65th Anniversary

On the ferry from Seattle to Bremerton.

We were able to travel over to Bremerton, WA a few weekends ago to help celebrate my grandparents' 65th wedding anniversary.  It has been a rough year for them.  Starting about a year ago, my grandmother fractured her hip, which kept her from being able to care for my grandpa and do all of the usual activities that she normally does.  My grandpa then fell into a deep depression, which took its toll mentally on my grandmother.  After numerous doctor visits, and having hired help come to their house regularly, my grandpa was on the mend and coming out of his depression.  They decided it was finally time to sell their house that they had lived in for the last 50 years because they could not keep up with its maintenance anymore at their age.  All of these changes and my grandpa's health issues finally pushed my grandma to the edge, and then she fell into an even deeper depression than my grandpa had previously.  At the beginning of this year, she finally had to be admitted to a hospital and do some intensive therapy.  We moved them into a cute assisted living facility, and she finally was released from the hospital.  It is a miracle that they (and we) all made it through this.  To see them today, is like it never even happened.  They are healed, happy, and loving life in their new home.  I couldn't think of anything better that I would like to have done, than to help them celebrate their 65th wedding anniversary.  They are now the ages of 94 and 90 and they are still going strong!  The best part about the event, was that my grandma sang "I Love You, Truly" along side of me.  It was a moment that I will never forget.

The Pingels with the handsome couple.

Four generations.

After the celebration, we went to the Northwest Trek Wildlife Park with my parents.  It was raining like cats and dogs outside, but we braved the weather and I'm so glad we did.  It wasn't like a normal zoo, because the animals were a little more free-roaming, but they had a complete free-roaming area of the park that a tram tour guided us through.  The tour-guide would help us spot some of the native animals to the area, and then some animals would walk right along side our tram.  If our kids would have reached out their hands, they could have touched Bison, Elk, and a Moose!  It was awesome and I highly recommend it to anyone who gets up to the Seattle area.

This guy was only 5 feet out the window!

All of us on the tram.  Max looks excited!

I'm just glad that Max never fell out of the tram.