Books Read in 2025

Great American Trivia

The Last Dispatch:  A Story of Antietam

Under God:  Triumph and Tragedy Stories of America's Spiritual Battles 

The World Rushed In - The CA Gold Rush Experience

The March

Polk - The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America

1812:  The War that Forged a Nation

With the Old Breed

Shocking Secrets of American History

South End Syndicate

The Things Our Fathers Saw Volume 9 & 10

The French and Indian War:  Deciding the Fate of North American

War Letters

The True Story of the USS Indianaoplis

A Quiet Christmas 2025

Tammy and I both worked Christmas Eve, so we were not able to attend the Christmas Eve service at our church or former church as they held them in the early and late afternoon.   We did watch the PCC Christmas special "The Greatest Gift," as well as, the PBS docudrama "All is Calm" after dinner. 

It was only Tammy, Charlotte, and I Christmas morning opening the presents we had gotten each other and the presents from the Laberee's.  The rest of the morning was spent getting things ready for dinner guests who were coming over at 3pm.  Tammy made the Maple Salmon with crockpot mini-potatoes and a broccoli/cauliflower Christmas salad.  I cleaned the house.  We had a great four and a half hour visit reconnecting with our old friends the Bakers.

Tammy had to return to work Friday.  My job gave me off both Christmas Day and Friday.  This was quite a nice surprise considering all the previous years when I had to work all holidays. 

Photo link https://photos.app.goo.gl/zH5s7MAXPB7ysn5W9

Anniversary 37 Get-Away

On Friday, December 12th, Tammy and I hit the road for a weekend in New Bedford, MA.  We left around 5:30am and arrived in Fall River around 8am for our first stop of our trip - breakfast at Harry's Diner.  I ordered the steak bomb omelette, and Tammy had the mozambique omelette.  After breakfast, we walked down to Battleship Cove where we explored a WWII submarine, PT boat, destroyer, and battleship inside and out for three hours.  The battleship had the most to see with lots of hatch ways and ladders to climb through and up.  I was able to make it to the lowest and the highest part of the battleship accessible to the public.  It was quite the maze of passageways.  Admission to Battleship Cove included admission to the Marine Museum a short walk away.  Here we learned about the Fall River Line to New York City.  There was also a Titanic exhibit.  Our day in Fall River was not done yet.  We made one last stop at the Borden's home for a 90 minute Lizzie Borden tour and tale.  It was now time to depart for our hotel in New Bedford.  

After we checked in to our room on the fifth floor overlooking the largest fishing port on the East Coast, we walked to the Black Whale Restaurant for dinner.  I had what likely has been the most expensive meal I have ever ordered - lobster thermidor.  Tammy had scallops which is the number one catch in the area.  Saturday morning we walked to the Whaling Museum where we learned what made New Bedford the city that lit the world.   A visit to the Fishing Heritage Center followed.  We rounded out the afternoon walking around the downtown, visiting various shops with sightings of Santa and a winter fairy.  Dinner was eaten at Izzy's Restaurant.  I chose Cape Verde steak with one egg and a bowl of cachupa from the menu.  Tammy chose fish and chips substituting a salad for the chips.  Dessert was two large cookies and milk teas from Besteas.

Sunday morning we headed home in a snow storm which thankfully did not stick to the roads.

Click the link for pictures of our adventure   https://photos.app.goo.gl/v1Lk9tmy7pZQUphS8

Thanksgiving 2025

I now have the Thursday and Friday of Thanksgiving off as holiday time.  Tammy was able to get both days off this year.  So we headed to Vermont to be with family.  We left 530am Thursday morning for a 'trafficless' drive of 3 hours to the VT Grandparents.  Around 10am, the NY Gangwers arrived, and we all ate a breakfast of Eggs in a basket and sausage.  I spent some time before the festivities were to begin at 2pm making a container of Thai tea for everyone to tryl

Thanksgiving dinner was in the church's fellowship hall at 2pm with all the Beauchemin's in attendance along with the aforementioned VT Grandparents, NY Gangwers, and a special appearance by Vania's sister Ellie.  We had all the trimmings - turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, green been casserole, homemade and canned cranberry sauce, and rolls.  The dessert table was just as full with apple, pumpkin, and pecan pie, pumpkin roll, and pumpkin bread.  After feasting, some put together 'Lego' Christmas ornaments while the rest of us sat around chatting.  Everyone returned to the VT Grandparents for an evening of snacking on leftovers and a game of 'Scattergories'.  See link for pictures - https://photos.app.goo.gl/WciYGMaxUW6VRqVy9

Tammy went out and about Black Friday shopping the next morning.  When she returned, the NY Gangwer girls and I made Dubai Chocolate from a Mr. CoCo kit I had brought up with us.  It was enjoyed by most better than the Thai tea.  Otherwise it was a quiet day sitting around, chilling out, and eating. The evening was spent playing 'Scattergories'.  

Tammy and I spent time Saturday designing and cutting out our pinewood derby cars for their upcoming February race in VT.  Rachelle ordered pizza for dinner as some tired of Thanksgiving leftovers.  The day ended with playing the game 'How Well Do You Know Your Family?'.

Sunday morning found Tammy and I leaving early to avoid the holiday rush home with a cooler full of Thanksgiving leftovers of which I'm not sure I could ever tire of.

 

Busy, Busy, Busy Fall 2025

As Professor Hinkle, the magician in Frosty the Snowman, famously states in his closing remarks in the cartoon as he leaves Santa to write his apology a hundred zillion times - "Busy, busy, busy", so it has been here in CT with more home projects as October began where September ended.

The first weekend in October was spent 'repairing' our master bedroom closet.  The two closet dressers that anchor the hanging clothes bar had become 'stressed' causing their drawers to misalign and not close properly.  I spent the day - and yes, surprisingly, it did take the better part of a day - anchoring the two dressers to the wall studs.  Tammy went through the clothes on the hanging bar to lessen its load by getting rid of items no longer worn.  

After we returned home from our Fall getaway detailed in the previous blog, Tammy and I  attended the 2025 WIHS Gala and Expo.  This is the rebranded name for what was previously the WIHS Banquet.   It had been several years since I had been to this event because of my cancer and scheduled travel.  It was held at the Aqua Turf Club in Southington with around 400 listeners of the radio station coming for an evening of food (served family style at your table), fun (over 30 various Christian ministry displays to visit), and fellowship (congregational singing with a message about CT's early Christian heritage).

The house got cleaned up for a visit the next Saturday.  We had invited Mr. and Mrs. Brown over for dinner.  Mr. Brown was the pastor of First Baptist Church where I worked at the Christian school Baptist Village Academy and where we attended church for over 20 years.  Tammy made a delicious dinner of maple Salmon, rice and roasted whole carrots with a dessert of apple pie.  We had a great couple of hours catching up on current events in their lives and reminiscing about old times.

I decided to tackle a complete garage clean up on Saturday, Nov 8th from the rafters down.  When we moved in to our house in 2002, I stored a lot of the emptied boxes we had used in the garage rafters.  I went through them filling up our large blue recycle garbage can with those of no use.  I then moved to on to all the shelves throwing away items that had not been used in years and placing other items on FaceBook Marketplace to sell.  Not having ever done a deep clean on the garage ever, there was a good amount of mouse poop and seeds of all sorts - stored and eaten - by said mice.  (As a side note, I did buy several mouse traps after cleaning and have put them to good use.)  This was a full day job taking close to 7 hours with just a stop for a 20 minute lunch.

For Tammy's birthday in September, I had purchased tickets to a local production of the "Little House of Horrors" put on by the Opera House Players.  It was a Sunday matinee on November 16th at the old Fermi High School auditorium here in Enfield.  Stas and Lizzy went with us, and we were all impressed by how good the performance was.  We all stopped at BigY on the way home for an after show dessert which we decided on to be an ice cream cake.  

It was on to the basement for the next project.  Saturday, Nov 22, Tammy and I went through two storage cabinets.  The one contained arts and crafts.  The other had some old toys from days of yesteryear.  I placed most of the toys on FaceBook Marketplace with almost half having sold to date.  The arts and crafts closest was cleaned out through judicious trashing of items and finding new homes for others.  We had two old end tables from when we first got married, as well as, a newer coffee table that didn't fit in our living room taking up space in the basement.  Any guess as to what happened to them?  All were sold on FaceBook Marketplace.  Their is still more to the basement but that's for projects to come. 

Sunday, I spent in the great outdoors tackling the yearly fall chore of leaf raking.  Sounds easy enough, but after about seven hours, I had no more left in me.  I completed the last two hours of raking the next day after getting home from work.