The Canterburys – Christmas 2018
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Hello friends! It’s hard to believe another year has gone
by! 2018 has been another interesting
year for the Canterburys.
We began
the year as we always do, by heading to nearby Jordan Lake for our annual Polar
Plunge! The water only gets down to 50
degrees so it’s never too bad.
The year then continued with two
milestone birthdays. Nancy made it to 60
in January, while Jerry achieved 55 in February. We had a big blowout birthday bash for
Nancy’s big day! Then March brought a
milestone birthday for Jerry’s dad, so we have a surprise party for him which
many family members came to town to 
attend.
The biggest change is that after Nancy
retired in August 2017, Jerry retired too at the end of March 2018. Jerry’s retirement date was planned for the
past two years. As every retiree always
says, we’re so busy now we don’t know how people with jobs do it all!
Our big vacation for the year for was
a trip to the Netherlands for beer and bicycling with a group of friends. We went in April to see tulips blooming. The weather was unseasonably cold and
drizzly, but we persevered, cycling up to 42 miles each day. But we made the best of it, visiting
Rotterdam, Baarle-Nassau, and Delft on our own then visiting Amsterdam with
friends. We visited the Anne Frank
House, the Rijksmuseum, and the Red Light District (look, but don’t touch!).
Our other big trip was to Washington and Oregon in September. The purpose of the trip was for Jerry to run
the Tunnel Light Marathon, where after years of training Jerry finally ran fast
enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon!
(A local run club even published an article
about Jerry’s experience at the race.) We also visited friends in the area, toured the Museum of
Pop Culture (“MoPOP”) in Seattle, and the Columbia River Gorge. It was a fantastic trip with excellent
sightseeing. We definitely recommend it.
Later in September, Jerry went to
Columbus for the annual Ohio State University Marching Band reunion. This year was special because 100-year-old
marching band alumnus Tony Violi was chosen to dot the ‘i’ in Script Ohio. Jerry had an outstanding view of Mr. Violi
from his own spot in the ‘h’ of the Script Ohio formation.
Unfortunately,
Nancy couldn’t make the trip to Columbus this year because she was recovering
from a bout of Transient Global Amnesia (TGA).
Just like in a soap opera, or like the movies 50 First Dates or Memento,
Nancy had sudden onset memory loss. She
remembered the basics of her name and Jerry’s name, but couldn’t remember
anything that had happened in the previous two weeks. If you told her something, ten minutes later
she would have forgotten it. At first,
we were concerned it was a stroke but it’s really not that at all. She did spend the night in the hospital and
had a lot of very expensive tests completed to confirm she’s OK. TGA is not uncommon, and in most cases it
never happens again. But there is a
four-hour block of time that Nancy will never remember. But again, she’s fine now – no lingering
effects. She refers to it as the Ultimate
Senior Moment!
In November we spent a long weekend in
Boston visiting Jerry’s brother Bryan, his wife Marni, and their two
children. The additional purpose of the
trip was to explore the Boston Marathon course, as both Jerry and Bryan will be
running the marathon in April 2019! This
will be the first marathon they’ve run together.
In December, we visited Florida. We spent a few days at New Smyrna Beach on
the east coast, then a few days at Walt Disney World, before wrapping up in
Apollo Beach on the west coast. Along
the way we visited more friends and also escaped an unusual December snowstorm
back home on North Carolina.
We made a few other quick trips during
the year. We spent Mother’s Day with
friends at a bed-and-breakfast in the North Carolina mountains and also visited
a number of wineries that weekend. In
June we went to Asheville for a concert followed by a couple days to visit the
Biltmore Estate. On the way home, we
visited the Land of Oz amusement park, which is only open a few days per
year. In October we spent a few more
days viewing the fall colors in the North Carolina mountains. In November we visited Charlotte with friends
for a weekend.
When we’re
at home, we spend a lot of time with friends.
We also attend shows and concerts.
We have season tickets to the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC) which
included tickets to Hamilton in
November. We enjoyed it so much that we
went back to see it a second time! We
also were invited to the cast party after the first show so got to meet many of
the performers and get selfies with them.
Nancy’s free time includes singing in
three local choirs, including one for which she had to audition – so you know
she’s a good singer. Nancy also
volunteers at Safe Haven for Cats, a cat rescue shelter.
Speaking of cats, we are now up to
four! We were almost down to two as
13-year-old Jackson became very ill in January, but with a lot of love,
attention, and hand-feeding, he’s bounced back like a trouper! Chaplin and Spats are still with us of
course. Tiger is a new addition as of
November. Our neighbor asked us to
rescue him as he was hiding on her porch.
We couldn’t find his owner, so because he was such a good boy, we
decided to adopt him ourselves. And,
Jerry’s 
two-cat
limit was completely ignored once again!
We hope the holiday season finds you
in good health and that 2019 will be a great year for all! If you haven’t connected with us on Facebook
yet, we hope you will do so soon.
Merry
Christmas and Happy Holidays!
Nancy
and Jerry Canterbury
https://www.facebook.com/jerrylcanterbury
https://www.facebook.com/nancy.canterbury