The big fat Greek wedding was great fun. The actual wedding took place in a beautiful Greek Orthodox Church that had brilliant stained glass windows and many icons. The groom, Tyson Wisbrock, was truly handsome and his bride, Effie, couldn’t have been lovelier. She wore a strapless cream colored gown with an overlay sheer shirt that was trimmed in taupe ribbon. There were 23 attendants so it was a big wedding. I would guess there were about 400 guests. In the Greek tradition, the couple does not exchange vows. There were at least six priests officiating at the service. Some had minor roles and other major roles. There was lovely chanting throughout the service. All parts of the service have symbolic meaning and a handout was given to each guest to explain the symbolism. All in all it was a wonderful experience.
The reception took place at a beautiful country club about 20 minutes away. Oh my goodness the food was truly incredible and oh so delicious. There were hot appetizers of spinach wrapped in filo dough, skewers of chicken and beef, stuffed cherry tomatoes, mushrooms and pea pods and a table with hot suckling pig. The meal was lemon-egg soup, salad with goat cheese, poached pear and walnuts, the entrée was surf and turf with a thick beef filet and shrimp with a twice baked potato, carrots and pea pods. Dessert was wedding cake, ice cream and chocolate sauce. Then there was this table that was the entire width of the room that was stacked with about thirty different choices of sweets: fresh strawberries the size of your fist, pineapple, watermelon, grapes, chocolate cups with fresh raspberries (my favorite), and too many pastries to describe. I used incredible restraint. After dinner a Greek band played wonderful Greek dancing music and it went nonstop until we left at 10:00. I never saw Effie and Tyson sit down. They danced the entire time. And they were dancing as we left.
We got up at 6:00 on Monday and drove to O’Hare, almost two hours away. We had plenty of time to get checked in and board so there was no stress. We were eager to be home so were grateful when we touched down in Portland and caught the shuttle as soon as we got our bags. What luck. It was a sunny, warm day when we returned. Our yard looks so lush if not overgrown. All I could see was a zillion projects but knew each would get done with time. Our first task was to sort through 82 days of mail. Yikes! The newspaper goofed and restarted the paper March 7th instead of May 7th so I had two months of the Oregonian sitting on my kitchen counters. I had food in the freezer so only needed to pick up juice for breakfast and salad greens for dinner. It is so good to be home.
Today we spent a lot of time in the office, working on bills, sorting through paperwork and getting organized. This afternoon we took a bike ride after cleaning off our bikes that had been sitting for a year and a half. Tomorrow we start our exercise program as we both put on a few pounds eating in restaurants three times a day for almost 90 days..
Thursday
Ron went to our CPA today to pick up our 2006 tax return. Fortunately we only owed a small amount. That’s always good news. We are getting back in the groove here. We get up when we wake up, a great benefit of retirement. We do stretches, exercise, shower and have breakfast. Then we start our day. We try to do a little each day in the yard as the weeds have almost taken over. We are making progress. We had massages today and Ron worked in the office all day. I made out a menu for the next few days. We are eating healthy and that feels good. I have already dropped a couple of pounds. Does that mean I can have dessert? Oh guess not…we leave on the 21st to go see Ron’s mom and back here on the 30th. Then I take off for a weekend with girlfriends on the Umpqua River. And life goes on. Our next planned trip will be to Sri Lanka in July, our final trip there unless the proposal Ron wrote comes through. We may try to go to Thailand since we will be so close. Too soon to plan. I also want to go to SC to see my family there this summer. So our travels will continue. I don’t plan to do another blog unless we go to a new place. But will notify you if I do another one. This concludes the blog. Thanks for your readership.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
4-30-07
Gosh I am behinder than usual! We had a super visit with Sandi and Bill in RI. Again the weather turned sunny while we were there. Our timing has been good this trip. It poured rain the day we left but we left early so can’t complain. We took walks in the lovely town of Kingston. New England is so special for people like us who love older homes. Some in Kingston that we saw were from the early 1700’s. That’s more maintenance than I could handle but they were charming houses all the same. We went to Narragansett Beach to view the storm damage. They had part of the same sort that David and Anne had had in Maine. We also went to the historic home of Gilbert Stuart who was the portrait artist who painted the famous portrait of George Washington. Unfortunately, the museum/home was closed but we walked around the beautiful grounds and peeked in the windows where you could see the displays of colonial life. We feasted on fresh ‘lobstra’ as they say in RI and went out for Italian to celebrate Ron’s 61st birthday. Sandi and Bill had added a addition to their home about two years ago and we couldn’t believe how well it fit the house and Sandi did a stellar job with the décor. She is brilliant with color and the room was perfect in every way. It is a dining room filled with sunlight.
The train ride to Dc was a bit over six hours and the scenery was great with lots of water: ponds, bays and the coastline. New Jersey was not attractive however. I know there are pretty parts of NJ but our train didn’t go by those parts. And to our Surprise we saw dumping similar to what we experienced in Serbia and Sri Lanka. Trash dumped right down a small hill where the trash and old tires rested against a chain link fence at the bottom of the hill. Disgusting!
From Union Station we took a metro train to the last stop where Mark picked us up and drove us to Centreville VA where they live. This made for a hard day because we were schlepping one heavy suitcase each, a carry-on each and Ron had his very heavy briefcase that contains two computers and lots of paper. Ugh! In addition we had to wear our winter coats due to all we were trying to manage with the luggage along with escalators, train doors, etc. It got hot carrying luggage with winter coats on. Ron is lots stronger than I am and has a longer stride so at one point he ran to catch a train and stood in the doorway to hold the door for me. By the time I caught up with him the door had closed onto his suitcase. There was no way for me to get in and I had a vision of him leaving on the train and me waving goodbye on the platform. I whimpered “I can’t do this’. When he realized I couldn’t get on, he hopped off and we waited for the next train.
We have had a ball with Avi, our newest grandchild. He looks like a little man and could charm the horns off a billy goat. He, like his cousin Jacob, he is an easy child, always happy and a big flirt. On Friday Ron’s niece Leah came over for Shabbat dinner. On Saturday, we went to Fredericksburg, a charming historic town where many civil war battles where fought. We toured the home of Betty Washington Lewis, sister of George Washington. There was a portrait of Catherine Lewis Willis who was their great granddaughter and a distant relative of mine. What a trill and coincidence. I didn’t realize when we decided to tour this home that there was the connection with Catherine. So I wrote down all the information about her and sent it to my dear family history-loving sister. We have some book we read many years ago about Catherine. She moved to Florida with her parents after her husband’s death and her father’s financial reversal. She later married Prince Achille Murat, who was Napoleon Bonaparte’s nephew. They were buried in Tallahassee FL. Once when my mother came to visit me in college I took her to the cemetery to show her their graves.
We walked around Fredericksburg for awhile after visiting Kenmore, the plantation and estate of Catherine’s forefather. On Sunday we went to DC and visited the Franklin D Roosevelt Memorial. What a grand memorial. There are two statues of him. At the beginning of the memorial that is several blocks long, has a bronze statue of him in his wheelchair that he designed. It was modeled after a kitchen chair and had two sets of wheels, one made from bicycle wheels and one set of tricycle wheels. In between, there are numerous fountains and stone walls with various quotes of FDRs. There is also a statue of Eleanor Roosevelt, who was the first US delegate to the UN. The final statue of Roosevelt is larger than life. He is seated with a cape around him and it is a magnificent portrayal of him. The quotes are inspiring and are very thought provoking when read in the current context.
Today, Monday, Rachel and I went out for mani/pedicures. Rachel treated me for my birthday. After lunch we went to Babies R US and got a new car seat for Avi who has almost outgrown his first car seat. Then Ron and I came back to our motel and rested before having a dinner/movie date. Prior to leaving the US in February we saw the previews to The Namesake so finally saw it tonight. It was a great film. Of course, Ron and I are having a love affair with India so we pretty much like anything to do with India.
May 3, 2007
Tuesday Ron and I went into DC. We started the day with a tour of the Capitol, led by Ron’s niece Leah who works for Senator Lieberman (CT). It is pretty special to have your own private tour. I had never been in the Capitol but Ron had in the 60’s when he told Hubert Humphrey who was then Vice President that he would have his job in the 80’s. Life is what happens when you are making other plans! Then we headed over to the American Indian Museum and had lunch and a feast for our eyes, seeing beautiful crafts of the various tribes. There was no way we could see everything as it is a huge museum and we can only absorb so much. We enjoyed a special exhibit on Indian dress.
Then we went to the Brass Knob, an architectural savage store. Ron had bought an outdoor lamp fixture there the last time we were in town (Sept) and he had met his three criteria: big, old and heavy (cast iron). After picking it up we went to a Starbucks, read the paper and did a crossword while waiting to meet friends at an Indian restaurant for dinner. It was great to see Jon and Alice, Jon’s wife (Jon hired Ron for the SL job) and Corrine, who used to work for ICMA and now works for Montgomery County.
On Wednesday we had family portraits taken at a nearby mall then Mark dashed off to rehearsals. Rachel, Ron and I did projects. Ron put baby proof latches on all the cabinet doors in the house while Rachel and I sorted threw all the baby clothes she has, making piles of too little, too big, and just right. Afterwards, we went for a walk then Rachel had the hots for custard ice cream so at 6:00 we headed out. It was 7:00 by the time we got home so I fed Avi while Rachel took the dog out. They had an English bulldog. Then we started supper and finally ate at 9:00. By then Ron was grumpy from low blood sugar, mine on the other hand was still up from ice cream. He didn’t have any ice cream.
May 6, 2007
So we went to Chicago on Friday and stayed right downtown. Alexander Calder’s stabile “Flamingo” was right around the corner from us and Picasso’s “Baboon” was within a few blocks. What a thrill to see good art. We are here to attend the wedding of Tyson Wisbrock, son of our good friends Rollie and Dolores Wisbrock and Effie Manos. Friday night we attended the dress rehearsal dinner in Greek Town at a Greek restaurant and had a fabulous meal: appetizers, soup, salad and we opted for the spicy shrimp entrée. We met a woman at the party who grew up in Kandy Sri Lanka and now lives in Portland OR. Yes, it is a small world.
On Saturday we went to the Art Institute of Chicago. Talk about a thrill. They have a splendid collection of Impressionists paintings and they had a special exhibit: Cezanne to Picasso. Ambroise Vollard, a French art dealer had helped many modern artists so this show was featuring the works of many of those artists. It was very impressive and oh so crowded. We had to wait in line for about 40 minutes to get in and each gallery was crammed with viewers. I was in hog heaven seeing so much good art by artists that I really like. I had no idea that the Institute owned such a great collection.
Afterwards we grabbed lunch, rented a car and headed for Tinley Park, where the Greek Orthodox wedding and reception will take place. It is about 30 miles out of Chicago but we had lots of traffic (on Saturday??) to deal with so it took a while to get here. We lazed around the rest of the day and went exploring in the area that appears to be quite wealthy judging by the malls and homes. The wedding is at 3:00 today with the reception at 5:30. Not your typical 10-minute Protestant affair!
I will have one last entry to describe the wedding. We head home in the morning with about an hour’s drive with traffic to get to O’Hare airport. We arrive in Portland around noon and let me say the Bergman’s are not particularly weary so much as eager to be home in the great NW!! Ron has a gabillion projects lined up: creating box beams for the ceiling in the living and dining rooms, painting the entire downstairs and some of the outside of the house, ripping out the deck and redesigning it. Well you get the picture, we won’t get bored. I on the other had am eager to rip up the overgrown cutting garden and replant it and see what needs redoing with the rest of the landscape after having been gone for 14 months and SL then being on the roads for almost three months. It’s time to take care of the sanctuary at 112 W 28th St
Gosh I am behinder than usual! We had a super visit with Sandi and Bill in RI. Again the weather turned sunny while we were there. Our timing has been good this trip. It poured rain the day we left but we left early so can’t complain. We took walks in the lovely town of Kingston. New England is so special for people like us who love older homes. Some in Kingston that we saw were from the early 1700’s. That’s more maintenance than I could handle but they were charming houses all the same. We went to Narragansett Beach to view the storm damage. They had part of the same sort that David and Anne had had in Maine. We also went to the historic home of Gilbert Stuart who was the portrait artist who painted the famous portrait of George Washington. Unfortunately, the museum/home was closed but we walked around the beautiful grounds and peeked in the windows where you could see the displays of colonial life. We feasted on fresh ‘lobstra’ as they say in RI and went out for Italian to celebrate Ron’s 61st birthday. Sandi and Bill had added a addition to their home about two years ago and we couldn’t believe how well it fit the house and Sandi did a stellar job with the décor. She is brilliant with color and the room was perfect in every way. It is a dining room filled with sunlight.
The train ride to Dc was a bit over six hours and the scenery was great with lots of water: ponds, bays and the coastline. New Jersey was not attractive however. I know there are pretty parts of NJ but our train didn’t go by those parts. And to our Surprise we saw dumping similar to what we experienced in Serbia and Sri Lanka. Trash dumped right down a small hill where the trash and old tires rested against a chain link fence at the bottom of the hill. Disgusting!
From Union Station we took a metro train to the last stop where Mark picked us up and drove us to Centreville VA where they live. This made for a hard day because we were schlepping one heavy suitcase each, a carry-on each and Ron had his very heavy briefcase that contains two computers and lots of paper. Ugh! In addition we had to wear our winter coats due to all we were trying to manage with the luggage along with escalators, train doors, etc. It got hot carrying luggage with winter coats on. Ron is lots stronger than I am and has a longer stride so at one point he ran to catch a train and stood in the doorway to hold the door for me. By the time I caught up with him the door had closed onto his suitcase. There was no way for me to get in and I had a vision of him leaving on the train and me waving goodbye on the platform. I whimpered “I can’t do this’. When he realized I couldn’t get on, he hopped off and we waited for the next train.
We have had a ball with Avi, our newest grandchild. He looks like a little man and could charm the horns off a billy goat. He, like his cousin Jacob, he is an easy child, always happy and a big flirt. On Friday Ron’s niece Leah came over for Shabbat dinner. On Saturday, we went to Fredericksburg, a charming historic town where many civil war battles where fought. We toured the home of Betty Washington Lewis, sister of George Washington. There was a portrait of Catherine Lewis Willis who was their great granddaughter and a distant relative of mine. What a trill and coincidence. I didn’t realize when we decided to tour this home that there was the connection with Catherine. So I wrote down all the information about her and sent it to my dear family history-loving sister. We have some book we read many years ago about Catherine. She moved to Florida with her parents after her husband’s death and her father’s financial reversal. She later married Prince Achille Murat, who was Napoleon Bonaparte’s nephew. They were buried in Tallahassee FL. Once when my mother came to visit me in college I took her to the cemetery to show her their graves.
We walked around Fredericksburg for awhile after visiting Kenmore, the plantation and estate of Catherine’s forefather. On Sunday we went to DC and visited the Franklin D Roosevelt Memorial. What a grand memorial. There are two statues of him. At the beginning of the memorial that is several blocks long, has a bronze statue of him in his wheelchair that he designed. It was modeled after a kitchen chair and had two sets of wheels, one made from bicycle wheels and one set of tricycle wheels. In between, there are numerous fountains and stone walls with various quotes of FDRs. There is also a statue of Eleanor Roosevelt, who was the first US delegate to the UN. The final statue of Roosevelt is larger than life. He is seated with a cape around him and it is a magnificent portrayal of him. The quotes are inspiring and are very thought provoking when read in the current context.
Today, Monday, Rachel and I went out for mani/pedicures. Rachel treated me for my birthday. After lunch we went to Babies R US and got a new car seat for Avi who has almost outgrown his first car seat. Then Ron and I came back to our motel and rested before having a dinner/movie date. Prior to leaving the US in February we saw the previews to The Namesake so finally saw it tonight. It was a great film. Of course, Ron and I are having a love affair with India so we pretty much like anything to do with India.
May 3, 2007
Tuesday Ron and I went into DC. We started the day with a tour of the Capitol, led by Ron’s niece Leah who works for Senator Lieberman (CT). It is pretty special to have your own private tour. I had never been in the Capitol but Ron had in the 60’s when he told Hubert Humphrey who was then Vice President that he would have his job in the 80’s. Life is what happens when you are making other plans! Then we headed over to the American Indian Museum and had lunch and a feast for our eyes, seeing beautiful crafts of the various tribes. There was no way we could see everything as it is a huge museum and we can only absorb so much. We enjoyed a special exhibit on Indian dress.
Then we went to the Brass Knob, an architectural savage store. Ron had bought an outdoor lamp fixture there the last time we were in town (Sept) and he had met his three criteria: big, old and heavy (cast iron). After picking it up we went to a Starbucks, read the paper and did a crossword while waiting to meet friends at an Indian restaurant for dinner. It was great to see Jon and Alice, Jon’s wife (Jon hired Ron for the SL job) and Corrine, who used to work for ICMA and now works for Montgomery County.
On Wednesday we had family portraits taken at a nearby mall then Mark dashed off to rehearsals. Rachel, Ron and I did projects. Ron put baby proof latches on all the cabinet doors in the house while Rachel and I sorted threw all the baby clothes she has, making piles of too little, too big, and just right. Afterwards, we went for a walk then Rachel had the hots for custard ice cream so at 6:00 we headed out. It was 7:00 by the time we got home so I fed Avi while Rachel took the dog out. They had an English bulldog. Then we started supper and finally ate at 9:00. By then Ron was grumpy from low blood sugar, mine on the other hand was still up from ice cream. He didn’t have any ice cream.
May 6, 2007
So we went to Chicago on Friday and stayed right downtown. Alexander Calder’s stabile “Flamingo” was right around the corner from us and Picasso’s “Baboon” was within a few blocks. What a thrill to see good art. We are here to attend the wedding of Tyson Wisbrock, son of our good friends Rollie and Dolores Wisbrock and Effie Manos. Friday night we attended the dress rehearsal dinner in Greek Town at a Greek restaurant and had a fabulous meal: appetizers, soup, salad and we opted for the spicy shrimp entrée. We met a woman at the party who grew up in Kandy Sri Lanka and now lives in Portland OR. Yes, it is a small world.
On Saturday we went to the Art Institute of Chicago. Talk about a thrill. They have a splendid collection of Impressionists paintings and they had a special exhibit: Cezanne to Picasso. Ambroise Vollard, a French art dealer had helped many modern artists so this show was featuring the works of many of those artists. It was very impressive and oh so crowded. We had to wait in line for about 40 minutes to get in and each gallery was crammed with viewers. I was in hog heaven seeing so much good art by artists that I really like. I had no idea that the Institute owned such a great collection.
Afterwards we grabbed lunch, rented a car and headed for Tinley Park, where the Greek Orthodox wedding and reception will take place. It is about 30 miles out of Chicago but we had lots of traffic (on Saturday??) to deal with so it took a while to get here. We lazed around the rest of the day and went exploring in the area that appears to be quite wealthy judging by the malls and homes. The wedding is at 3:00 today with the reception at 5:30. Not your typical 10-minute Protestant affair!
I will have one last entry to describe the wedding. We head home in the morning with about an hour’s drive with traffic to get to O’Hare airport. We arrive in Portland around noon and let me say the Bergman’s are not particularly weary so much as eager to be home in the great NW!! Ron has a gabillion projects lined up: creating box beams for the ceiling in the living and dining rooms, painting the entire downstairs and some of the outside of the house, ripping out the deck and redesigning it. Well you get the picture, we won’t get bored. I on the other had am eager to rip up the overgrown cutting garden and replant it and see what needs redoing with the rest of the landscape after having been gone for 14 months and SL then being on the roads for almost three months. It’s time to take care of the sanctuary at 112 W 28th St
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