February 2: A Weekend of Extremes

This past weekend we celebrated the life of Aunt Alice. We knew she was failing in health for several weeks (thanks to Marialice for keeping us in touch) and while it was with sadness that the family gathered in Long Island, it was also a time recognize all that Aunt Alice gave to us and our kids and be joyful in the gathering of Steve's family. There wasn't an event that she didn't attend. First communions, Christmases, Thanksgivings. Aunt Alice was at the farm in Loudonville when some of the Franko's gathered in November - most coming in for just the day. We left Ft. Lauderdale with temperatures in the high 70's and flew to NY on Saturday where it was in the 20's. Steve made his famous 'towel pillow' as we didn't have room to pack our favorite pillows. The snow outside the hotel (and all over Long Island) was crazy high! Wendy and Becky were both able to fly in as well as did almost all of Steve's family. Wendy and Steve went to the Brooklyn Flea (it was in this cool old bank building) while Becky and I tried to get me past a really hard spot in the Zelda series of video games :-)

Of all Steve's nieces, nephews, sisters and brothers (plus in-laws) that came in from Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, St. Louis, Burlington, Bradenton, Dayton, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Springfield, only one niece was not able to get home due to the weather. So naturally we thought Christi should just come with us to 'paradise' in the Keys instead of getting stuck in NY for several days (she was trying to get back to St. Louis) - especially since she had meetings in Miami today and tomorrow! So she did! It worked out really well as she would have been stuck in NY for at least 2 days. We were warned that she would be working all day - and true to word she did. The accommodations were first class :-)

As Christi worked on Tuesday, Steve was very productive in finding an inverter at West Marine marked down 70%! So he was very happy. Christi finally was able to take a break to sit in the sun for a while and talk with Will, JP and Kaitlyn. Tuesday night she was off to Miami and meetings for the next day and Thursday. There was a bit of operator error in programing my GPS but in the end we found her hotel!