Just Another Manic Sunday!

This weekend my family traveled to New Jersey to celebrate my grandfather's 90th birthday! We packed up the car on Friday with 4 of my siblings, 2 dogs, my parents and myself for the 5 hour journey across the state to meet up with some friends for dinner. They we trekked an hour back into PA to stay at a relative's summer house in the Poconos.

On Saturday, we drove another 2.5 hours to Carlstat, NJ to set up for the surprise party at Charlie Brown's. And boy, was my grandpa surprised! He thought we were celebrating my aunt and uncle's 34th wedding anniversary, and made a grand entrance into the banquet room, only to realize that all of his friends were there! He had such a great time visiting with old Navy buddies, the Scouts who he was a leader with for many years, people from church where he still volunteers his time and attends mass every Sunday at 7am, and with his family who came from all over the North East to celebrate his special day with him.

My grandpa is such an inspiration to me. He is quite an amazing person and you would never know he is 90! He doesn't let anything slow him down. A couple of weeks ago, he went on a 5 mile hike through the mountains. Tomorrow he is going deep sea fishing (again! he just went the other day!) He travels to Massachusetts once a year to help restore an old battleship from WWII that is docked up there, and he takes one of my brothers and one of our cousins with him each time. They are leaving on Tuesday to go up there.

Since my grandma died 5 years ago, he's had a tough time without her. He misses her so much and always says that he can't wait to be with her again. He has had leukemia for over 20 years now, but has been getting treatments and fighting it, staying strong. He has slowed down a little bit over the years and gets tired a little more easily than he used to, but he still stays up to watch his beloved Yankees and sometimes he'll stay up to watch Seinfeld too! He's always been a great artist and has taken up sketching again lately. He's drawn some pretty impressive things! He also recently wrote a book about his experience in WWII, and it is pretty incredible. I just heard that he's now working on a book about his life; I can't wait to read it.

For this party we had yesterday, my mom asked each of the grandchildren to write down one memory we had about our grandpa. It could be anything. I wrote about a time when he took me, my brother and my cousin hiking at the Delaware Water Gap. It was such a fun day! But when thinking about what I was going to write, I realized that I have so many great memories about him, and I want more! It's hard to not live so close to him and not get to see him very often. Last time I saw him was back in October. And I don't know when I'll see him next. I'm so lucky to have him in my life, and I can't wait to see him again!

We drove back to Greensburg today, and it felt like such a long ride. We don't make many stops, just one stop to get lunch this time, but it's still so tiring. I was pretty glad that we didn't have too much homework due this weekend for classes, and that for what I do have to do, I can pretty much do most of it tonight and tomorrow. I can't wait for the semester to be over and have a little bit of relaxation time (maybe) before the next semester begins!