500 Saturdays: Nomad Diary

  Grandson, Quinn, age 2 years, 5 months. Helping Grandpa make pancakes. Pancake breakfast with Quinn in Portland, Maine. Saturday. 18. Pancakes at breakfast are a Darrell specialty. Quinn’s interest in the kitchen and enjoyment of eating pancakes makes this morning super special for us! We made pizza for dinner and I intended to take a picture. We ate it up and then I remembered I wanted a picture! Lol. no pictures today of our good homemade food! Jeremy and Andrea came back around noon from their overnight get-away. We were surprised that they came back so early. Darrell and I went out for long walk and ended up at Standard Baking company for one of the best if not the best pastries in town with a cup of coffee. Again no pictures! Lol. Quinn enjoying Grandpa (“Paw paw”) reading to him. Andrea painting Jamie’s nails with red! Their long time friends came for dinner: Rebecca with Evie(3) and Jamie(5).  Sunday. 19. Darrell is preaching the 3rd Sunday in a row. We are regulars n...

  Tricky Britches bluegrass band performance in Portland, Maine. Jeremy and Quinn in front of the LLBean shoe car at the park! Saturday. 11. Went to pm Bluegrass concert at One Longfellow Square. Band is Tricky Britches and also a solo singer Caroline Cotter. I loved it! I continued my beginner crochet scarf!  My beginner crochet scarf. Sunday. 12. Darrell preached 2nd Sunday in a row and they asked him to preach next Sunday too. We went out to lunch with the two families for our 2nd time also. It’s been fun getting to know each person a little better! Pat moved here over 25 years ago from Omaha. He met Gemma his Philipino wife through letters and she immigrated. They have a 27 year old daughter Hannah. They have lived in 3 different houses in Portland, and Gemma says she wants to stay in their current house. Hannah loves to hike and is beginning to travel on her own or with friends. Last year she did her first road trip to the Grand Canyon! Tom is retired Navy with his wife M...

  Quinn playing with his cars. Fireplace burning. Very cold outside. View of ice inside our upstairs bedroom window and the neighbor’s frozen upstairs window that is ajar. Saturday. 4. Today the weather kept us inside for the second day. Friday night was our coldest night dipping down below 0 degrees with extreme negative wind chills. Saturday morning the temperature was -13 degrees and a -30 wind chill! Darrell made blueberry pancakes and I assisted by cooking the bacon and getting the table set. We all ate a nice breakfast together. The weather was only getting warmer all day and by Sunday morning was 30 degrees. We stayed inside, played, read, and I cooked some curry red lentils for dinner. After Quinn’s bedtime the four of us played a hand of Contract Rummy for the second night in a row. Darrell’ picture from about 2am out our bedroom window! I slept through it. This is a non-through street that someone drove down and flipped their car in front of our house. Darrell’s pictures ...