On Wednesday, November 13, our Joe would have been 30 years old. There would have been lots of jokes and teasing about his age. I remember when he turned 25. It was a pretty big deal to him. He was my Peter Pan….never wanted to get old. I just wish it would have been a bit longer.

Joe made his presence known to his dad and I all day on Wednesday. Before I could even squeeze out a tear that morning, our fire alarms went off for a call. Rich and I always feel closer to Joe when we are with the fire department in training or on a call. He made sure he was not forgotten on his birthday as I responded to 4 calls that day, little turkey! I called him that often when he was growing up and sure enough, on the first call, I literally had to shoo about 2 dozen turkeys away from the house to get inside. The ambulance almost took out part of the flock leaving. Yes, Joe was with us all day. Just so you know, 4 calls in one day (and then there was a board meeting as well I attended), is unusual for this time of year. We went almost a week without a call about a week ago. So yes, I know he is making his presence known when we need it most.

I want to thank the handful of people who sent texts, called, or sent a card thinking of us. It was a big birthday, and therefore a big hole was in our hearts. We don’t expect friends to remember, but there were a handful that did and reached out, and that meant the world to us.

I am going to leave you with a poem from my favorite poet, Donna Ashworth. It just makes me think of Joe every time I read it. I also leave you with a photo of Joe that I just adore. He gave me the most precious gift ever – of becoming a mother. Most people think of Joe as an adult…and I do, too, but a momma’s heart remembers her child as that….a child. The time where they adore you and wrap their arms around you with dimpled hands…when they still have all their baby teeth and have never thought of shaving. When they can play all day and want a bedtime story at night. When they aren’t quite stinky yet. I love you, my Joe. You are so very missed. Shine bright, my boy.

Between traveling and training and life in general, cancer is still an underlying current in my life. Stage IV cancer….advanced cancer….terminal cancer – these are all words that are in my medical chart. On Monday, I had CT scans done at the local hospital in the area. I was able to look onto my online chart the next morning and find out that the radiologist here feels I have not had any significant change in the last 6 months. So, stability it is! I am thankful and blessed. I know so many people keep me in their daily prayers, and obviously God is listening to you! So, I thank you so very much. My scans have been sent to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and they will reread the scans with their expert sarcoma radiologists. I have a telemedicine appointment on November 25th to get the official word. It is all looking good and will probably be asked to continue on the same road I have been on.

I bet you all thought I forgot about you…forgot about finishing up the rest of rest of these Africa photos! I did not! I have been traveling around a bit (again) so I fell a bit behind. Here they are though….the last photos from Tanzania – in Tarangire National Park. This was one of my favorite spots because it is known for the large herds of elephants. I had no shortage of photo opportunities with the elephants. I did get photos of other animals as well….horned bill birds (like Zazu), warthogs (like pumba), giraffes (with oxpecker birds on their necks, eating the bugs off their hides….and even a very pregnant giraffe….you’ll know when you see her photo. Our tour guide was pretty sure she would be delivering within 24 hours. The very colorful bird is a lilac breasted roller. Amazingly beautiful, right? I loved our time in Africa and I am hoping to go back again…to maybe a few different countries and national parks. Until then, enjoy these photos!

Another tribe we went to see was the Datoga tribe. The tribe we met were black smiths. They were super friendly and of course, there was singing and dancing. We had all of the women in our group take pictures with the women of the community we visited. There was a little boy there who was so curious of me. He held my hand for quite a while and did so in the women’s photo. He was fascinated by my gold medallion I wear with Joe’s badge number and really liked my watch. It is a plain field watch that I often wear if I know I am going on a fire call. It is an analog watch that has a second hand that he found mesmerizing to follow going round and round. The photo of their living area has a number spray painted on the outside. It is not an address. It was from when they took the last census a year or so ago, for the count of the people in that community. I told you it got complicated. The Datoga are semi nomadic and are polygamists. They are one of the oldest tribes in Tanzania, along with the Masai and the Hadzabe tribes. The Datoga men who are blacksmiths (there are other Datoga tribes that herd cows and goats) will get any kind of scrap metal to melt down and make into their jewelry to sell. In my photos, they had a garden hose spigot that they hammered down, melted, and poured into a mold to make a stick of metal. They have to stoke the fire by hand, using bellows made from animal skins. There is a picture of Rich trying to do this.

Tanzania is one of the biggest producers of red onions. They are planted by hand, watered by hand, and picked by hand. It is an arduous task. I have a few photos of the onion fields. There were a lot of Kenyan trucks who came in and bought truckloads of red onions, took them back to Kenya, labelled them as Kenyan onions and export them. So if you are in the grocery store and see red onions with a sticker from Kenya, know it is most likely Tanzania. Our guide mentioned several times that Tanzania has yet to figure out how to market itself to the world. I loved my time in Tanzania but people tend to know so little about it. Their president is a woman and is also Muslim. I found that fascinating! We were late getting to the airport in Arusha because she was in town and we couldn’t get out onto the streets to leave for the airport. The last few photos are from the sun setting over our spot in Lake Eyasi.

We went to Lake Eyasi for a couple of nights and toured the grounds on the shores of Lake Eyasi and we went to visit some of the tribes nearby. One of those tribes is the indigenous ethnic group called the Hadzabe Tribe. They are one of the last hunter-gatherer tribes left in the world. There are only thought to be about 1500 left in Tanzania with only 1/3 of them living traditionally. They are the people that have only an oral language (not a written one) that consists of clicking and popping noises. One thing I had never thought of before was how difficult it is to do a census on the nomadic tribes in Africa. I talked to our driver about it and he just said it was hard. They allow tourists to come and hunt with the men and gather with the women, as it also earns them money. The man in the photos with the beaded headband is this tribe’s chief. The men and women have separate roles and were separated when we first came to visit. They do not keep track of time or even the age of their children. There are no birthdays or anything like that. They do not even keep track of how old a child is. They let them develop naturally in their tribe and go with their gender groups when they feel ready. The kids wore no shoes and there were times when they got pickers or burrs in the soles of their feet. There were no tears. They simply picked up a reed or a stick and brushed them off. The soles of their feet were incredibly tough. I mentioned several times that the people in Tanzania are so incredibly friendly. The Hadzabe people were the exception. They really didn’t want much to do with us, especially the women. We were given permission to take photos and share them. They love their kids…love to sing and dance….and the kids are really happy. I loved the little girl swinging on the tree boughs. She had pure joy on her face.

Two and a half years ago I spoke to my Joe for the last time. I was lying in bed on a Sunday morning and he called me along with Rich and his wife, Michelle. They were just getting ready to leave off Rich at the airport and start heading home to Kansas City. They were anxious to pick up their dogs. Joe told me he would call me later that afternoon during his drive, or if he got tired. I got up and went to church and then crossed the street to get groceries when my phone rang. It was Michelle’s mom, telling me that they had hit bad weather and had been in a car accident and that Joe hadn’t made it. It took me over a year to go into that grocery store again. My whole world got sucked into an awful vortex at that moment. I had to call Rich at the airport to tell him our first born son was gone and he had to stay in Colorado and make it to Michelle, who was in a small, rural hospital alone. I had to call his best friend. I had to call Lily and ask her to come home and then tell her. I had to tell my parents. I had to tell his brother. I was a wreck. There were people who came to the house and sat with Lily and me all afternoon. They cried with me and told stories about Joe. Some wonderful people in my life have really stepped up in the last 2 1/2 years….knowing that when I always say I am “fine” that I might not be. I have met a bunch of new friends who are moms who have lost their kids as well. They are the easiest people for me to talk to. They know the absolute pain and horror of the whole thing….and I don’t have to try and spare their feelings. They KNOW. I have this lovely older woman who lives next door who lost her only daughter almost 3 years ago. We have a quiet way about honoring our kids together. She came over on Mother’s Day evening to sit on my front porch together. Nothing really needed to be said.

I have said it many times, but a part of me died with my Joe. I was such a smiling, happy person and now I feel it when I smile. Something that was so natural before has to be worked on. That smile rarely reaches my eyes. I have mastered the “I’m fine” mask that I wear in public. It only slips when I have to wear it too long, and it gets too heavy. Then it slips at the most inopportune times. I lost a lot of my sparkle when Joe died. However, I know that a part of him lives on in me. I can feel him in my heart when I am traveling somewhere I know he would think is cool. I feel him by my side when I am on a fire call or a medical call. I yearn to tell him that I am honoring him by doing this firefighter/EMT gig in rural Montana. I would love to compare stories on his busy city FF/EMT job and my rural volunteer one. I guess that conversation will have to wait until we are reunited again. Until then, I write him letters every day or so to tell him what is going on…like a one-sided phone call. Today, Rich and I went to the River’s Edge city park and sat on the bench placed there to honor Joe at the fishing pond. We watched the fish jump and the dragon flies fly lazily by. The tree behind his bench has turned a bright red already, letting us know that fall is not far off. The Chiefs won last night and Joe would have been pretty stoked about that. He is so very missed….no matter how much time goes by. He is my son and is loved unconditionally forever. Since I am still here, that love has to have somewhere to go and it often is in the form of grief. So be patient with those moms out there who have lost a child…it is not easy and is the worst pain I have ever felt….1000 fold. My life has changed so much in the last 2 1/2 years. My friends have almost all changed. I can count on one hand those that have stuck by me and reached out regularly. I have learned to let go of the others….including family as well. That has been very hard. I talk to Joe about it often, actually. Here is to a wonderful man taken way too soon. I love and miss you, son.

On June 25th, Rich and I got up before the sun and took a ride with 12 others from our group to a launch site for some of the largest hot air balloons on the planet. These baskets (gondolas) carry 16 passengers and a pilot. They are huge! There are four compartments for four people each and you are tethered into the hot air balloon by a seat belt around your waist with a cord attached to the basket. You are able to move around freely, but you supposedly can’t fall out. Rich and I, having gone to college in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the annual balloon fiesta happens every October, have both been in hot air balloons before. These balloons are so big, and with such a big basket, that the riders start laying flat on their backs on a chair and holding onto built in loops on the sides. That is how you take off and land. It is like being on a spaceship. We watched the sun come up and then watched the animals and camps from above. Our pilot, Rosa, is the only female hot air balloon pilot in Tanzania. She is originally from Barcelona, and she is a spit fire! She speaks Spanish, English, French, Swahili, and Arabic to name a few. We were in the air for about 90 minutes, and she even served coffee to those who wanted some. After we landed, she told the story of how hot air ballooning started and shared a toast with all of us with champagne. Rich caught the cork, which is supposed to bring good luck. We were then bussed to a large, tented area for a big English breakfast. The native Tanzanians who were the chase crews sang and danced for us, as seems to be the custom anywhere you go in the region. There was about 30 mongoose who came up to the tent expecting the scraps. A tiny bird landed on the table and helped himself to part of my muffin. This was such a magical ride….to see the Serengeti from the open air in a hot air balloon. It was so quiet and still. I would 100% recommend it!

So I keep mentioning the Big 5 – those are the most dangerous animals in Africa. They are: Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Cape Buffalo (also known as the African Buffalo), and the rhinoceros. There are other Big 5’s….like the Big 5 Uglies…the ugliest animals in Africa. They are: the marabu stork, wildebeest, warthog, hyena, and vulture. We managed to see both of these Big 5’s. There are others…like the shyest and the smallest. What was so wonderful about traveling with Collette during our tour of Africa is the drivers and guides. There were 6 of us in the back of a toyota land cruiser that was modified for safari drives. Some of the roads we went on would not really be considered roads so they could handle that kind of off-road terrain. The tops popped up so you could stand on the seats with your stocking feet to peer out without using a window. The windows slid side-to-side for easy photography. However, there were some instances, especially with the big cats, that I felt safer popping out of the top rather than opening my window. Our guide said that he has had big cats jump onto the hood of the vehicle before, but not us. Not this time. Back to our drivers….there were 6 passengers and then a driver. The driver has to go to university for a minimum of 3 years to learn about the flora and fauna of the area. They learn about the hundreds of different animals and their habits for mating, hunting, life expectancy, behavioral tendencies, etc. It really is a lot. They know where to look for certain animals or birds and can identify their calls. Raymond, a driver we were with quite a bit during our time in Tanzania, could also identify snakes in the area by the smell. Evidently it is a very venomous snake that smells like DDT pesticide. Our guide, Alfred, happened to be with us when we came upon a pride of lionesses who had taken down and killed a cape buffalo that day. He could tell us that when a lioness yawns two times, she is going to get up and come feed again. I totally thought he was making that up. Sure enough, it happened four different times. So not only did we SEE a bunch of really cool animals, but we learned about them as well. I want YOU to try and go to Africa to see these things yourself, so I won’t share EVERYTHING, but I will share some things. Africa has these nasty little bugs called tsetse flies. (pronounced teetzee) Alfred was really good at letting us know ahead of time how to dress according to these little beasties and the mosquitoes. Speaking of mosquitoes…they were there, but we, as I said before, were warned when we would be someplace where they were thicker. It was wintertime there, so I am guessing they weren’t as bad. We used bug spray with a minimum of 30% DEET. I used catnip spray which also does the same thing. I also had a big, but lightweight scarf/shawl thingy that was infused with permethrin, which doesn’t have any smell to it and is good up to 79 washes for deterring bugs. We were prescribed malaria prevention pills to take during our trip and the few weeks after, but we did not end up taking them. Did I have any mosquito bites? I got maybe 4 or 5 while I was there. We also had mosquito netting around our beds that we closed every night. (although it does make it fun if you have to get up and use the bathroom in the dark) You cannot drink the water in Kenya or Tanzania. You can’t brush your teeth with it. You have to have bottled water with you always. Collette supplied clean water for us on our trip both at the hotels and camps and on the safari vehicles. I think just about everyone in our group of 16 had a bit of a tummy issue during our 16-day trip. However, a lot of them were because of the malaria pills. (it is one of the side effects). Rich and I came armed with malaria pills and pills to clear out and reset our digestive systems if we couldn’t treat our intestinal issues with over-the-counter meds. We both used the tummy meds but not the malaria pills. I think everyone else on the trip were taking them. A few people did just fine with them, but others were miserable. Another must have is binoculars. Rich was always on the lookout for an animal or bird. The drivers always had an extra set of nice binoculars to share with those folks who didn’t have a pair. A good zoom in camera will also do the trick and capture the shot! The drivers taught us some Swahili and some words in Masai as well. Sawa Sawa (okay – we can go now) Polepole (slow down) Asante sana (thank you very much) Gladly (karibu) No problems (hakuna matata) Habari Yako? (How are you?)

Okay….the Serengeti. Wow. Just wow. It is 16,000 square kilometers of African wild wonderfulness. The animals are often attacked by the bugs, especially the tsetse flies. The rangers have put up blue and black flags in some areas that are treated with some chemical that sterilizes the flies so they can’t reproduce. We were under strict instructions to not wear black or blue during some of our tour days because those colors attract the tsetse fly. There were some very interesting animal stuff I learned from Raymond, our driver. Our drivers said that we start out as clients and quickly become friends (Swahili word for friend is rafiki). It certainly felt like that. Giraffes move differently than other animals. They move with the right legs moving then the left. The whole side moves together. That is different than most other mammals. The wildebeest and the zebra migrate north together. We saw thousands of them together, just hanging out and resting. Lions…a young lion will have a pink nose. It will also have a small mane. When a lion is about 5 years old, they will have a full mane around their heads and their noses will turn black. Lion in Swahili is Simba. Lionesses do a majority of the hunting. They stalk their prey in groups. We got to see a lone zebra get stalked by a group of 5 or 6 lionesses. They were full from the cap buffalo kill, so didn’t actually chase the zebra for longer than a couple of seconds, but they are hunters of opportunity and couldn’t turn down the chance at another kill that had wandered into their area. We watched the lionesses stalk this zebra. They have black tips on the back of their ears and on their tails. The lead lioness would flick her ears or tail to communicate to the other lionesses to flank left or right. It was amazing to watch. Seeing an already dead animal is okay, but I was cheering for the zebra in this one and was glad the lionesses’ bellies were too full to really give chase.

Cheetahs are not a real cat because they don’t have retractable claws. They eat their kill very fast so others won’t eat their food. When we came upon a couple of lioness kills during our trip, jackals, hyenas, and vultures were waiting in the wings for their chance at getting some food. The jackals are small and fast. They would try to steal meat in-between the lionesses eating. Their heads are always on a swivel because lionesses don’t like to share. Hyenas go to work once the lionesses are done and have moved on. Then the vultures come in and pick the bones clean. There were a lot of antelope-type animals around. Thomson gazelle were everywhere. Then there were the Klipspringer (3rd smallest antelope), who practically have rubber hooves to jump on rocks and have good stopping abilities. The dick-dick is a tiny little antelope (4th smallest). They mate for life. The females look bigger than the males. The males have tiny horns and the females don’t have any. Considering they are so small, they have a life expectancy of 9 years and their gestation period is 5 1/2 to 6 months. They try to confuse their predators by pooping in the same couple of piles to make it look like a it is a large animal defecating bigger piles when it is really just a few little dick-dicks that piles all their piles together. (see these are things we would have never learned just looking out the window!) There are also the Topi antelope. They are larger and look like they are wearing yellow socks, blue jeans, and a yellow cap. They can run up to 60 km/hr. The impala were plentiful as well. They call them “McDonald’s antelope” because they look like they have the “M” of the golden arches on their rear ends with their tails down. They can jump 10 fee up and 30 feet forward. We also saw the hartebeest, which looks like an antelope and a wildebeest combined. They are gangly looking but can really move for their size. We saw a couple of crocodiles as well. They can live 30-70 years and weigh up to 1 ton for the really big ones.

We saw so many acacia trees! There are over 350 species, but I love the flat-topped ones that really scream “Serengeti!” to me….especially in sunrise and sunset photos. They are just magical looking. They have huge thorns on them though. Their leaves are full of water, so the giraffes love them. The giraffes have horny papillae in their upper lips and that protects them from the spines on the trees. They giraffes are able to eat the leaves and leave the spines behind. (FYI – a group of giraffes is called a TOWER). In a lot of these acacia trees there were bundles balls of dry grass. The weaver birds make nests that are tight and neat. They only build their nests on the west side of the tree so they don’t have any early morning sun shining into their nests. The starlings aren’t so neat. They are amazingly beautiful with metallic blue feathers. Another amazingly beautiful bird in Africa is the lilac breasted roller. They have so many colors! The Acacia trees don’t burn. Their roots turn nitrogen into nitrates in dry soil so other long-living trees can grow and get nutrients from the super dry soil. There was also the candelabra tree (which looks like a tree trunk at the bottom and a candelabra made of cactus on the top. They are very unique-looking. They are poisonous. They only animal we saw near them were bats.

Elephants are my jam. I just love them so much. Did you know that an elephant has over 40,000 muscles in it’s trunk alone? That is crazy! Have you ever seen videos of an elephant using that trunk? Amazing. I had a baby elephant try to untie my shoe with its trunk at the Sheldrick Nursery. Elephants also have 3-4 liters of blood per minute flowing through their ears. This is why they flap them in the wind to cool off. Elephants put their ears straight out and their trunk straight out to fake charge something. Don’t get me wrong, a fake charge is scary. When they trumpet, it is loud. Lily and I were at the Omaha Henry Doorley Zoo when a small train went by the elephant pasture. There were 3 babies there at the time and all the adult elephants surrounded them and faced outward and trumpeted. They were about 50 yards away from us but it practically blew our hair back. When they are truly going to charge, they flap their ears and curl up it’s trunk up and inward.

A group of warthogs is called a SOUNDER. They are funny little creatures because have tails that go straight up and look like little antennae running through the grass. The necks of warthogs are too short to reach the ground so they have to kneel on their front legs to root. Raymond said it is like they have to pray before their meals. In the movie, The Lion King, the warthog’s name was Pumba, which in Swahili means “slow-witted”. The warthog isn’t known for it’s smarts. They have very short memory spans. Did you know hippopotamuses have pink milk? Yeah, I didn’t know that either before this trip. A group of guinea fowl is called a CONFUSION.

Also a couple of other random things….there were some hearty beer drinkers in our group. The beer most famous in Kenya was Tusker beer (with an elephant on it). The beer in Tanzania was Twiga beer (Twiga means giraffe in Swahili). In Tanzania they use the shilling. At the time we were there in late June, $1 = 2600 shillings. It was crazy because Rich would go to the ATM and get out a million shilling and come back with a stack of bills but it was less than $385. We tipped in both shilling and American dollars. Either were widely accepted where we stopped.

Okay! On to some photos! The wildebeests are crazy looking. There is an old African legend that says God had some left over parts from creatures he had made and with it made the wildebeest. He took a buffalo’s horns, a locust’s head, a cow’s body, a goat’s legs, and a lion’s tail. Honestly, that pretty much sums up their appearance. Their heads certainly do look like a grasshopper’s head. You’ll notice that there are a lot of tsetse flies on the animals. It seems like those little insects are the bane of their existence. There are birds that ride along and eat these insects right off the animals, so the animals don’t mind the birds hitching a ride. I mentioned before that baby zebra are very fuzzy and more red and white than black and white. I have a few more photos here to show that. There is a photo of a very colorful bird. That is the lilac breasted roller. So very pretty! Sunsets and sunrises…are completely magical in Africa, especially in the Serengeti. We did not witness the takedown of the cape buffalo (the old general) in the photos. It had happened earlier in the day. The grass around the abdomen is from it’s intestines. The lionesses can’t digest that, so when they go for the organs (which they do first because they have the most nutrients), they split open the intestines and let the grass spill out. They can’t eat that part, but don’t worry…some other opportunistic animal or most likely bird, will. We had an up-close encounter with this kill and the lionesses and their cubs feeding. We were less than 20 feet away. It was so interesting to watch.

Ngorongoro Crater is not a national park, but a conservation area. There are Masai people who live there, migrating through the area. It is like the African Garden of Eden, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is one of the best places to see the “Big 5”. We saw so many really cool animals here! The area is not really a crater but a caldera, which is lush and green and has everything from monkeys to hippos to giraffes, to lions, elephants, and several cool birds, including the flamingo! We were there at the perfect time…the rainy season was over and the babies were just being born. You will notice baby zebra photos over my next few posts. They are born reddish brown and white and very fuzzy. They are adorable! We also got the chance to see the great migration….thousands of zebra and wildebeests moving together across the plains of the caldera. Amazing. I even have a photo of Rich under a tree trying to take photos of the hippos. I included a photo that took of a baby hippo resting in the water on its mother’s back. You have to look close to see how much bigger the mom is by her head peeking out of the water. It is quite a feat getting to Ngorongoro Crater. You drive upwards and along the rim before heading down into the caldera. It is a beautiful site and quickly became a favorite spot! Karibu Eneo La Hifadhi Ya Ngorongoro! Welcome to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area!

I know it has been a hot minute since I have posted. It isn’t that I am drowning in photos to process Africa (although I kinda am), I went on another trip! I am going to give you the low-down on where we went, but photos will have to wait until I finish the Africa photos. I am working almost daily on our Africa photos, but I am weeding through 4000 photos taken.

So the latest trip! We were home for a little less than 3 weeks. We had a big rush on fire calls the first week we were back. Then Lily had her 4 wisdom teeth removed. She asked the dentist if she could keep them, so she did! She will proudly show anyone who asks to see them. She didn’t have any complications, for which we were very thankful. About 10 days after her surgery, we packed up our bags and flew down to Kansas City. We can’t thank Michelle Messina and Zac, Wanda, and Ed Oslica enough for their roles in our short 48 hour stay. Michelle picked us and all our luggage up from the airport and handed over Lily’s car (which had been staying at her house over the summer). We got a tour of her new home….it is adorable and such a beautiful fit for her…. plus it is a much shorter drive with less traffic now that her job has moved to a new location. It is a win/win for her. The Oslicas showed up with their pickups to help us get furniture from Michelle and then from some of her neighbors we bought to help furnish Lily’s new place. We bought a duplex near the KCAI campus. It is a 98-year-old house that has been gutted on the inside and totally redone. The flooring is original, but there is a new kitchen, bathrooms, etc, in the half on the first floor and Lily’s half on the top floor. We have a bit of work to do on the outside, but we have that under contract to be done. The bottom floor is rented out. The top floor has Lily, her best friend from high school and roommate from last year (as Lily puts it…she is her Zac….Joe’s best friend). There is then a master bedroom with its own full bathroom that we will eventually rent out to female traveling medical professionals. We were in KC for 48 hours and needed to furnish the whole top floor. The Oslicas were a huge help. Family that isn’t blood…they were amazing. Then Joe’s brothers at the Olathe Fire Department came by the next day to help carry more furniture up the narrow, steep stairs. Three captains showed up and in 30 minutes had it all done. What a relief and how thankful we were for their help! Lily is all moved in, furniture is all in place, and she is in the second week of her sophomore year. I am happy she is in a safe neighborhood and has a place to call home for as long as she needs it. No more getting kicked out of the dorms for holidays!

We left Lily in her place in KC and flew to D.C. for Rich’s brother’s change of command. He has been the garrison commander for the last 2 years at Fort Belvoir, VA. He will now move on to working across the hall from his wife in the Pentagon (if you have any idea how incredibly large the pentagon is, that is quite a feat to be working so close together!). As he was decompressing after a year of basically being the mayor of a large town, we joined them on a wonderful overseas trip. So the actors in play were Joe and Heather (my brother- and sister-in-law), Tammie and Casey (my sister-in-law and her son, who is 30 – and was close with our Joe, his cousin), and Rich and myself. The six of us took off in the evening from D.C. and flew to Rome, Italy through the night. We then flew to Catania, Sicily, where we drove to Taormina to stay a couple of days prior to heading to Messina, Sicily to board the MSC World Europa, a brand-new mega ship that I am not sure I saw a third of whilst on board. We spent a week on board and went to Malta (a new country for both Rich and me) – Barcelona, Spain – Marseilles, France (a new country for me and my 50th country visited….on our 33rd wedding anniversary!) – then two stops in Italy – Genoa and Naples – before heading back to Messina, Sicily and getting off the ship. We toured Messina and a few other areas that were in the Godfather movies and went to Catania. Tammie and Casey flew out the next morning. Rich dropped them off at the airport and picked up a rental car and the remaining four of us took off for an adventure around Sicily for about 6 days. We spent time in Agrigento, Marsala, Syracuse, Palermo, Cefalu, Vulcano Island and Messina. We had a really good time with lots of adventure stories to go along with our trip. I learned a lot about Sicily and really enjoyed the atmosphere and the food! We flew back to D.C. for 24 hours then flew back to Montana last week. So, we have been busy catching up with work, our firefighting hall and home. I am trying to spend a few hours a day chipping away at my Africa photos and will post them on the blog in batches of where we were in Africa. Then I will move on to Sicily. I actually took more photos with my phone as it was really hot and I didn’t want to be carrying a heavy bag around, but I will share some photos on that trip as well.

We did celebrate Lily’s 18th adoption day on August 31st. I can’t believe it has been so long since we picked her up in China! To quote Lily, “That’s a lot of years!” She is in her 2nd week of school at KCAI and seems to like her classes and her teachers. We love that she has been our daughter for over 18 years now.

We are also trying to enjoy the last dregs of summer here in Montana. We pretty much missed the whole summer with travel. We came back from Sicily (and hot and humid temps there) to a winter weather advisory. The mountains got about a foot of snow, but we had cool temps and rain. The warm weather is back now and even though the temps are still in the 80’s here, we are seeing trees that are starting to show their red and yellow leaves already. It is hard to be inside when the weather is so wonderful. Tallinn keeps reminding me that my happy spot is on the front porch in my rocking chair with him at my feet enjoying the breeze.