We are back!

After over a year inactive, I decided to reactivate our blogger account. I will try to update it as often as I can and hopefully we all can get connected again. Facebook is nice, but this is more intimate. Don't you all agree? Love you all ...

GO STEELERS, CONGRATULATIONS ON WINNING NUMBER 6 !!!

We have decided to take a break from Blogging for now. Perhaps we will return later this year. To all of you who have read our Blog, we hope that it was of good information and provided interesting insites to our lives. If you have further personal interest in what is going on with Dan & Rita please feel free to e-mail or call us anytime. Until then, God Bless and See you later alligator...

NOVEMBER UPDATE

Well, I had an epidural block today under CT scan. My legs, especially the left one have been bothering me a lot lately due to the back problems I experienced from the accident. I really feel a lot older somedays when I try to walk and the pain prevents me from really doing any strong activity. Travel in a car still is OK if I take the medicine the doctors prescribed for me but I am not a big medicine taker and look forward to getting off of those prescrips. The block seems to help a little bit and a maybe a few more days it will get even better. Hopefully with continued exercise and limited anti-inflammatory meds I will be back to the activity I had before the accident in June. Rita seems to be doing fine after her therapy and is pretty much back to herself now. The weather has been beautiful here in Pa but we can expect a change to come soon. Weather usually is Fall like and many nice warm days through January and then through March it gets quite cold and light snow.

We were sadden this week to hear about the passing of Aunt Eva Free, Mom's youngest and last sibling. Rita and I will be attending her funeral in Hadley,PA on Monday and representing the family. I believe she was 94. From her daughter's call she passed quietly in her sleep late this week. To those who knew her, you will remember her quick sense of humor, quilt making, independance and the enjoyment of her family and farm home until only a few years ago when she moved to a carehome in Fredonia, PA. If you are interested in sending cards and do not have an address, contact me by e-mail and I will give you an address you can write to.

STREET ROADWORK ON WESTFIELD ST.

I was so impressed by the roadwork crews as they resurfaced our street in front of our home. It needed to be redone and the fun part was to see how they stripped the pavement off with this big machine, dumping it directly into the truck in minutes. When they stripped the pavement off you could see the old brick streets underneath. Our neighbor up the street remembered when he first lived there 49 years ago and drove those brick streets. They are in almost perfect condition. I drive down many brick streets in Pittsburgh and many of them are in expensive neighborhoods, preserved. Anyway they did it all in about 4 hours and tomorrow they will resurface, neat!!

PITTSBURGH'S 250TH ANNIVERSARY

Just a few pictures Rita and I took at the evening fireworks display for Pittsburgh's 250th Anniversary. We grabbed an evening train from our house(took 5 cars that passed us before we got on one) The train took us down to Station Square where we started to watch the fireworks from the Smithfield bridge(see photo's of mass of people on bridge) Remember Pittsburgh has a lot of bridges so this was a large crowd downtown. I suspect that there was over 500,000 people downtown watching the fireworks, music and all. They were shooting off the fireworks from many places around town, including off the top of the buildings and I suspect from the river itself. Our friend Amy Fisher and her husband Matt were downtown and wouldn't you know it our paths cossed on the bridge and we watched the fireworks together(see Amy hanging on to the upper part of the bridge) Hi Amy!!!
Sorry, I suspect Matt has better pics than me because he had a tripod and all. It was fun and hope you get an idea of the happenings shown below. Don't forget to click on the pictures to blow them up for better viewing.

TIME FOR A HAYRIDE AND A FEW HOT DOGS ON THE FIRE.

We recently had our annual Hayride at Mike and Esther Krajacic's farm in Washington County, Pennsylvania. Mike and Esther are members of our church family at CMA church in Upper St. Clair. They are both in their mid 80's and still farm a large parcel of land and raise feeder beef. Mike travels around speaking to churches and sharing his testimony. His travels have taken him to Russia and many other countries as a Christian Farmer speaking to those nations. As are many of our members they are warm caring family and Mike has attended several of my Sunday School classes, sharing his background and contributing so much to the church ministry in Upper St. Clair. Rita and I skipped the hayride this year but we had a lot of fun with the kids and our church friends(and the food was good too) Fall is approaching finally and it looks like it will be a beautiful one again this year. Below are several of our shared photos just to give you the feel of the Farm and friendly folks.

CMA CHURCH FAMILY AT THE FARM