Posts Tagged Holiday

And Happy Valentine’s Day too Mrs G :)

I love you XXX

and that many days to our 1st wedding anniversary! :)

Nearly here! :)

Happy Easter!

Even though it was very cool and very windy this morning, Alison and I braved the weather and set out for the nearby park this morning to have our first Easter together. The park, Maple Park,  is about a 10 minute drive from home, right next to the Currituck Airport. Maple Park Its built on what used to be the county landfill I think. Well I know its built on the site where the landfill used to be, but I am assuming they did what a lot of similar landfills across the country have done and that is to cover them up and create parks where once was an eyesore. This particular one has a nice size man made water area, supporting fish and several species of wildfowl. There are about a dozen or so geese generally there on the water as well as several varieties of songbirds and usually a pair of wood ducks that we usually see every time we go to the park. We didnt see them today which was rather strange realy. Not sure if they have taken off for the season or they were just in the bushes trying to make a family! ;)
We’ve got some pictures and vidseos of the these two ducks one of us will post sooner or later, either here or Alison will put it on her blog. I cant say the ducks and geese are completely tame although you can get very close to some of them and the ducks have several times come up and taken bread right out of Alison’s hands. This particular park in the county has several areas around the park where you can grill. There is a good size pavillion where large groups can be accommodated and 3 or 4 gazebos

around the park near the water side that each have a grill and table. Being as cold and windy as it was but still very sunny we looked first to see if any of the spots were having even the slightest bit of sun hitting even one seat.  Unfortunately it wasnt to be today and we had to brave the cool breeze and  deal with it. Being familiar with the sort of grilling that goes on around holidays in Cyprus and which Alison has posted about recently on her blog, I thought it would be nice to try and recreate the atmosphere a bit, even if it was on a smaller scale than what they do there by making up a few lamb kebabs. It was also my first time trying lamb actually and I have to admit I liked it! :) Its got a unique taste and I suppose to some its not appealing but I found the taste very nice and flavourful and very tender too.Well maybe that part had somethign to do with the preparation by having a skilled meatcutter remove all the gristle and cutting the lamb leg up into nice lean pieces. ;) I coated the meat with olive oil and a little oregano and salt and pepper and then threaded them on the skewers, alternating with pieces of onion.

It was really just a bit too cool to be out doing this sort of thing but we had our minds made up and plodded on through. In the midst of trying to get the grill going and trying to get things going quick we forgot to put the potatoes and onions on the grill first as we had planned, but only remembered them about the time the kebabs were nearly done. Well we put some more coals on the grill and had a flame going that would fuel a nice nice furnace and a few minutes of having those packets of aluminum foil wrapped potatoes and onions atop that heat had the contents nearly steamed in minutes! ok not as good as they would have been if slow cooked but edible none the less and by this time anything warm was great eating!

this post or any on this blog wouldnt be complete without me mentioning how wonderful and amazing life and love can be. Another in a  long list of signs we have seen over these last few years is this heart shape that formed at the bottom of one of the Easter eggs Alison made yesterdaywhen she set it in the tray to dry. I guess some could say its just coincidence, but irregardless it made me smile and know that everything is meant to be in this world. We may never understand the whys and hows, but love never fails

Happy Easter to all!

Pics from Alison’s first birthday in America :)

We had a lovely dinner at BJ’s restaurant in Jarvisburg. Mom bought us dinner and had made arrnagements to have the table decorsted with flowers and gifts and we were joined for dinner by Tracey, Megan and Grace and Phil and his wife Kathy. afterwards it was a stop by tracey’s house where she and the kids had made a cake and more flowers and presents. Just a wonderful evening we had. Happy Birthday Mrs G! I love you! xxx

Alison’s Birthday

Today marks one of the ‘firsts’ for us with so many more still to come. This one is very special though. We have always had a hard time being apart on holidays; Christmas being especially hard for us. Today we went and bought a tree together and some decorations. We put on some Christmas msic and had a lovely evening filled with such a tremendous happiness of sharing something we have dreamed of for quite a while. We had bought the ingredients to make mulled wine but feeling a bit worn out form a long day of shopping we thought better to pass on it tonight or we would never have got the tree done! ;)

I’ve not taken the time to post anything since Alison arrived,  we’ve been doing a lot of ‘catching up’ :) I will post a better update on things soon, but for now we are settling in just wonderfully and so very happy being together. Her flight over was good and was actually a little early arriving. She made it through immigration very quickly too. The time difference so far hasnt been too bad a problem and shes adjusting well to that , maybe wakign a bit early in the morings but usually managing to get back to sleep. the weather has been rainy but warm the first couple of days. It cleared up nice today but getting a little colder today. Just made it feel more like the Christmas season.

Ok time for some more catching up.. :) speak to you all soon and thanks for all the congratulations and comments and mails!

and nearer to 4 days now! :)

I really am just so full of anticipation of our reunion, knowings its forever is just beyond words.

Well Alison is still n Sunderland as I write this, spending her last evening out having dinner with some very close dear friends. she’ll catch the bus in the morning (Friday) to go back to Birmingham. She seems to have had a nice visit back to her hometown, staying at her folks home and even in the bedroom she had growing up. I wonder what memories that brought back! Without a pc I don’t have any pictures yet, but soon as I do I will post some. I wanted so much to go and meet up with Alison there in the UK and then us fly back home together, but events turning out the way they did it put a kink in those plans :( Well one day very soon we will take a holiday back there and I will get to see where she lived and meet all these people I have only spoke to by web or mail or second hand!

I was a bit worried this morning as when I spoke upon waking Alison told me it was snowing and then the next time we speke a few hours later it was still snowing! I was fighting this thought of her getting stranded there and missing her flight! Well i know its not that severe a snow storm, but things like that are always in the back of my mind. we are so close now to our dream I I’m wanting desperately for it to come quick! Well when we spoke tonight she said it had warmed up a bit and there was a little rain so the roads were clear. The last few mornings though have been very cold around the freezing mark so we’ll see how they are then. Well the highways will be clear I’m sure, just these smaller roads may have a bit of ice early on. I cant wait to see the pics though, I love seeing the snow, just dont care so much to be driving in it. But its fine when you are having someone to snuggle up to and keep each other warm! ;)

It really does feel strange to not be writing her a mail for this long stretch of time. We have faithfully wrote at least a morning and evening mail, if not more ,  for the last 970 days. Well i have written a couple of short ones just to have something there when she does get back online, but it been so much of our routine to write a mail for the other to read on waking and then one to say nite nite as well, although lately it had got to the point we were on the skype more of the evenings than not. So this has been a real change for us to not have that bit of communication and being able to share photos and such. We have had our times to speak on the cell though and those were the highlights of my day! well she’ll be back to Mandy’s tomorrow and we will be back on schedule :) Well i guess its all given me time to add a few things to the sight and play with that. but I still miss her madly. Until I hold her in my arms next Tuesday evening, I will miss her every minute.

It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without a rendition of Alice’s Restaurant

Enjoy

Alice’s Restaurant from http://bookmole.vox.com/
This song is called Alice’s Restaurant, and it’s about Alice, and the
restaurant, but Alice’s Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant,
that’s just the name of the song, and that’s why I called the song Alice’s
Restaurant.

(more…)

The day Alison and I have dreamed and planned for so long is now nearly here, and today marks one of the happiest days of my life. Alison booked her flight today to come to the US permanently! (Pause here for celebration and cheering! YEA!! ) Its really hard to believe its finally come. Though we never have doubted for a minute it would happen, this distance separating us has caused more than it’s fair share of aches. But soon they will all be forgotten in a single kiss when we are at last together forever.

As I have often done for many other events, a countdown script for this very special event has been added to the site, you may already have seen it there in the top of the sidebar. Well actually its in three parts which should be self explanatory, but seeing as I often don’t make things clear I should probably elaborate. The first one is a countdown until the day she leaves to go to the UK to visit family and friends for a couple of weeks before beginning her new life as an Americano! :) She leaves Cyprus on the 22nd of November. The next countdown is to the time her plane leaves London to come to the US, and of course it wouldn’t be complete without the last one; the most important one of them all to me, the time her plane lands at Norfolk where I will be waiting like I have won the lottery! :) She lands in Norfolk on December 9th at 9:28 pm. I wont be late, even if the plane is! ;) I still have some counters up on various other pages and sites of mine from past events that were very special to us, our trips to see each other and I also set a countup scriot on another site that counts the days since she and I met, as I write this now it was 939 days ago that this beautiful Brit sent me a smile and a short note asking “Would you like to write sometimes?” since we both were widows and at a point very similar in our lives. Well that’s a story already told so I will let that be and just say from almost that very day, we both knew things were going to be very different for us! ;)  Well anyway here we are 939 days later waiting only for another 39 more to pass. I can’t begin to tell you how long these days are going to seem now. I cant even begin to describe how happy I am either, Its beyond words, it truly is. I feel the hand of God in all our story and a love destined from the beginning of time.

I’ll just continue to update this post with any related news instead of making new ones. and I have to apolgize for not doing much to update the sites lately too, along with us being busy getting things sorted for our reunion, there has been a lot going on with my mom as well. Another long story that, and maybe I will get around soon to expounding on all that happened, but for now she is scheduled the middle part of November to have a rather in depth surgery to reconnect her stomach to whats left of her esophagus up in her throat. No none of this was brought on by sickness but by a simple procedure done at a local hospital in August that ended up tearing her esophagus and having to be transported out to a larger hospital. She’s coming along and doing ok, well the best she can under the citrcumstances if you consider being on a feeding tube 14 hours a day, every day since the 23rd of August! Well as I say thats another story…
For now heres the itinerary as it stands now

Outbound:  Tue 09 December 08 Duration: 12:28
Departing:  Terminal 3 London Heathrow Apt (LHR), London, United Kingdom 14:00 Tue
Arriving: Terminal 4, New York J F Kennedy International Apt (JFK), New York, United States 17:05 Tue
Continental Airlines (CO 8245)
Aircraft type – 346
Connection: 17:05, Tue – 19:45, Tue -
Change plane
Stop-over duration: 2h40
Departing:  Terminal 3 New York J F Kennedy International Apt (JFK), New York, United States
19:45 Tue
Arriving: Norfolk International Apt (ORF), Norfolk, United States
21:28 Tue
DELTA (DL 6231)
Aircraft type – ER4

Stay tuned for more updates and thanks for dropping by!