Graduation Parties (Sat.)

Today was a busy day.  First of all, it's Cathy's birthday.  It was a very full day but we eventually got around to celebrating the birthday. I found her the perfect t-shirt at my great little antique/flea market store in Princeton that I discovered the other day, which btw is called "Finders Keepers."  In case you can't read it, it is a "Red Solo Cup, I fill you up, let's have a party" t-shirt -- I thought it was spot on for Cathy.

This is graduation season and we had two to celebrate today.  Our nephew Bobby Sullivan (who lives here in Emison) had a son (Braydon) graduating from North Knox Friday night, and our nephew Tom Froeschke had a daughter (Ashley) graduating from South Knox today.  We missed the Friday night graduation, but Joe went to Ashley's graduation along with Lucille, Jim, Dixie, Joe M. and Cathy.  At the same time, I headed into town for a picnic to celebrate Braydon's graduation with my nieces and nephew, and their families.

Braydon got a scholastic diploma and plans to go to VU this fall.

It was great to see Bobby and his family again -- it had been a few years since we had been together.  And his sisters enjoyed spending some time with all of them too.

Holly and her son Jayden, along with her new husband, Brad Dane, were here, and Amber was here with Julian and Emma and a couple of her friends.  Michael and Dana had brought all three grandkids with them from Chatanooga for the picnic (Jayden lives in Vincennes and Julian and Emma live in Arizona), and his mother, who lives in Vincennes, joined us.  Bobby and Jennifer had their granddaughter, Gracelyn, with them since the mother (Tasha) was at work, and their younger daughter, Haley were also here. 

Stacy's husband, Bob, did not join us because he had gone to Evansville to buy a new Harley.  We hoped he would stop by to show it off, but I guess he had to take it to the "chrome" shop so maybe he didn't bring it home.

The kids (and adults) spent a little time on the playground together.

After we had out chicken, potato salad, bean salad, baked beans, chips, brownies and graduation cake, we headed out to the next party, which was down at Decker Chapel -- Ashley's graduation party.  On the way, we came upon this tractor pulling 4 nitrogen fertilizer tanks -- thankfully it did not pull out in front of us.

Everyone had already begun eating at Tommy's when we arrived, so we visited a little while, then the big volley ball game began.

Joe watched for a while, then decided he needed to participate.  Fortunately, Ashley's boyfriend is an EMT and he was there, so I didn't worry too much.

Joe gave it up before he got hurt, although he may not be able to get out of bed in the morning.  Next on the agenda, in honor of Cathy's birthday, was chicken dinner at Ireland, Indiana -- a little town about an hour away that Joe and I had never been to before.  We took a scenic drive through rural Indiana, and had a nice meal at The Chicken Place.

By now it's getting on toward 9:00 p.m., but the town of Jasper is just a few miles on down the road, and Joe and I don't think we have ever been here before either, so we did a little scenic drive through town.  Cathy said this is probably one of Indiana's prettiest towns, and it was very well kept.  We never saw any residential areas that were not well kept, lawns mowed, houses painted, etc.  The courthouse alone was pretty grand, and a Catholic Church on down the street was also exceptional.  The third picture is a historic grist mill right on the Patoka River here (it was closed). 

We finally headed home, it was just getting dark and Joe spotted a deer right beside the road (I missed it).  We had left a vehicle at Tommy's so we had to detour back to his house to pick that up.  By the time we got home it was about 11:00, just about 12 hours since we left this morning.  But the day wasn't over yet.  Jim, Dixie and Lucille got back about an hour before we did.  Jim and Lucille had gone on up to bed, but Dixie had birthday cake with candles all ready for Cathy, so we then had some angel food cake with fresh strawberries, and Joe M. and Cathy had a glass of wine. 

It was a fun day but we were all pretty tired.  The bed felt pretty good!

Shopping/Class Get Together (Fri.)

A cold front came through here last night and I woke up to a brisk 46 degrees on Friday.  This was my day to run errands.  I hadn't really had a day to do this since we've been here, and my list was growing.  Joe had a short list himself (haircut and search for fresh strawberries).  I wanted to get my car washed since I had Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana bugs on it, but car washes are not a booming industry in Vincennes.  I found one, took me 3 attempts to enter it the right way, and then there were seven cars in front of me (it was just a drive through, no vacuuming), so I opted out of that line and headed out to Lowes.  After Lowes, I stopped in Bobe's Pizza for a quick lunch, got in line at the car wash again, this time on the first try, but again there were 7 cars in front of me so as soon as I cleared the buildings and had a clear route to the alley, I bailed again.  I had some photos to print at Walmart, and a few groceries to pick up, so I got that done and headed back out.

I found Dixie at her favorite therapy, mulching the flower beds.  She said she gets more enjoyment out of seeing the plants coming up and growing than she does in their blooming phase -- I guess you just can't take the farm girl out of the country, no matter how many years she's been gone.

Lucille was inside at the sink, I think this is her favorite past-time, next to playing cards. 

And Jim was just chilling.

Fred came out to retrieve his missing phone.  Judy was at work so he was on his own.  We had dinner plans with some of our ex-classmates (I was going to say "old" but thought better of it), and the house crew was going in to KFC.

We had a very nice dinner at Braytons -- I think there were 12 of us, so we had a lot of laughs and updates on everyone's families.  Unfortunately, one of my favorite couples, Mike and Donna Carter, was unable to join us because he's in the hospital, so that was sad.  But he's hoping to get out in the next day or so, and we pray for his recovery (he was diagnosed with A-fib, which seems to be hitting several of our friends).

When we left the house, I had Joe stop and I ran back inside to get my camera.  But then I forgot to take a single picture while we were there with our classmates.  My bad.  I really hate that, but I'm as forgetful as the rest of the crew here so I'll have to wait until next time.

Meanwhile, exciting news from Ft. Wayne.  Angie and Tim's boy, Xavier, won his age division in the Hit/Pitch/Run competition and has advanced to the MLB regional pitch Hit/Run competition.  He is one of only 4 Finalists that scored to qualify to advance and will play on the Chicago White Sox field on June 8. 

Congrats and good luck to Xavier.

Farming (Thursday)

Thursday morning, Lori left about 9:00 a.m., armed with her leftovers -- 1/2 tenderloin sandwich, 2 pieces of Bobe's Pizza, and a bottle of water. After Lori left, Lucille took us out for breakfast at Dennys, then we made a quick stop at Rural King for some rope. The next "fix it" project in the house is replastering a section in the front room right under the window, which we have found someone to do. But a bookcase sits right next to this window (one Joe actually built in high school, that has to be wired to the wall), so it had to be moved out. It is now roped to the piano, but the rope they found in the basement was too musty-smelling to live with, so Joe was on the search for new rope. Which he found, and now the bookcase is roped to the piano with clean, new rope that doesn't smell like the basement.


I made Judy a batch of fudge (which she is addicted to), but Lucille really didn't think this was the right time of year to make fudge. Fred came out for a while, and accidentally left his phone, so Jim got to be his secretary for a day until he figured out where it was and came back to retrieve it. Southern Indiana is growing -- this is the beginning of the farming season and crops are coming up. We pass a watermelon field on our way into town, and Lucille likes to see if the plants are standing up. They plant them in 3-row bands through strips of plastic -- the process has changed a lot since her day in the fields. Now they order most of their plants whereas they started them from seeds in hothouses when she and Willy farmed.
  Another crop grown right along this road is potatoes, and those fields are in full bloom right now. A lot of the melon farms have switched to grain, at least partially, because it is so difficult to get adequate labor. So wheat and corn are also abundant. I don't know if the corn will be "knee high by the 4th of July" which is the old saying around here because they have had such a cool, rainy spring
. You have to be prepared to give up the road at any minute -- you never know what you will meet. This guy was coming down the middle of the road right at me, but he did move over a little (sometimes they don't and I have to take the grass)
.
 I came across Watermelon Road and found a field of cantaloupes that Lucille has been trying to keep her eye on. They are also blooming.


 
 I tried to take a nap out in the RV in the afternoon, but there was a lot of activity outside that kept waking me up. Dixie had sent Jim and Joe to town for more mulch, and there must have been a great debate about unloading it, right outside my bedroom in the RV. Then Don came to mow the grass and it sounded like a train coming between the RV and the house. Then another big conversation took place outside. And during all this, Joe had come inside the RV and brought in the front slide so Don could mow, and then Judy came in and dropped off a gift for John and Bridgette. I finally just gave up and came inside, not sure I felt very rested. Dixie cooked a pot of ham and beans today so we were well fed. Jaclyn stopped by with her kids in the evening, and brought Ice Cream Balls from Lics (delicious), and Adam joined them when he got back from his day in Indianapolis, so we all had a nice visit with the Ray family.

Princeton (Wed.)

This morning got off to a slow start.  The housekeeper didn't show up, and it was after 10:00 before Joe came in, so I fixed biscuits and gravy for breakfast and then we went on our way.  Joe, Lori and Jim drove down to look over Mike's camper (Mike's family is going camping this weekend) so Joe could share all of his camper wisdom with Mike tonight.  I left to drive down to Princeton to my family's cemetery and put some flowers on their graves.  I stopped in Princeton for the flowers and right next door to the store I was going in was a new antique/flea market "mall," which I decided to just stop in.  Well, an hour later, I finally got out of there with my purchases but I went to the car and got my camera to take pictures of the things I wanted to buy for some of my friends but managed to leave on the shelf.  Here they are:

For Shooter:

It was $57, so I may have to go back for it.

For Mazie: 

For Marilyn: 

I actually had this cute little teapot in my cart for quite a while but finally decided Marilyn probably didn't need to figure out what to do with it, so I put it back.

For Brenda: 

And for me: 

I may have to go back and get one of these storm shelters too, but they cost almost $4000 so I'm trying to refrain from that.  However, tonight's storm clouds had me second-guessing my decision not to purchase one.

I fueled my Explorer in Princeton for $3.809.  Someone told me that the price of gas had gone up 26 cents in the last 3 days here, so poor timing on my part I guess.

We went to Clayton and Mallory's baseball game this evening, and I wasn't sure we were going to get through the game without getting wet, but the storm seemed to circle around the ball field.  Their team got stomped, 23-1, but Clayton scored the only run.  He played catcher most of the game, and Mallory was in outfield again.

After the ballgame, we headed back to Bobe's Pizza -- Lori was the one championing this but she got no resistance from us (Lucille wasn't thrilled about pizza again).  No cards tonight, we all need a little rest.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we are missing out on Kaylee's 6th grade graduation.  Sure hated to miss this big event, but we did get a picture.













We are still under a chance of storms tonight and tomorrow but that seems to be diminishing.  We are hoping for good weather this weekend because we have lots of activities scheduled, including graduations, picnics, parties, and the Rendevous -- Vincennes' reenactment of the revolutionary war:
      " At 10 a.m., Thurs., Feb. 25, 1779, British Lt. Gov. Henry Hamilton surrendered his garrison of 80 soldiers after a siege which lasted less than two days. The victor, Lt. Col. Clark, had led an army of 170 Americans and French-Canadians across the flooded area of present-day southern Illinois in a march to Vincennes."

They have been doing this reenactment since the late 1970s but we have never gone to it, so I think this year we will go, hopefully on Sunday.

Terre Haute (Sun., Mon., Tues.)

Sunday was a pretty uneventful day, so we all got to rest a bit.  We went to church, then to town for lunch at Old Tyme.  In the afternoon, Joe took his mother back down to the parish hall to a graduation party, and we had our evening card game.

Monday was my Terre Haute day, and I got a pretty early start.  I left the house about 8:00, but the farmers are out in full force and I got behind a tractor pulling some kind of contraption right down the middle of the road.  I split off from it and went through the drive-through at McDonalds for a breakfast sandwich, but I caught back up with this guy just as I got off the 41 bypass.  Lucky for me, he went straight there where I took the exit to Terre Haute.

As I drove up Hwy 41 to Terre Haute and took Poplar Street across town, I saw some familiar buildings and many new ones.  One big surprise was a new Baesler's Grocery Store at 25th and Poplar.  When we first got married, Joe stocked IGA stores and Baeslers IGA was on his route -- at that time it was just a small store on 25th Street, but it was my closest grocery store so that's where I did most of my shopping.  Now it's a new, big store, and it has everything, and I was told that it is the only grocery store in town where you can buy Boars Head meats.

 My first stop was a visit with my college roommate, Linda Chiado, whom I hadn't seen for about 40 years.  We had a great time reminiscing, and she remembered things I had totally forgotten, such as our renting a bicycle built for 2 to ride around Terre Haute, and our attempt to rent a car to drive home (unfortunately, we didn't have a credit card in those days so we were unsuccessful in that endeavor).  She even had some pictures from our college days that I was not aware of.  These are circa 1967, during my Indiana State days.

Linda lives in a pretty brick house on the east side of town, and we made a quick drive past our old house when we went to lunch.  Linda and her husband have done extensive international travel, and since our retirement we've done a fair share of RVing in the U.S., so we had lots of travel stories to share.

From Linda's, I stopped by and visited with Audrey Williams, the "second mother" of my children and my babysitter for about 9-10 years.  We always enjoy catching up with each other and updating the news of our children.  Audrey bakes wedding and birthday cakes and I had brought her two bottles of clear vanilla from Mexico, which she was glad to get it because she said she had just run out of vanilla.   Audrey had crocheted a beautiful baby quilt for John and Bridgette, so we have another gift to deliver to Florida.   Audrey is anticipating double knee replacement surgery in June so we will be praying for her speedy recovery.

I drove over to Brazil for my last visit, which was with my old co-worker friend from our IMC days, Diane Braden.  As I left Linda's and turned onto what is now Hwy 40 bypass I guess, I saw my first live Indiana deer.

When I called Diane to tell her I was on my way, she said she was her grandson's "meals on wheels" and had to run over to the high school with some food for him because he had a baseball game after school, but she was home when I got there.  We shared old memories and laughed a lot.  It's always a pleasure to spend time with her.

With a threat of thunderstorms and possible tornadoes in the area, I headed back to Terre Haute for a White Castle hamburger stop, and then on to Vincennes.  Poor Joe hasn't yet had his White Castles -- in fact he seriously considered accompanying me today to Terre Haute just for the White Castles.    I made it home safely, it didn't even rain on me, and arrived at the house to more company -- Lori and Jim had driven down from Ft. Wayne.  Judy had cooked dinner tonight (stir-fry) but they had dinner over and the dishes all washed when I arrived (so I didn't have to circle the block for a while).  Everyone was tired so I don't think we played cards that night.

 When I walked in the house, Lori said, "Aunt Wilma, grab your camera, I'm going to make your blog."  So I did, and she took me outside.  To this empty crate.

The story is that Lori spotted a turtle crossing the road here at Lucille's, and Dixie told her to go rescue it for me.  However, the turtle, affectionately now named Houdini, escaped this "jail" and was no where to be seen.  But, Lori says it was this big.

We had thunderstorms during the night but nothing too alarming, and I believe Lucille's weather alarm has been unplugged (thank goodness!!!).

Tuesday I had lunch plans with Barbara and Sandy Ivers, another lifelong friend from my childhood days that we had seen briefly last week.  We took up space for a couple hours at "P Fections" and had a great time. Growing up, I spent a lot of time at Sandy's, both as a visitor and as a babysitter.  I rode to many basketball games with her family (she was a cheerleader my senior year when she was a freshman year, and she even remembered (which I had forgotten) that her parents allowed her to go to Junior Prom with her future husband, John Ivers, only if she rode to the prom with me, and then her mom picked her up (this was also during her freshman year).  My how time flies!

From there, Barbara dragged me into a Urologist's office (she said she made us an appointment), and once inside I learned that Sandy's sister, Jackie, worked at the front desk there, so we had a nice visit with her (and they didn't do any examinations on me).  After a drive through the cemetery to say hello to Barbara's parents and the many friends that she takes care of the graves of, we went back out to the house and Barbara came in to visit for a while and share her sunny nature with our family again.  Barbara now is a "front door" friend and no longer comes in the back door -- not sure if this is a step up or a step down, but she seems to think it worthy of note.

Lori cooked a delicious lasagne dinner for the 8 of us tonight, then Mike called and asked what was for dinner and did we have enough, so we stretched the meal out to take care of 13.  I've had that experience before -- I started breakfast last year for 5 and ended up with 19. We just never know how many we are feeding, but sometimes we end us with lots of leftovers.  Mike, Rachelle and the kids visited for a while but they still have 2 days of school left so they headed home and we started our nightly card game.  I picked up a package of coasters the other day with the suits of a deck of cards to help all of us remember what trump is.  Lucille is not overly willing to glance over at the coaster to see what suit is on top (she doesn't ever want us to think she might make a mistake) but we all tend to forget what trump is so it seems to be helping.  Since we lost all three games to Joe, Dixie and Judy, I'm thinking it might be helping the competition more than the other team (Lucille, Fred, and me).  But tomorrow night's another night, so maybe we will even the score.  We are scheduled to go back to Monroe City to Clayton and Mallory's baseball game on Wednesday evening, but the weather report is not very promising.  However, Bobe's Pizza is on the agenda for Wednesday, Lori's last night before she heads back to Ft. Wayne, so we will be going to town then.

For those wondering about last weekend's huge power ball lottery, Zephyrhills is just north of Tampa, Florida, and John and Bridgette live just east of Tampa in Seffner.  But he tells us they did NOT purchase their lottery ticket in Zephyrhills.  We will be heading that way next week (to arrive probably 3 weeks later) so we will see if he is holding out on us.