Tuesday November 30, 2010

New York City Here We Come!

Monday, November 29

When we arrived at Vertex Mechanical, Inc., Stevens, PA, shortly after 6:30 a.m., we were invited to have coffee, tea, or hot chocolate.

A few of the early arrivers for Tressa’s fortieth birthday party trip.

Tressa (left) is the one whose birthday we were celebrating.

I understand that she has always wanted to make this trip, so her sister Yvonne planned this day for her and twenty-four of her family and friends.

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Before I go any farther, I should tell you why I was going along on this mother/daughter/friend bus trip.

When Tressa’s sister, Yvonne, learned over the weekend that four people had to cancel due to a funeral, she sent an email to those who had reservations. Our daughter-in-law Kristen is a good friend of Tressa and had planned to take their daughter, Jana, so received the email.

She thought of our other daughter-in-law Chris and their three daughters. Chris, Jenna, and Gloria were excited to go along. However, Diana did not want to give up her hunting trip.

There was still one seat left. Kristen thought of me, but I was her babysitter. So she called our daughter Deb to see if she would keep the three little boys if I was interested in going along. Deb said she would gladly do that, so Kristen called me after church on Sunday. I said, “Of course I will go along.”

Deb and Roy – THANK YOU, THANK YOU for making the day possible for me.

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Getting a hot drink and donuts or muffins to take on the bus.

Pretty paper plates

Boarding the coach. Notice the two boxes on the ground. Each of us was supposed to choose a bag before entering the bus.

Inside was a NYC map of the area where we would be spending the day, an itinerary, and paperwork for a few games.

Also, gum, water, and a peanut snack bar.

Shortly after departure each of us was asked to introduce ourself, tell the others how we know Tressa (upper right), and share a story about something new we had done in 2010. In this picture Kristen is sharing.

Chris’ turn.

Tressa was the last one to tell us about herself.

Yvonne, Tressa’s sister, told a story about Tressa – starting with her childhood – using items to illustrate the story.

We were supposed to remember each of the twenty-five items for the next game.

We then filled in a bingo sheet with the items we could remember.

The winner (the one who remembered the most items) received a choice of items that Yvonne had in a basket. She then gave us the list of all twenty-five items so we could fill in our bingo sheet.

These pretty napkins were my prize for winning the second round of bingo.

The morning sun prevented me from taking a very good photo of the group on the bus, but you can still get an idea of what our bus load of women and girls looked like.