantage of that when we can!
It was an absolutely gorgeous weekend for a drive and for raking leaves. :) The leaves were a little past peak in Pennsylvania, but the mountains were still gorgeous and the acres of farmland looked picturesque.

We arrived Saturday afternoon and went out to eat dinner at a local pizza place and spent time catching up. Then Sunday it was time to get working!

We worked pretty much all day Sunday. Windows and gutters and leaves and weeds all got taken care of while we mixed in laughing and chatting- just generally having a good time.

Our hungry crew was treated to grandad's famous spaghetti for dinner and they brought out a surprise early birthday cake for me-yum!!

On our way home we decided to veer off the Pennsylvania Turnpike a little ways (turned out to be more than a little-email me if you'd like advice on getting there!) and stopped by the Flight 93 Memorial near Shanksville.

It was incredibly moving. Phase 1 is completed with the next phase scheduled to be completed in 2014. There will be a tree grove and wind chimes and a museum of sorts with tributes to those killed and items recovered from the site. The museum will be up on the hill you can see in the the first picture below and will look directly down the flight path at the crash site. I am so glad they are putting such a thoughtful effort into memorializing the heroes on that flight. It was definitely worth the detour.

entrance to Memorial

Memorial walkway. The walkway is the border of the official crash site--where the authorities put the tape that encircled what they considered the impact area. Items were found as far as 8 miles away, though.