Grandma Peachey Makes A Move

Grandma Peachey has changed her living arrangements.
After living independently for 28 years in Manor III at Greencroft, she is now living in Greencroft Gables. In early August, she was ill and needed to be hospitalized for 8 days. She was dehydrated and had an infection. After being discharged from the hospital, she was transferred to Greencroft to see if rehabilitation would work so that she could return to her apartment. However, mobility was a big problem for her. Therapy was attempted in her apartment, but it didn't work. The treatment team recommended that she not return to independent living, but stay in Gables Healthcare. Her adjustment has been slow, but good. Her room is now her "home" as she says.
Having her meals, laundry, and personal care provided has been a great relief to her. Most of her time is spent in her wheelchair doing word searches and reading. She also is able to look out her window and see what's happing "outside". There are many opportunities to meet other people and she knows by name most of the staff who care for her. She enjoys receiving mail and visits from friends.

Exploring and Enjoying Egypt

Last spring, we traveled to Egypt with Grand Circle Travel. This was our first trip to Africa. Learning about other cultures is important to us. Customs, food, and language give us insight into the lives of others.
After arriving in Cairo, we were treated to traditional Egyptian food by our Program Director.































Viewing the Great Pyramids was an inspiring sight. The skill of the builders thousands of years ago, without the use of technology as we know it, is indeed mind boggling. And yes, we did take a camel ride.































An additional highlight was having a meal in the home of a host family. The family was in business with the Xerox Company.

A day trip to Alexandra was highlighted by touring the library. It is a beautiful building. We also toured the old library and viewed numerous very old books.














After touring Cairo city, we traveled by air to Aswan. Our "hotel" was the ship on which we spent 7 nights on the Nile River. From the ship, we would do day trips to various temples situated along the Nile.











One of the most impressive temples was Abu Simble was a temple built by Ramas II. Reportedly he was "full of himself" as reported by our Program Director. There are many statues of his image around the country. This temple was moved when the High Dam was built. If it hadn't been moved, it would have been destroyed. The temple was cut in to smaller pieces and then put together using the dust from the cutting that was made into mortar.




The tour of the Valley of the Kings was not only interesting but HOT! Temperature reached 120 degrees. This is the area where numerous tombs have been discovered. We were able to go into several of the tombs, but it was not cool as you might expect. Mostly the temperature in the tombs was warm and humid.







As we traveled on the Nile, it was interesting to see that the vegetation only extended for several hundred yards on either side of the river. The temple at Luxor is said to have been the largest religious structure in the world. Inside the temple, there was still visible, original paint used to decorate the temple walls.




In one area of Luxor Temple, there was a painting of the last supper which had covered some of the original carvings. It was reported that early Christians had defaced many of the temple.













We ended our tour with a farewell banquet. The food was outstanding. We enjoyed the traditional Egyptian food.







Before we left Cairo, we visited with Lee and Lavern Yoder. Lee is Chet's cousin and they had been living in Egypt for 8 years. Both were employed at Narmer American College, Lee as Head Master and Lavern a teacher. Our last evening, we enjoyed a meal at a local restaurant.


This was a great trip. We learned much about the culture, religion and customs of the Egyptians.

January Trip to LAO, Cambodia, and Thailand

In January, we visited our family in LAO - Kris, Khamko, and Andy. We spent time with them until our friends, Judy and John Kolb arrived to travel with us in LAO, Cambodia and Thailand. Khamko was the "Official" Welcoming Agent.







After John and Judy arrived, Khamko and Kris provided all of us an authentic Laotian meal. There was plenty of food. Ruthann and Judy helped to prepare the spring rolls.
















After one week in LAOS, we traveled by air to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat. What an amazing site. There are many temples, but the largest is Angkor Wat.


After returning to LAO, Kris, Khamko, and Andy had a Baci for us. This is a ceremony to celebrate and welcome others. It was an all day event of creating the center piece and feasting on wonderful LAO food.











In Vientiane, the rice fields were being planted.














Following our visit in Vientiane, we traveled to Luang Prabang, LAO and spent a week visiting the old capital of LAO. It is a much smaller town than Vientiane and life moves slowly. There are no traffic lights in the town. The trip to Luang Prabang was by bus. This trip took 9 hours and covered some beautiful mountain scenes.









Our next destination was Chiang Mai, Thailand. After a short flight, we landed in a city of 1 million people. Chiang Mai is also the old capital of Thailand. It is in the north of Thailand and much cooler than Bangkok. While there we visited an elephant camp (taking an elephant ride, ox cart ride and bamboo raft ride), silk, umbrella, and woodworking factories.















An overnight train ride from Chiang Mai to Bangkok proved to be an interesting cultural experience. While in Bangkok, we visited the Jim Thompson House, the Floating Market and numerous temples as well as the Grand Palace. Traveling with friends made this a very enjoyable experience for us.

Just Getting Started

At the encouragement of our children, we are beginning our blog. We hope that this will give you some idea as to what we are up to in our retirement. Life is good! We are enjoying our daily activities and are keeping quite busy. Travel, exercise, caring for my (Chet's) 94 year old mother, and volunteering are part of our daily life.