Trish & Anne RV Adventures

Our last stop was near my hometown of Waterford, CT. My oldest nephew – the son of my older sister Suzanne – Theo Mathias Maryeski passed away in early April, and the celebration of life was held in New London on June 17th. He was an intelligent free spirit and lived his too short life to the fullest. Here is a copy of his obituary: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/theday/name/theo-maryeski-obituary?id=55231335

Mary Beth, Mike and Allie picked us at our campground Monday morning as our family was gathering at Suzanne’s house to prepare fingernails and food. That’s Theo’s niece Juno, with my sister Mary Beth and with my niece Allie.

We moved on to St. Joseph’s Church for a mass celebrating Theo.

For the Celebration of live, we moved to the Washington Street Cafe in downtown New London – it was one of Theo’s favorite hangouts when he lived in the area. First there was the food set-up by the family – all the food was made or bought by the family, so it sure tasted great. And there was more guacamole than I have ever seen in one place.

And then there was the picture setup – of which there were many. I’ve included one of me and Theo when he was about 15 – this was on one of our Easter ski trips in NH; one when he was quite a bit younger; and then some more recent ones from his time in Guatemala – including volunteering teaching skateboarding at Motivo Urano Guatemala, a Christian Mission.

There was sharing of stories, and seeing family and family friends. That’s my sister-in-law Lizabeth, with Ella and Olivia and our next door neighbors from when we were going up – that’s Mary Kay and her mom Mary Ellen.

Below is a photo of my sister Suzanne on the right and Theo’s sister Mia on the left – between them is Suzanne’s step-son John with his family. The other photo has Theo’s brother Justin on the right, with his nephews Jasper and Phoenix, and his cousin Nick and his wife Lauren.

Suzanne’s family with some Maryeski cousins.

And here is the Madara side of the family. I won’t name everyone, but that’s my 6’4″ great nephew Jasper standing next to his mother Mia – yes he needs to bend down pretty low to give me a hug. Mia and her family live in Brisbane, Australia, so the Celebration of Life was scheduled during their school break.

After the Celebration of Life, the family gathered back at Suzanne’s house. Here are my nephew Sam with his girl friend Lauren; and in the other photo that’s my sister-in-law Sue, my niece Ally and my other niece Nina (who is Theo’s sister.)

That is Sue and Juno comparing fingernail colors. Then Juno talked us into a game of Telephone, or as they call it in Brisbane, Chinese Whispers. At the end of one of the rounds, Trish had no idea what had been said.

Bruce and Sue drove us back to our campsite in Niantic, CT at the end of the day. Before heading home on Tuesday morning, I caught this chicken walking through the camp ground – not sure where they belonged, but they came by our site at least twice while we were there.

Once again, we did collect some magnets along the way – and if you want to know, Trish didn’t win one game of Mexican Train on the entire trip! We’ll play Rummikub next time around and see what happens.

That’s a wrap on our spring trip – despite ending on a sad note, it was great to see new places while catching up with friends and family.

Until our next adventures, Safe Travels!