Category Archives: Sean

Dec25

Merry Christmas 2012

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I hope everyone got to spend time with their family and loved ones this year.

Last night we headed to my mom and brother’s house. They outdid themselves with decorating. Don’s been wanting a lighted village display for a year and started collecting them, from yard sales and eBay. they are really hard to take a photo of without a tripod, but what a great job he did.

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This is the seaport. The other one is across the room there. Then there were some on the bookcases and sofa table…and dining room!

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Mom and some of her new white tree.

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Silly dog Kelsey!

Sean’s girlfriend Mary and her daughter came over for a little bit. K. loved Kelsey and he was kissing her like crazy!

We decided to attend a midnight mass service at a Chadds Ford church. It was very nice, they had singing and a trumpet soloist, new to us. Think we’d go back!

Today we slept in, ate the hash brown casserole I made the day before. Made one for mom and Don too. As I was making these, I bit into a cookie and a tooth crown came off! I called the dentist right away and he couldn’t come into the office to glue it back in. I will probably go in on Wednesday, but the weather is suppose to be bad. My luck! Yes, I endured both Christmas eve and Christmas with this issue.

I made a nice brisket dinner with roasted veggies, mashed potatoes and sticky toffee cake. My mom and brother were suppose to come out and open their gifts and eat, but my brother wasn’t feeling well. He had made appetizers to dessert last night and also did last minute tidying up which wore him out and gave him a racing heart.  Sean was going to see his girlfriend, who lives a few towns over, so he dropped off their dinners and gifts to them. Brian also took food over to his dad along with gifts.

I got to use the iPad app, Facetime to watch my younger brother and his family open their gifts and then Mom and Don later. That was neat!

I’m now relaxing, enjoying my tea in my blue glass mug (from Sean and a set of 6) and my new book from Brian called: Local Treasures: Geocaching across America.  : )

Sean in front of our tree-only shot of our Christmas-just so busy!

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teacups

Gifts from Sean. Love both!

Disgifts

My new book, Some sweet Pier One bird canvases. a Vera Bradley wallet and two sock monkeys.

Sean got his dad a new laptop! Bri is getting use to it and having a little trouble with it.

Nov19

Mercury Retrograde Birthday

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Mercury’s retrograde periods can cause our plans to go awry. However, this is an excellent time to reflect on the past. Intuition is high during these periods, and coincidences can be extraordinary. (Or things just start ‘happening’ for no reason…..)

I was telling people on Facebook how my day has had it’s ups and down.  A pal who is a psychic (it says spiritual as occupation) said it sounded like I was being affected by the Mercury retrograde which is occurring for the next several days.

I woke up not feeling well, so not sure if it was sinuses or a cold. I’ve been ‘deep’ cleaning a lot, so I’m thinking it’s the dust factor. I’m glad I digging deep, but it happens almost every time.

I had a few knocks on the door-good stuff was delivered!

First from my friend Angela from NY

So pretty and perfect for the autumn!

The Fed Ex came and these Peruvian Lilies were from my mom. I had sent her some and they lasted a long time.

Sean wanted to take me out to lunch and I had a Livingsocial.com voucher that would fit the bill. It was a British Tea Room over in Delaware.

We were a wee bit late and Sean was like deer in headlights. There were mostly women, but a few teenagers who ogled him like he was a teeny bopper singer. : )

We both had Christmas teas. I had like a coconut, vanilla and Sean had a chocolate mint.

I had to order the ‘High Tea’ as part of the voucher. I had an entire pot of tea plus this and a salad.

egg salad, chicken salad and cucumber tea sandwiches on the lower tier; Cherry scone and a sausage biscuit in the middle and dessert-mostly pumpkin enhanced. I shared many of these with Sean who had a salad, egg salad, pasta salad and fruit salad.

That cellphone would prove to be the first mercury retrograde of the day. More later.

He looks thrilled, doesn’t he?

Look, another guy Sean!

There were a few geocaches found. It’s fun with Sean. The first one was behind the shopping center where we had lunch. We went up a little hill near a ball field. There was a cement barrier. We saw it inside a log!

We got gas and there was one near the lamp post-ha ha.

We decided to go to Kmart. Brian needs new clothes now. I got him a shirt and jeans and a few other things. I had left my phone in the car to charge up and I went to look at it and it was completely dead.  I can usually get it to start up again. We had saved our tea and Sean had gotten a drink from Subway (for his dinner as he has class) and I had to hold the now lukewarm tea. Brian called twice on Sean’s phone and the second time he threw it at me and the tea went all over the mat (my car). It had a lid on it too. So I drove home with my feet up. It only got wet around the edge of the rug.

We went out to dinner as I had gotten a birthday pack with assorted, mostly restaurant coupons, so I picked (www.birthdaypack.com) a place down in Hockessin, DE. I ordered a Denver steak, medium well and it came almost black on the outside and mostly red on the outside. I complained and  I got my wine for free.

I came home and plugged my phone in and it started to reboot (I had even called T-Mobile and was told to get a new battery). I did order the battery anyway.

On top of all that I am just plain grouchy-I really tried not to be too.

I’m waiting for Sean to come home from class to have cake.

Got a call from my brother Ken and niece Tori, so that made me feel better.

It’s been an interesting day for sure!

Oct31

Happy Halloween 2012

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Halloween owl and witch shoes, originally uploaded by DianthusMoon.

It’s a cool, damp day here. We don’t get trick or treaters as we live on a busy road with no sidewalks.
It’s a rather low key holiday, though I enjoy decorating for it. Enjoy my ‘flashback’ post!

Sean as a Magician

Sean, age 2-a magician

Little Dorothy and the Halloween decorations

Tori, age 8. We both love The Wizard of Oz, or at least I think she still does.

Nephew then and now
Kenny age 3 trying on Sean’s last Halloween costume hat of a Titanic sailor and as a teen
Tinkerbell and Mom mom
My mom and 1.5 yr old Tori as Tinkerbelle
Sean as Dracula
Sean as Dracula (photoshopped)

Oct29

Places I loved all my life

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We’re waiting on the ‘monster’ storm Sandy to arrive. Today I picked up a few things outside that I thought would get tossed around in the wind and rain we are expecting within hours. We put tarp down in hopes that the water would run away from the foundation and not go in the basement. We have lots to drink, enough ice for a few days and flashlights and candles. It seems she will take her good ol’ time coming inland and staying a bit. Right now it’s rainy and a bit breezy.

So I am worried about our beaches and coastlines…we have seen on tv and FB the flooded out streets of Wildwood, NJ  and the waters covering Route 1 between the Delaware beach resorts of Dewey and Bethany. It’s going to be a mess and it’s probably going to be a while before things will be like they were when people are going on vacation in the summertime. I am glad I’m not on vacation now (if we were in NJ/DE/MD) as I’d be scared about where I am and what’s going on at home.

Brian’s a bit under the weather and I hope that Sean and him can tackle any labor this may make them go through. I won’t be able to do much leaning over as my hip has been bad this weekend. I did have one good night, not sure what I did, I took one glucasomine chondroitin that night.

Wish us well and again…we are on standby. We will be filling up pitchers of water and the tub tomorrow morning. We need the tub water for the toidy. Not fun.

I think this is Atlantic City, NJ about 1975

Sean and DianneCape May, NJ

Dianne sticking toes in ocean at night

Ocean City, MD

Rehoboth Beach
Rehoboth Beach, DE

Guys hitting the waves
Fenwick Island, DE

Oct25

The highest point of Delaware

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Since Sean had a night class on his birthday, I took him out to a late lunch to The Olive Garden, one of his favorite restaurants. I always mention geocaching to him and he doesn’t mind checking out a few of them. His phone works pretty good pinpointing the cache.

First we went to one in a series of shopping center caches. It was near a pretty line of trees and a golf course.

It was a quick 5 minute find next to the fence (on the ground) that separates the shopping area from the golf course.

We then did a little shopping in Marshall’s-they always have good stuff. I got a little ornament display piece with an owl on top and last night hung most of my Halloween balls on it. I got a big box of Susan Branch greeting cards (she does homey watercolor art) for $3.99-there are 40 of them!

So the next stop was Best Buy, but I stayed in the car and browsed Geocaching.com. I saw there was another cache around the corner and it may interest Sean because of his college classes.

We get to the cache which is also the highest elevation in Delaware! A lady drove by and asked if we were ‘high markers’ and I was trying to be inconspicuous and of course said ‘yes’. Well low and behold her mom is into this organization and before we knew it, a 79 yr old lady came walking across the street.

Taken by Miss Doreen (her photo is halfway down-in pink).

Doreen gave Sean articles about the high mark society. The founder is suppose to have his ashes at each marker! Down the road is a big tower that was used for communication between DE and NY.

So that was an interesting stop to say the least! Sean said he could certainly use the info for some research.

And the cache was a nano on a bench-no problem finding that one-different than Sunday!

Oct24

Happy Birthday Sean

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Wow, Sean is 26 today! I can’t believe all those years have gone by. I scanned a few of my favorite photos and the years seem to melt away if just for a short while.

It’s nice to share special times with him. These are also of him and his Mom-mom Jeanne and Girlfriend Mary.

Love this shot from Virginia Beach this past summer.

I will him luck and happiness always.

Sep29

My 35th Reunion is tonight!

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We all say…time flies correct? Feels like those 35 years were in a zip file-compacted over time. But as I said before, Facebook has brought me back in touch with so many of my former classmates. It’s now neat to hear about not only their children, but their grandchildren. My pal Harriet lives in Lancaster County and she did the blood test when Brian and I got married (1984). Harriet’s a new grandmother-little Addie was born a few days ago and let me tell you, the messages were so cute from her on FB. Her son even said at one point that his wife hadn’t seen the doctor yet. : )

We have a very dedicated ‘Reunion guy’ in Scott D. I have helped him a few times remembering who people were, etc. I heard at last count 80 people have signed up to go and at first there were only 20! I decided to go with a pal Heather as Brian kind of just sits there, though he knows a number of my classmates. I went to his 35th a few years ago and as the years go by, more and more people go stag. I think at Brian’s reunion only a few other wives who attended.

I will probably share photos later.

Brian and I did a little late in the day geocaching yesterday-trying to stay limber. We headed to Rockford Park and it was a little tricky to find at first, though I have been there with Sean for the Wilmington Flower Market. My GPS never works correctly between our house and DE. I write down the directions now. Bri drove right past the turn at first and then the GPS kicked in and lead us to the park. One of those few times I had to find a restroom and we had to ask. Thank goodness it there was one near the Tower of Tower Hill. This is the private school Dr. Oz attended.

We found the trail marker and again the GPS was stuck. I began walking down the trail while Brian was off the trail and the numbers started to go down.  We found one of those nice DGT boxes!

New sneaks and top. : )  This was what was left of some building. Will get my arm checked out on Monday too. Seems when I dust (shaking out the static brush) it aggravates it. It’s not too bad right now as is my back.

Then we headed down to Brandywine Park…there seems to be a few Brandywine Parks in this area, but this one had a little zoo! It was too late to find the cache in the zoo, so we headed to one near the railroad area bridge.

We had to drive over a white arched bridge that had cobblestones on each end. There was a rose garden, waterfalls, a walking trails, fountains and of course the zoo. We need to go back!

So the cache hint was said it was to be under the ‘state tree of Delaware’. I saw a few large trees and holly ‘bushes’. Well can you guess which is considered the tree-the holly! The cache was suppose to be under a rock-so I’m thinking it’s a fake rock-didn’t see it. I came home and saw where someone had taken a photo of it. I can’t see the photos a lot of the times on the phone.

So we only found 1 cache and we were gone 4 hours-go figure. We stopped for pizza and salad. which took time.

We did get to meet Sean’s girlfriend Mary. She’s pretty, chatty and nice. He wanted to take her to Newark, DE to meet another lady pal and Mary drove out to our house for the first time.

Sep25

Smileys with Sean

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It’s been a while since Sean an I went out to dinner. We had planned to go sneaker shopping first, but I mentioned The Olive Garden and he said yes. His night class had been cancelled as he thinks his professor’s wife was delivering their baby! : )

So we almost had the restaurant to ourselves and got the ‘endless’ pasta bowl special. He ordered two and brought most of the second serving home. I couldn’t finish the first one.

I mentioned there were a few geocaches right in the vicinity and he said, let’s go for it. With mapping being his planned occupation, I thought he’d be more interested, but he has a full plate right now. So we headed around the back of a Shop Rite. The cache was called ‘Taking Care of Business’ which is the store’s motto. His iPhone has an excellent GPS and it zoned in on a guard rail. I knew it was probably in the end where it curved and I saw it right away-it took him a bit longer.

Then we went to one that was off a turn on to a planned  entrance/road which abruptly ended and cement barriers were in place. I guess a planned shopping center never went in. We didn’t need it, I’ll take the farmland. So he is walking around and then finally he stops and says his GPS says ‘it’s here’. I look down and kick a stone or piece of asphalt out of the way, and there is the cammoed pill bottle. Ha ha! He is learning.

We hit Kohl’s for some awesome sales. I ‘saved’ more than I spent-really! Deep discounts on tops and summer stuff. I got some black FILA sneakers with an aqua trim. I have to toss the shape up ones. Also got brown leather shoes with top straps-I think Naturalizers. I suffer with my feet without proper footwear. These both are comfy. Sean got a few pairs of  sneakers for the same reason.

I feel good about tomorrow-it will be an earlier day than I am use to, but glad to have a job after 9 long months. I’ll let you know how it goes. And I may add photos to this post.

Sep5

Caching around DC

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Before we went the 10 miles or so to Washington, DC  (on the 2nd) We went to find a cache in a neighborhood near National Harbor. You could tell it had been there many more years than 4 years like the town. I’m pretty sure it’s Oxion Hill, MD. We drove by a Cirque du Soleil tent. That would have been fascinating to see. Did I mention it was raining? So we pull up to the area and I see a fence and guardrail. Sometimes I get so excited to find the cache, I forget the hint and things I have read about it! Plus I am getting out of the car in the rain in a strange neighborhood. Brian and Sean stayed in the car. I looked along the fence and turned around-the GPS showed it was close to the road-come on mush brain-it’s the guardrail! And there it was! I brought it back in the car and dumped it out and stuck a travel bug in it, then squeezed everything back in.

Didn’t I get a tick on me from this 5 minute caching! All the times I’m in the woods and I find a tick on me in a neighborhood!

I was checking out the phone for another cache and brain fog set in again! Brian had said he needed gas and drove by a nice gas station looking for another cache. We turned around as we thought we missed the road and as we approached the station again, the numbers went down! He had decided to skip the gas and it was there at that station-rats.

We got to DC in about 20 minutes and the hardest part was finding a place to park, next to the crazy streets there. We had to get ourselves around to the back of Union Station and then we did park on the roof of the garage. We looked around the station a little and the guys got coffee. We headed out to look for the caches (marble brain #3 episode-2 hours sleep just doesn’t cut it for me).

So we walk toward the Capitol. It is quite a sight. Oh, I’ve seen it in 5th grade (been in it also) and seen it many other times, but to see it from other angles is amazing.

Getting close to the Capitol

So here it is in all it’s historic majesty!

The only problem-I forgot it was a ‘virtual’ cache until we looked around a park nearby-that was a waste of time because are they going to let you put a box next to a historic place like this-really? Anyway, when I figured it out, I was suppose to take a photo of  the other side, where the Presidents take the oath of office! Grrrr-well, I had seen that area too, and I am sure a kid in my 5th grade class fell down in that general area (I’m talking 1970) and Cam broke his leg! It may have been Arlington, but it was in DC.  I told the C.O. what happened on geocaching.com and he didn’t say anything.

The next was also a virtual and within 10 minutes I remembered something about turtle eyes in the questions. This was across the way from the Capitol at the Library of Congress. Another issue was I had forgotten my geocaching bag with the GPS device and my phone’s battery was going. It was making the screen darken up. So I looked at the description again and answered the questions. The turtles were in a fountain near the sidewalk. The ‘authors’ were along the top of the building show below. That was all we did as we were tired and had a 6 block walk back to the car.

We grabbed some pizza and headed home. Well we started to head home and I mentioned that DC Cupcakes was in Georgetown. We tried to find that for almost an hour-Sean’s GPS took us to the incorrect end of  ‘M’ St. When we located it, it was 6:30 and it was hopping in that town with limited parking with no place to park in the area of the shop. But the shop was going to close at 7:00 and there was a line going out the door! For cupcakes! I guess because they have a tv show and all. I am going to make my own cupcakes for the fellas after all that running around. And we want to go back to Georgetown-it looks like a nice place, similar to New Hope in PA.

So again we are on the road to home-we are going through downpours every 5 miles or so. I then mention a easy virtual cache in Baltimore-you just get info from a memorial. We get off the exit and run into traffic and roads that we had needed to take being closed. No baseball game, but Sean remembered there was a Nascar show there and they were letting out! We never got near the cache and ended up going through an ‘iffy’ part of town. We were all getting tired of city driving. Did I tell you how awful it is to drive in DC? This was pretty bad too.

I’m glad we stopped, but I would have liked to see the President exhibit at the Madame Tussand  Museum, which I didn’t remember about until we got home. Not a good day for remembering anything! I truly do research my cache hunting well and things go smoothly-most times. Big city caching is harder! There aren’t a ton of box caches, but there are a ton of virtual ones to be found-in the future.

Union Station

Seen anything familiar from the roof of the garage?