Last few days in Vincennes (April 23)

The days are going fast here, as the birthday celebration week winds down.  Jim, Dixie, Joe and I had breakfast together on Monday at Dot's.  The weather has turned cold again, just as I thought I would put away the jeans and sweatshirts.   Joe and I drove Cathy and Joy into town to pick up their rental car in the afternoon, and then they made shrimp scampi for dinner.  Jaclyn and Jayden came out, and Mike stopped by with his family.  And we had our last night of euchre. While we were playing cards, Lucille finally got up her nerve to try out Joe's knee walker -- she had been eying it ever since we got here, trying to figure out how to make it work.  She got on it, but she didn't go anywhere!

Tuesday, Cathy and Joy left about 7:20 for Indianapolis airport.  Joe came down with a cold last night so we had to cancel our plans to meet Ed and Nancy Williams in Terre Haute for lunch.  Joe began taking cold medicine and tried to stay away from everyone so he didn't pass it on.  I finally made it to Oaktown to put some flowers on my sister's grave.  It was another chilly, windy day.

I had an interesting experience at Taco Bell.  A guy stopped by my table as he was leaving and asked me if I liked animals.  Without trying to engage in conversation, I just said yes.  He asked if I had ever seen a dog wearing sunglasses, and invited me to stop by his 'silver van' with my camera to see his dog.  Well, that started my alarm bells ringing, so I dallied a little before going out.  When I got ready to leave, I saw that he was parked one vacant space over from my car, he was in the passenger seat, and sure enough, his dog had sunglasses on.  I hurriedly unlocked my car and got in, but I did snap a picture when I was safely locked in my own car.  Then I carefully vacated that parking lot, keeping an eye out for any silver vans to make sure he didn't follow me.

I have been gathering old photos from all over Lucille's house to put into a "Family Album" scrapbook, and most of them I am taking into Walmart to copy.  Some of the ones I had today were professional, and even though they were 50-60 years old, Walmart wouldn't let me copy them.  Jaclyn gave me several of Tom so I was able to copy most of them, and the other ones I took a picture of, then printed them at Walgreen's.  I have to figure out how to get copies of some of those old professional photos because I don't want to put the originals in the scrapbook.

Dixie began packing up for their trip home tomorrow, so Judy brought out Kentucky Fried Chicken and we had our final night of visiting.  Tom and Carmen stopped by with cookies (I kept telling Lucille that Carmen brought them for me, but Lucille wasn't having any of that.)  Mike and Rachelle also stopped by with their kids, so it was another busy night.  Rachelle is doctoring her leg from her accident last Friday when she took a wrong step off the school bus (field trip) and torn some of the tendons in the calf of her leg.  Just what we need here, one more crippled!

Wednesday was a busy morning.  Lucille was awake early (which we all expected), yelling upstairs at Dixie to get up.  I fixed breakfast while Dixie finished packing, then we got them loaded up and on their way.  Lucille received approximately 75 birthday cards here, and we are pretty sure there are more still coming, and more awaiting her arrival in Ft. Wayne.  She enjoys looking at them and having the names read to her.

They left about 11:30, but Lucille knows she will be back in June.  Once they were gone, I started gathering up our stuff so we could close the house down.  I got our laundry caught back up, and Judy came out and vacuumed and dusted.  Joe and I drove into town for a quick lunch at Knights of Columbus -- we shared another tenderloin!

We had plans to go to Mt. Carmel tonight to The Church Basement Ladies play in "The Last Potluck Supper" with Barbara and several people from church.  Judy came back out and Barbara picked us up at 6:45, but it was a late night since Mt. Carmel is an hour behind us.  Barbara took us the scenic route, across the old Cannonball bridge.  The wind blew strongly all day long.  I keep trying to burn the trash but so far the wind has prevented that. 

 The play was entertaining, and we got home about 11:30, way past my bedtime.

On Thusday, when I got up, the wind had finally stopped so at 7:30 in the morning, I was at the trashpit starting my fire.  Joe and I met Barbara for breakfast, then fueled our car and came back out to the house.  Judy came by again and we finished closing down the house, then Joe and I got a little rest.  And the wind is storng again, rocking and rolling our RV. 

Tonight we had our last Bobe's pizza, with some of our classmates -- Barbara and Maurice, Mike and Donna Carter, Denny and Barbara Ellerman, Nancee and John Truelove.  Barbara surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of lilacs.

 

We had a fun evening, lots of memories and laughter.  And tomorrow, hopefully, we will be on our way to Florida by noon.  We've had a great time here, seen lots of family and friends, and got that 99th birthday celebrated, as well as my 50th class reunion.  It's been a busy 2 1/2 weeks!