Happy birthday to my beautiful wife. I first met Tammie when she was a 16-year-old freshman, and I was an 18-year-old sophomore at Bob Jones University. Over her four-year college career, we started as acquaintances, then became friends, then best friends, and finally fell in love. She has been an amazing wife, an outstanding mother, and the world’s best Gigi.

Just three weeks after our trip to Michigan to visit with Don’s mom, we loaded up the van for a trip to Texas to visit with Tammie’s mom. We normally make this 853 mile trip in 15-16 hours and do so in one long day. Usually, we start the day by leaving between 4 and 5 am (Eastern Time) and arriving in Pittsburg, TX around 6-7 pm (Central Time).

After returning from our trip to Michigan, we did some much needed maintenance on our house and our cars. We got in one last visit to the pool with my granddaughter, picked her up from school a few times and stopped for ice cream, and when on a quick trip to North Carolina to pick some apples.

Michigan was my home for the first 22 years of my life. All six of my brothers and sisters still live in Michigan. I’m the only sibling who moved away. My dad passed in November of 2022. My mom who is 89 lives in Lincoln Park, Michigan.

Our final national park of this trip was Mount Rainier National Park which was our 47th national park to visit together. It was stunning. Every pullout on the scenic road gave us amazing views of Mount Rainier. Our first stop was in the Longmire Historic District.

North Cascades National Park was our 45th park that we have visited together. North Cascades is about an hour northeast of Seattle. North Cascades is the 2nd least visited of the national parks in the US. It is the least visited of those parks in the 48 contiguous states.

We both woke up not feeling great but after a small breakfast we started our 2 1/2-hour drive to our 44th national park, Glacier National Park, in Montana. We saw mountains, glaciers, tunnels, waterfalls, lakes, and streams as we traveled the Going to the Sun Road on a cold (55 degrees), cloudy, and rainy day.

This day was about Wall Drug Store, Badlands National Park, and a half day car ride to North Dakota.

Today was a travel day to get us 400 miles from Cody, Wyoming to Rapid City, South Dakota. We started our day exercising in the fitness center then began our drive. I was able to drive 8o mph for the first time, legally.

We began this day by driving 1 1/2 hours to Yellowstone National Park which became our 40th national park that we have visited together. We started our day at Yellowstone with a brisk 45 degree viewing of Old Faithful Geyser. There was a good crowd, but we were able to get a front row viewing.

We had been planning a national park trip to the west and northwest United States for about a year. Our plan was to visit 7 states, 3 national monuments, and 9 national parks in just less that 3 weeks.

We spent a lot of time this summer with our daughter and our three grandchildren. Here were some of our favorite activities.

Did I mention my granddaughter loves to swim. I try to invite her over to our community pool at least once a week to swim. She is a fantastic swimmer and loves to jump, dive, and get tossed around in the pool. We have also been known to stop at Pink Mama’s for ice cream after swimming.

Throughout the month of May we made good use of our Summer Fun Pass at Topgolf. We went together, with our daughter, and with our grandsons. While I hit the ball farther, Tammie is more accurate and hits the closer targets. She beats me two out of every three games. So far, we are having a great time together.

It was our honor to attend the Bob Jones University Faculty and Staff Retiree Dinner hosted by students in the Culinary Arts major. The students did a fantastic job of cooking and hosting the dinner. It was nice to see the 94 faculty and staff retirees who attended.

March came in like a lamb with beautiful weather. We took a hike at our local state park, Paris Mountain. It was a gorgeous day with temperatures in the upper 70s. The trails at Paris Mountain still showed damage from Hurricane Helene.

We were originally planning to come for the month of January, but because of Tammie’s mom’s surgery, we postponed until February. Our last monthly stay was also at the Anderson Ocean Club in December of 2023. We got a very good offseason and monthly rate. The Anderson has a well-equipped fitness center, suites have full kitchens, nice ocean view balconies, indoor and outdoor pools, and indoor and outdoor hot tubs.

The day after Christmas, Tammie’s mom broke her hip at her assisted living apartment. A few days later she had surgery, and we arrived in Pittsburg, TX on New Year’s Eve. Tammie’s mom was in a hospital in Longview, TX about an hour away.

We had a relatively quiet Christmas with our grandchildren and daughter-in-law at home. Our granddaughter attended our church’s Christmas Eve service with us. She wore the same dress her aunt last wore 25 years ago. After Christmas we were resting up from our trip to Florida and planning our one-month trip in January to Myrtle Beach. However, things didn’t quite work out that way.

We continued our Florida trip by driving to Orlando. While driving we stopped at a rest area that had a very interesting alligator statue. Before getting to Orlando, we stopped at the Bok Tower Gardens.