Even though I have an iPad and a cell phone that has everything on it that my iPad does I still love to buy cards and send lots of mail to relative amend friends. I purchase lots of stamps last. We gotta keep our post offices and  our mail carriers busy.

So…….I also get considerable letters and cards in return and I would like to share a few special ones with you. Let’s have a look-see.

From my faithful Salem Ohio mail carrier Peg Holmes. This card is so great !!!!

From Peg Holmes

From Peg Holmes. Read inside of this card below.

From my wonderful Ohio friend Lisa Ellison. We enjoyed many lunches together in my Salem Ohio home.

From my lovely Daughter Dr Pamela Drake

From my sister Mable Eastman who lived to see her 98TH birthday

Her Nurse Aid also purchased and mailed the card from Marysville Ohio. I was so happy to see my sister Mable could sign her own name on this card.

I will continue to do my part to support the United States Post Office and hope we keep this old fashioned way of communication.

FRF ❤️

While defying our father’s wishes, my sister Bobbie managed, with great courage on her part,  to graduate from York Center High School. She married, the love of her life, Harold Gardner from Columbus Ohio where they moved into a very nice home just a few blocks west off north High Street in Columbus.

A little side line. When I was invited to that home for a Sunday dinner, my sister Bobbie had made the best chocolate cake with chocolate icing that I had ever tasted. She gave me her recipe and I used that recipe to make a cake for our father who loved it so much he would often ask me to make him another one. I don’t think I ever told her that and I wish so much I had.

Now back to the drawing board! They soon had three little boys, Phillip, Steven and Larry who my sister was so determined to have graduate from college that she started a college savings account for each of their sons when the boys were very small. On their Christmas tree these three little boys would find an envelope with a check enclosed for each to add to his college  bank account.

Seated Harold Gardner and My sister Bobbie Gardner
Standing Phillip, Steven, Larry

And here to complete the family, their wives, Phillip’s pretty Nancy, Larry’s looks like a movie star Patricia, Stevens adorable Karen

Phillip graduated from Ohio State to become a Columbus High School teacher, Steven received his PHD from Ohio State and was a professor at Youngstown College in Ohio, Larry graduate from Ohio State with a degree in Metallurgical Engineering and worked for Sandusky International.

So you see my sister Bobbie’s three sons each actually out-did her dreams for them, which absolutely delighted the parents, Harold and my sister Bobbie Gardner, of their three intellectual sons.

WHO COULD ASK FOR ANYTHING MORE????????

FRF ❤️

Agents Ben West and Flo, me, on floor duty at the front desk. Always hoping for a walk-in or a phone call from a buyer or seller. We split the time of being up first. Because……when you were the one up first, you got the buyer or seller to work with, who called or came in that front door.

An awards group: Buck Davis, Bonnie Davis, Flo Fisher, our office Broker Ron Morrison, Janie McCabe, Bernice Mulligan, Mary Samples

Real estate offices, and especially the world wide CENTURY 21 offices really celebrated rewards.
They have offices in Japan as well as many other countries and my daughter Pamela Drake, while on a bus in the French Riviera, took pictures of CENTURY 21 offices there in France as shown below.

And another one

Flo, me, Ron Morrison, Muriel Western

Our broker Ron Morrison each year took all office million dollar sales people to a restaurant in Tampa for a delicious dinner. Sorry I don’t have pictures of the others who were there for this celebration.

This was an all Venice realities banquet, that’s me on the left and across the table is my best friend in the office Ann Hawkins and her handsome husband Tom. What a lovely couple they make. Sadly they are no longer with us.  But let me tell you, what a wonderful life those two people had.

I have beautiful memories of my 18 years I spent as a broker-sales person in Venice Florida. Another WONDERFUL SEGMENT IN MY LIFE OF 94 YEARS.

FRF ❤️

Thomas visiting his grandmother Carole Smith at her home in Lawrenceville

Each Summer after I lost my Daughter Carole Suzanne Smith her grandchildren and my great grandchildren Thomas and his sister Kimberley came from Lawrenceville Georgia to spend some time with me at my Bird Bay Venice condo home.

The first summer they came neither one of them knew how to swim or dive but the end of that first summer they each were experts at both. Every day they enjoyed swimming in the Bird Bay pool that was just across the street from me and also playing with the little boy and girl from up north, who were also summer visiting. Pretty nice, HUH?

But this story is really about my great grandson Thomas, we used to call him Tommy but no more because he liked being referred to as Thomas and I have capitulated!

Thomas and the little boy visiting from next door Tommy

They took my movie next door to watch, about the little girl in Canada who found a nest of the big flying geese eggs, took them home, kept them in a drawer with a lantern underneath for warmth until they hatched. Then raised them and taught them to fly.

Little Tommy soon had a birthday party. I purchased that movie titled “Fly Away Home” for Kimberley and Thomas to give to Tommy for his birthday. That made little Tommy very happy.

As Thomas grew older he became artistically inclined. I want you to see the envelope he used to send me a letter from his home in  Lawrenceville.

Thomas envelope with letter

How he sealed the envelope.

Not bad for a kid, HUH?

Thomas now lives happily in Seattle Washington

FRF ❤️

Every birthday, however busy she might be, I always get a birthday card from her and always with a letter included.

My niece Jean Patrick Kraus with her husband Jim. A lovely couple

Here she happily is with her precious grandbaby.

What a pleasure it was for me on my 94th birthday, November 2nd 2016 to find in my mail in Sarasota Florida this adorable card, including a cheerful letter.

The last paragraph reads ” You have led the most interesting life of anyone I know and you have done it all by yourself. A very gutsy lady.”

For my birthday…… that put PUT THE ICING ON THE CAKE!!!!!!!!!!

FRF ❤️