Erin's grandmother celebrated her 90th birthday recently. We made a quick jaunt up to Mechanicsburg, PA with her parents and the Bartimacs to help throw her a party.

Erin's grandmother Thelma turned 90 years old on Nov 9. Erin, myself, Jim, Kathie, Kirk, and John and Gena Bartimac went up to Harrisburg for a party. We caught a flight out of RDU on Southwest. What we supposed to be uneventful turned out to be amouck in snags.

All was going well at RDU. Lolly-gagging around with Erin after we both checked our bags, Erin always insists on carrying cash. I love my debit card and swear by it. Who really needs cash nowdays? Anyways, she always insists on it, soooo I agreed to hit the ATM. Turned out that I left my card in the machine. Thankfully, a customer service desk was about two-feet away and someone turned it in. I noticed it missing just as we were going through security and quickly bolted to see if it was still there. My biggest fear is that the machine ate the card. All turned out well thankfully.

That frazzled me a bit. I went through security and caught up with Erin. We chilled for a bit before the flight - which was late! This was the second time a SW flight I was on has been late. SW is known for on-time flights. Go figure. The flight was completely full. Basically a puddle jump.

We arrived in Baltimore, and scratched our heads for a bit at the baggage claim because of a typo, of all things. Like in other things, Erin talked me out of it...

In any event, it was a successfull rendevous with Kathie and Grammy. Off to Mechanicsburg we went. I was about an hour's drive or so.

A cool thing we did on the way was stop and visit Erin's grandfather's gravesite. Curvin Thompson passed away in 1991. I snapped some shots of this.

I took a lot of photos along the way. Still practicing. The more the better. Anyways, we are all staying in a house right on Bethany Village property. It's great. The interior was fantastic. It felt just like home.

We had some time to kill before dinner, so Erin and I went for a litttle spin in Grammy's Jetta. This beauty in returning to Raleigh next week. A car swap that's too sophisticated to describe here is happening and Erin will be it's new owner.

We got back and sat around a bit before dinner. I attempted to download the photos for the camera and started having some issues. It turned out that I had to jurry-rig the flash memory card to get it to work. The Nikon is somewhat tempermental; thank God it's the Academy's. I'd be pissed if it were mine.

Anyways, Jim, Kirk and the Bartimacs were going out to dinner with us. Erin and I had ate there last year; a restuarant called Colhane's. We all got there and the rub was to surpise Grammy - she didn't know the Bartimacs were coming up. So we all sat around waiting for our table. John and Gena made there surprise entrance. It took Grammy just a second for it to click in, but once it did she couldn't beleve it. Here was the look on her face:

We had a nice time during dinner. I had tenderloin and shrimp. Dinner took about an hour and a half. A good time. We all went back to 'the house' and had cake and let Grammy open her presents. I ranked on her about 'being on the Internet' It was a dramatic role-reversal I had been waited for - I pounced as soon as I could.

Saturday
Jim always raves about the Farmers Market and this little diner. So myself, Jim and J/J Bartimac went in tow. To describe the place wouldn't do it justice. A picture is worth a thousand words. It was a greasy spoon, but it was great, down-home diner food. These are always the best places...I offered to go back everytime when were in town. After our eats we headed off to the farmers market. It was alot like the Broadway Market in Buffalo, but seemed to have a greater variety of foods. I snapped some photos of the place. Wasn't too bad. I read a little bit of the history about it as Jim, John and Gena were picking up some things.

That took us to about 9:30 and time to head back. Jim took us the back way, of course and showed us some landmarkds along the way. No sooner were we back home, that I left with Erin again, this time to pick up everything for the party in the afternoon. Balloons, decorations, stuff like that. Of course, I did try to 'fix' the camera by going into BJ's for a new card. I tested it right on the spot, and determined it way the camera. No money lost, just time. I was disappointed. Riggingg it to work sucks; my thumb hurts too. Erin and I helped set up at Bethany.

We got back, hung for a bit and got ready for the party. Going to change, I noticed that I had actually brought Erin's pants instead of my own. Real bummer. Since I wanted to look as spic/span as possible - especially for all of the people I was meeting - I shaved what I was calling a goatee. It was hardly a try; more of a joke than anything. Looks like I be wearing my brown cords one mo time...It was fine, noone would notice....

The party had a good amount of grammy's friends, as well as a lot of people that I had heard Erin talk about. It was good to finally meet some of them, especially before our wedding next May. We wrapped up about 4:30 and came back to the house. Unfortunately, all of the photos from the party that I took never came out.

I especailly was a little beat and grabbed some quick shut-eye. For the rest of the eveining, I basically spent it defending myself from spirited attacks by Ms. Bartimac. At one point she basically labeled me a geek. (Something I'm sure I'll never live down).

One good thing, though was I learned the basics of penaucle. I had never played before. Myself, Jim, Kathie, Grammy, John, Gena and David (Kathie's brother) played. It was fun.

We tried to get to bed early, as we had to get up about 5:00 am and be out of the house by 6:00 am to make our 8:55 am flight in Baltimore.