Oooh Something New

Hey, what's that little thing before the address of EwingUniverse up there in my browser? Oh cool, it's the EwingUniverse favicon! A little something to make EU stand out on your bookmarks bar so that maybe, just maybe you'll make the treacherous climb all the way up there to post about what is going on in, oh, I dunno - Florida, New York, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, Maryland or North Carolina.

Things have finally settled down here in Arlington. I had two allergic reactions to the wonder drugs prescribed to knock out the crazy supergerm MRSA. Now I am definitely on the mend. We stayed in the city a couple of weekends and pretended to be city folk. I've been cooking up a storm, but everything I make seems to have caramelized onions in it.

And of course - Happy New Year! We spent ours at the river. I made raclette and fondue and it was decadent. We watched Dick Clark and willed in a healthy, wealthy and wise 2008. How about you?

Merry Christmas to All!!

Hi Everyone! Rick and I leave Thursday for 8 fabulous days in the Dominican Republic! I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a rockin' New Year!
xoxo
Shannon

Feelin' Groovy

Hello everyone! Sorry to leave you hanging. I just talked with Charlie and that spurred me to update the web. Finally my doctor thinks I had kidney stones plus a virus which is what landed me in the hospital Thanksgiving Eve. I am feeling SO much better now. Thank you for all of your thoughts and well wishes!

Key Discoveries About Hospital Life:
* If you are your doctor's 8th sickest patient out of 8 patients, you might as well go home and start over.
* "A virus" is doctor speak for "I have no idea what is wrong with you."
* Sonograms on tv are as genuine as wrestling.
* When you are entering a CT machine, there is no way to avoid thinking of last week's episode of House where the woman went into v-fib the moment they started sliding her in there. Actually, pretty much everything seems like it's ripped from an episode of House.
* Drugs, when administered properly by trained medical professional, are magic.

Laura!

OMG! I'm really going to start coming here much more frequently now that I missed this news on Laura! I'm calling her right now, but I will be back with much more, including many pictures including our antics in GA, my antics in Las Vegas, Grand Canyon. I must call Laura before it gets too late. Well, here, anyway...see if this video works----

By George, I think it worked.

Just talked to Laura and glad to hear things have stabilized, but I have to admit I'm not too crazy about the one remaining kidney stone just lurking there with a smirk on it's face...so smug. Probably named Mordred or something.

Update: Laura Hospitalized

Just heard from Mom that Laura has been admitted to a hospital in Arlington, VA. No details yet. Will try to post as soon as I hear something more. Please post if you have news!

Another Update:
Good news! Laura was released from the hospital on Thursday.
I don't have the full story as everything I hear is 4th hand, but I hope she's well on her way to feeling great. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving day. I've been thinking of all of you.

Poor Laura!

Keeping all in the loop (as best I can):
It's my understanding that poor Laura has been twice to the ER in the last week or so. First they determined that she had kidney stones in both kidneys and sent her home to pass them - eek. Now I hear from my mom that Laura went back to the ER with a fever, chills and feeling nauseated. It appears she passed at least one of the stones. They seem to think the fever is unrelated to the stone(s) and that she may have the flu. Laura has spread herself pretty thin in taking care of her mother (who is still struggling with her own recovery), planning the Tybee reunion and maintaining her career. Please keep her in your positive thoughts and prayers.

If you have any new info. please keep us posted!

Cranberry Contribution from the Cocke Clan

Here's a recipe from Andy's family that quickly became one of my favorite Thanksgiving treats:

Pauline's Cranberry Conserve

1 package Cranberries raw
1 Orange including rind
1/4 cup Honey
3/4 cup Sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons Ginger
1 cup Golden raisins

In a food processor, first chop cranberries and orange. Add raisins and nuts then the rest of the ingredients. Store in a jar in the refrigerator.

Happy Birthday Dottie and Ewing Universe Site Updates

Happy Birthday Dottie! We hope it's wonderful!

Hello all! The weather in Washington has finally turned and I'm enjoying autumn. Andy and I are crazy about pumpkin flavored anything and I think we may even be reaching our limit with pumkin beer and the pumpkin tortellini I got at Whole Foods yesterday.

I have just updated the birthdays and anniversaries on the Ewing Universe Google calendar down there on the lower right hand side. If your special day is missing or incorrect, please let me know. Also, it's membership drive time here at Ewing Universe - who else should we invite?? Email me the email address for anyone you think would like to visit EwingUniverse.

What are you most looking forward to over the holidays?

French Fries and Fridays

Hello all! Happy Friday! I think I may actually have a genuine weekend ahead. An autumn weekend at that. Unfortunately the Hokies played yesterday. Fortunately they trounced GATech.

Last night we went to dinner with Dad & Dottie and Shannon & Rick and got a surprise visit from Nanny, Dottie's mom. It was great to see her. We went to Bistro 123 in Tysons Corner. It's a funny little French place. It is quite a nice little place that looks like it crash landed in the side of that large mall. Mall dining is not usually haute cuisine, but then again Bistro 123 is not really mall dining. We had some ultra rich French food, including a seafood flan for Andy and Armagnac ice cream for me. Mmmmmmmmm.

Happy Birthday Uncle Jerry

Everybody wish Uncle Jerry a very Happy Birthday!!

With Love

Happy birthday Laura!

Thanks and Praise

We are now safely back home in Maryland, missing you all. We are also missing the glorious weather we experienced in Georgia. It's a bit chilly here and we're expecting an even colder turn any day now.
The reunion went better than I ever hoped it would. I loved seeing those of you I've known all of my life, and meeting those of you who are new to me. What an incredible family we have!

Thank you to each and every one who were able to make it to the reunion. I hope that someday we'll have an even bigger reunion with more family members in attendance. Thank you all for helping to watch over Joseph, allowing me some rest. It helped immensely. Dad, thank you so much for coordinating the Tybee shuttle. I cannot imagine us trying to caravan all over Savannah in separate cars - the shuttle was a great idea. Thank you to William for settling Margaret's affairs and for lugging all of those boxes to Tybee. To all the cooks and cook's helpers, thank you for preparing the many superb meals we enjoyed and thanks to all of the grocery shoppers and cleanup helpers too. HUGE thanks to Laura for taking on the task of rounding us all up, getting us in line and accomplishing this reunion. Thank you for keeping our family history alive and for organizing it. You are an amazing woman! I love the DVD you presented and hope that you will send me a copy. We had such a long drive ahead, we left in a bit of a hurry.
I'm sorry that I missed saying my goodbyes to some of you. Gosh, I hope to be able to get to know you better in the future. We barely had a chance to talk. I will try to get my pictures online this week. You will be able to look at them via the album located on my blog. Well, I'm sure there's a lot more I should be saying, but you've all met Joe. Back to motherhood.

Start Your Engines

We leave for Tybee tomorrow. Have you checked out the weather forecast? It is off the hook! Sunny every day and 70's-80's.

Lee's back up on the net

Hi y'all,

Finally, I managed to find my info so I could log on to EwingUniverse, which is, like our family, way cool. Dottie and I are excited about the prospect of seeing you at Tybee. Thanks to Jerry for getting things started and to Laura for all her hard work in actually making it happen.

We're leaving Thursday morning, so we should be at Tybee sometime in mid to late afternoon.
Love to all,

Lee

Tomorrow

October 5. I went and got my journal from last year to check my memory, but I was right. I have Margaret's name written on the front of that journal to distinguish it from all the inferior journals. The day's been looming like a tidal wave I calmly ignore until I won't be able to any more. But I will be comforted knowing we're all still together in her memory and soon we really will be all together.

I don't think we can really ignore the somewhat bittersweet time right now. All of our hearts are with the Trotochauds and Pates right now and I know we all have our arms around Donna, too. Who knows what else is going on, but in another way it's kind of perfect timing since most of us will be there with our usual support, not to mention idiotic fun and merriment here and there. Okay mostly fun and merriment...and interesting history. Too bad Tara has to hold down the fort at home, but it sure is for a good reason.

Well, I haven't felt much like lighting candles lately, but tomorrow I'll be lighting several candles for ALL of you. The light of my life.

I'm ready!

Hello. Anthony, Kaiya and I are all ready to roll. Tara will not be coming this year- fortunately the daycare is booming and it wold be just too much to shut it down for the weekend. As far as the t-shirts- I have since changed jobs and am now working at a marina soo I won't be able to bring them :( Long story- I can fill every in about my crazy boss when I get there.

I did have a couple questions for everyone. When is everyone planning on arriving? I am planning to work a half day Thursday and then leave about 1pm. This should put us in Tybee about 9pm-10pm... probably stay until Sunday 10am...ish

Do we have a shedule ie. any days planned out or are we winging it? Let me know!

I'm thinking Tybee!

We are really looking forward to seeing everyone. (Well, except Andy, who may be too busy waiting on Laura, but I will certainly drink a beer to him!) :-)

BTW, I contacted the guy that runs the Tybee Shuttle and asked about renting his services in case we wanted to go somewhere en masse without a zillion cars. Sounds like a great guy. Say frinstance if we wanted to hire him for a 3-4 hr period to run us into Savannah, to the cemetary, then on a self-guided tour, maybe to Price Street, Aunt Nelly and Mamie's, Papa's office by Tomacheechee's rock, etc, etc and back to Tybee. Of course, should the guys wish to powder their noses, we can ask him to stop at a MacDonald's or such.

He said it's $100 hr but for 4 hrs he'd charge us for 3 hrs. I though this might be an easy and efficient way to visit as we ride. He said he can take 22-23 folks, if there are some kids. He is already booked in the evenings, and for Saturday afternoon, but Friday and Saturday morning, say 9am-1pm, are open now.

He is the web publisher for most of the Tybee sites and knows a lot about what's going on, too. I also asked him if the Hot Rod show that weekend would be a huge deal for traffic and parking, restaurants, etc. and he said it would not, nothing like the Pirate's thing the weekend before we are there, or Tybee Birthday, the weekend after.

I posted a lot of this as a "comment" but decided to stick it here too.
(Hey Rupert! I'll bring some fishing stuff too!)

T Minus 24 Days to Tybee

It's just 24 days to our Tybee Excursion and I hope everyone is gearing up. I sent out an email to everyone today and hope you'll post your suggestions for Tybee fun here. Looking forward to seeing everyone and being waited on hand and foot - oh, I mean, did I say that out loud?


But really, two creams, two sugars in that coffee with the chocolate glazed chocolate cake doughnut if you please. Extra parm on the cheese pizza and a sparkling fresh genuine Coke will do. Oh, and can I have another pillow?

Thanks Grandpa

Seriously people, can I just say this?

Thank you Grandpa for being an obsessive typist who didn't write all your letters longhand! Because you loved your typewriter your letters are not only scanable, but also legible! So I can know all the gory details of vaguely raunchy Army humor with Howard and see all the times you insisted Dora could come up and live with the Ewings should it ever suit her.

Now if only I could go back in time to persuade you not to type double-sided letters.

Uhoh... Shannon's Birthday!!!

Shannon,

I hope you & Rick had a wonderful anniversary/birthday celebration last weekend. I'm sorry I didn't post a happy message to you earlier. What did you two do to celebrate? I'm thinking of you and I love you bunches!