We left Richmond Monday morning, August 10th for an easy 3 hour drive down to Goldsboro,
North Carolina. Arrived mid-afternoon and settled in to my Mom's house.
Wow! We finally encountered some hot weather. It was over 100 degrees with humidity in the 80% range when we arrived. We left SoCal prepared to deal with a lot of this kind of weather, especially in the mid-west around Chicago, but it just never really developed that way. Everyone in the Wisconsin and Michigan areas we visited complained that they have not really had a summer this year. It was comfortably cool everywhere we went and Marquette could probably be described as chilly.
The hot weather didn't last long, however as thunderstorms moved in on Wednesday and cooled things down. For us SoCal types, it was pretty cool sitting out on Mom's back porch at night with thunder and lightning going on. We see so little of that kind of weather in SoCal that it is refreshing to experience. After about a hour though, the lightning got very intense and started hitting pretty close. We decided that discretion being the better part of valor, it was time to go inside.
There have been thunderstorms and rain at night all week, so it has given us minimal relief from the heat.
Mom lives at an assisted living facility these days that is just about 1.5 miles down the road from her house. She's not too mobile, so she doesn't get out of the facility too often. My brothers (George and Warren) both live here in town and they pick her up and take her out whenever they can. One of my goals while I am in town is to take her out to lunch and dinner as often as I can and I have done that almost everyday since we got here. She gets tired very easily, so this kind of hectic activity tends to wear her out quickly. When I leave, she needs to rest up for a while. So far, we have tried almost all the decent restaurants in town and have also ranged out about 40 miles to other towns. We are going to have to start repeats soon.
Other than eating out, the other activity that my Mom likes is shopping. Tuesday, we picked her up about 11:00am and went shopping for clothes. We went to JC Penney's and Elite Fashions downtown. We also took her to a dental appointment. On Wednesday, we took her over to Smithfield, North Carolina to the outlet mall where we shopped the better part of the afternoon.
Thursday, we took Mom to lunch and then did the tour of her new room that she is moving into Friday, August 21st. The old room is a little tight with all the furniture that she brought from home, so the new room is a little larger to accommodate it more easily. Thursday night Susan, George and I went to my brother Warren's house for dinner. Charlotte, his wife, made a local favorite called Chicken Pastry that was absolutely delicious. She also made homemade cornbread and had sliced fresh garden tomatoes that were both delicious. Warren's whole family (son Ryan, daughter Hollie and her three daughters Victoria, Haley and Mary) were also in attendance.
Friday night we got the whole family together at a place called the Hibachi Grill. There are two pictures attached above of the whole King clan at that restaurant. The waitress who took the pictures didn't get everyone in a singe picture, so I included them both. Everyone was there except for Adam who is in Iraq working for a contractor and Henry (George's sons). Of course, my son Jesse is back in SoCal and he couldn't be here either. We missed all of them.
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