Visiting Andrea's Family in Salem, MA

A major reason we decided to travel to the Northeast for our anniversary celebration was to see our daughter, Andrea, her husband David, and our grandson, Holden. We had not seen them since November 2005, and we knew this would be the last time to visit them before moving South. We stayed at the guest quarters at Hanscom Air Force Base. Holden, age 11, is so bright and fun to be with, but his chronic seizures preclude their traveling much.

We had offered each of our kids their choice of many of our furniture items, and Holden wanted the grandfather's clock that had once belonged to Gloria's parents. We delivered the clock, but not without mishap. After getting it set up, it ran fine, but it would not chime correctly. After employing a clock expert, the old clock is doing it's thing once again.

One of the highlights of the visit was learning how to play bocce ball. We kept changing team members, but it seemed that the winning team was always the one that had Holden as it's "captain." He had the uncanny ability to throw the ball in the best spot to get a scoring roll. The worse the terrain, the better he placed the ball.

After our visit with Andy's family, we drove back to Front Royal, where we had had our Airstream parked all summer. After a couple of days rest, we returned to Vienna for the daily grind of packing, staging our home and preparing to move. We have had lots of lookers, but no offers so far. Our agent, Vickie, holds an open house every other Sunday.