New Jersey Thanksgiving 2012

Before we got ready to head to New Jersey I dipped some pretzels for a women's group meeting so I wouldn't have to do them when I got back, then also roasted some pumpkin seeds for us to snack on during our little road trip.

We avoided most the traffic by getting away Wed. morning and had arrived by mid-afternoon.  Did some meal prep, had the traditional sub sandwiches for dinner,  then spent a good portion of the evening downloading music into Marie's computer.

Got up and took a drive through the storm hit areas of South Jersey to see Sandy's damage.

The boardwalk was pretty quiet, as were the beaches.

 A lot of the beach area in Atlantic City had built up dunes to protect it from storms.  There was quite a bit of discussion about it as people didn't want to lose their views of the ocean.  Normally when walking on the boardwalk you can see the water, but now you have to walk around the dunes to get there.  However, the dunes saved the boardwalk and other areas from getting hit as hard as the places in town where they refused to put in dunes.

Here in Margate, the water and sand came up over the walls and into the homes.  You can see the sand on the roads but they've already done a really good job of cleaning up.  However, the restaurant where we had Thanksgiving dinner last year was damaged and is still closed.

We got back to Marie's about noon and just in time for Joe's arrival with their mom.  Marie hates her front loader washing machine so based on You Tube videos Tom convinced Joe to help him adjust the water level in her machine.  They spent several hours working on this while Marie and I worked on dinner and visited with Eleanor.

Eleanor will be 89 next month and is starting to really struggle with aging issues.  She's basically very healthy but her memory is very bad and she has a hard time getting around.  She has a live-in caretaker but Joe and Marie take shifts Friday morning through Sunday afternoon .  It's a lot of work to get her up, bathed, fed and settled for the day.  She's unable to get up on her own.

Marie and Joe running Eleanor through her exercises.

Joe's wife, Karen and her father, Fred arrived mid afternoon and we had a great dinner around 6-ish.  Enjoyed football, great conversation and by the end of the evening....a washing machine with a water level that made Marie giddy!

This is Marie's backyard that looks out onto a golf course.  The cart trail runs right along the edge of her yard. It's beautiful.

This is her grumpy next door neighbor's yard.  He apparently doesn't want golfers stepping into his woods to retrieve lost balls.  There are EIGHT no trespassing signs.

If the signs aren't enough he's included posts and heavy duty string just to make sure.

Apparently THIS is what the golfers think of him!

Friday Tom spent more time tutoring Marie on how to use her iTunes then he and I headed to his mom's to spend the afternoon with her.  We fed her lunch then got her settled in to watch some television.  It was too cold to take her out so we just visited inside.

The storm took out this large tree that Tom used to play in when he was a kid.  It crashed through the fence at his mom's but didn't hit any cars or the house.

We spent several hours there.  I went through a photo album with her of our family.  She doesn't really remember any of my family and when I point to photos of Tom's dad she'll say, "That's my husband".  She used to say her kid's names but now when I point to them she'll just say, "That's my son," or "That's my daughter".  My picture was always "That's his wife" if I was standing next to Tom.  It is sad to get old.  After we fed her dinner and got her in her pj's we turned on Mary Poppins for her, snuggled her in her chair with her cat, "Bows" and headed back to Marie's.  Had leftovers then went to see LINCOLN.  One theatre was sold out so we drove to another one where we were early enough to get good seats.  It ended up being sold out too.  After the movie we went back to Eleanor's to get her into bed but she was already in there.  Karen, her live-in caretaker must have gotten her in so we only stayed a few minutes.

Marie and I went back in the morning to get her up and do the morning routine. She did bathing while I did laundry and breakfast.  Tom and I had planned to get away by noon to miss the traffic but Marie had discovered that the washing machine now had no cold water for the delicate cycle so Tom had spent the morning working on that.  No, by the way he doesn't know anything about repairing washers! I ran to get pizza for our lunch then we loaded up Thanksgiving leftovers, got the washer and dryer back in place (still no cold water though) and after we ate, we headed home.  Marie was going to take some pizza back over to her mom's and finish the laundry.  She and Joey really put in many hours over there weekly in addition to their weekend duties.  Wish we could be of more help.

Glad we planned to come home Saturday rather than Sunday so we could avoid all the holiday traffic.