Summer 2017

Teyanna finished finals and Ben finished grading finals the first week of May and then Teyanna’s mom & stepdad visited for a week. We saw the Hermitage – Pres. Andrew Jackson’s plantation for the first time and showed them lots of other fun stuff in Nashville :). After 2 years of Teyanna’s PhD you can get a masters, and since her parents were here that week she decided to walk with one of her classmates.

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After everyone finished all their tests in Teyanna’s cohort, they had a Murder Mystery dinner which was lots of fun :). Sadly Ben’s flight was very late and he missed it :(… we’ll have to do it again so he can use his costume.

 

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Then a couple hrs after the murder mystery, Teyanna’s sister, Chelsey, flew in from AZ and hung out for a couple days. Then Teyanna & Chelsey & Lena drove out to MD to see their dad & the Schollian family. And Ben flew out to DC for work and got to see the Schollians & Munyans each for a day and drove home with Tey & Lena after Chelsey flew home. It was great to catch up with family and friends! Lena thought my Grandmom&Grandpop’s was paradise and she loved fetching sticks in the water… altho she still couldn’t be convinced to swim.

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And just a couple days after that, we took a trip to Finland and then Iceland for 4 nights each and then one night in Boston on the way home. It was lots of fun altho, I think we are both worn out (and Ben was a little stressed not being able to work much) and we just want to stay home for a long long time lol.

Ben had fun showing me around Finland (he lived there in 2005-06). It was very green & pretty and even warm enough, I wished I brought a short sleeve shirt lol (about high of 65). We had fun eating Finnish pastries & Finnish soup and found some good Indian food. Helsinki Day – the 100 year celebration was while we were there, although it poured that day – we were prepared with rain coats etc but put a little damper on the turnout.

Iceland … was a little barren at first but we eventually found some pretty cool stuff. It was a bit cold (high of 55 & windy) and very expensive (our waiter said he was flying to Europe to get a laptop and even with the flight it was cheaper than getting one in Iceland :-/) … and our apartment water tasted and smelled like eggs (sulfur) lol. It was very pretty in some places but I think Yellowstone wins lol. But the last day in Iceland was their Independence Day and we got free icecream on the plane at least ;-).

Both Finland & Iceland were only dark from about midnight to 3 am which was interesting! Pretty crazy walking around at 11pm and having it feel like 5pm! Some pics are here.

Boston was a quick trip, but we had fun seeing one of Ben’s siblings and his friend from high school.

 

After a couple weeks home and a fun birthday at home with Ben, Teyanna went to AZ. She had fun going to a Memmott reunion near Show Low, AZ. They celebrated her grandma’s 80th birthday – 6 out of 8 of Grandma’s kids came, 25 out of 33 of us grandkids, and all 5 great grandkids!

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And Teyanna had lots of fun swimming at her moms, some sort of water yoga with Chelsey, and doing a little hike with her mom & Chelsey (& pups 🙂 and seeing all the fam! (Sorry I didn’t see any friends this trip… was a little lazy with planning.)

 

 

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Finally, the last weekend of July, my friend Becky visited from DC for 2 nights! We went straight from the airport to see some bluegrass music at Station Inn. Then Saturday we went to see the Hermitage StationInn_BlueGrassPresident Andrew Jackson’s plantation, took Lena on a little hike to Radnar Lake, and then we went to Monell’s to dinner with Ben – SO much food! You are supposed to sit with about 10-15 people and share all the food in the pic (mashed potatoes, cornbread, biscuits, corn pudding, banana pudding, macaroni, cole slaw, beans, fish, chicken, port, meatloaf, etc etc) but we ended up with our own table somehow!

 

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… And if you made it through all of that! Nice job! lol It was a fun May, June, & July!

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