All is well in NJ

A three hour drive is pretty easy.  Jeffrey and Melodie made the trip to Grandma's and back on the same day.  John and Mary stayed overnight. 
 
But that is if it really does take three hours.  On our way up, we took rte 295 in NJ and looked over at a parking lot and wondered what that was.  Turned out it was the NJ turnpike.  A terrible accident shut down the turnpike in both directions, for five hours.  Luckily we decided to take 295. 
 
Because we had a great time, catching up with Grandma and with Jeff and Melodie.  And with Peter and Janet and Sean who joined us for dinner Saturday night.  Grandma looks and feels a whole lot better.  She's walking again, and we even went grocery shopping.  Sunday morning we went to Perkins for a healthy brunch.
 
Much of the conversation was on politics and books we were reading, dogs, plays, crafts, grandchildren and family memories.  (We tried to talk Jeffrey into taking the foreign service test!) Andrew, perhaps you can help us with the name of the fried chicken fast food place we went to in Carmel Ind.   We talked baseball and Grandma was really into the NFL draft - she was hoping the Lions would take Sanchez instead of the Jets.
 
Mary uses her time in the car for all her calls; I think she gets tired of talkking to me, or listening to me.  She learned her brother Tim may be coming east in May, that John and Marilyn had a good time playing golf in South Carolina, but wondered what else people do down there, that Marj and Lew are also renovating their house.  Mary also called Annie, but this is crunch time for Annie at school as she is wrapping up her thesis.  Soon she'll be able to talk longer.)
 
Joe had a party this weekend where the theme was bad decisions.  People were supposed to come dressed up as bad decisions.  Mary said that she would have come as a tatoo if she had been invited or able to go.  Kathleen came down for the weekend.  She is getting ready for a 5 week trip to China before she starts grad school in August (at some school in New Haven.)
 
Last weekend, we went down to DC for Sunday morning brunch with Joe and Margaret in the eastern market.  City life looks like fun. 
 
Did I mention Mary is playing the guitar?  Look for her first cd out soon - Skip to My Lou, Amazing Grace and Clementine will be her break-out covers.
 
No dog stories this time around.  Have a great week.  Love from down here.