Final Preparations

January - February - March 2009

Days of anxiety and stresssss. We had to finish working on our apartments on Madison Avenue in Berlin where with the help of Mike & Roland we completely renovated three bathrooms put down new kitchen floors and painted almost all of the three apartments. In mid February we received our mission call to Palmyra, NY. We needed to complete the work on the apartments, pack up 18 years of accumulated "stuff", give away and store everything we were not able to take, finish the electrical work I had committed to, close the business, and find someone to manage the Beehive Apartments. We are so very thankful that our son Mike Couch offered to take on the job of Apartment Maintenance for us.

With extremely grateful hearts we were blessed with many helping hands from family and church friends. Mike & Kate helped immensely by transporting furniture and "stuff" to Jay's in New London and Kate & John's in Vermont for storage. Linda's mom came by with food and to help pack. The Skousen's ( Dan, Brenda, Ivy and Asa) came all the way down from Colebrook down for three days to help sort and pack. The Latham's came down from Colebrook, the Millis's ( Dan & Vern, Avery, Stephen), the Coloismo's ( Jim & Laura), the Hall's ( Pam & Corky)

Finally completed preparations for departure on Saturday night about 10:00 PM! Stayed over at Linda's mom's for the night. Then on to say goodbye to Mom Shirley in Groveton before heading south to the Tinkers...

The Colosimo's graciously volunteered to come over after we were gone to give the apartment a good cleaning top-to-bottom.

May God bless each and everyone that made out departure smooth and possible.

More to follow