Coming home

 I bid farewell to Josh (he should be home Tuesday, after 3 weeks). And flew home. Nice and quiet. \My family came to meet me.  It was very nice.

Thursday was a big event! I tied my own shoes! You try living with an arm brace on your dominate arm. AND I put on my soft bra (it takes a while to get dressed). Tonight I am going to try washing my hair by myself

Josh ordered us some bees (fourth time is a charm, right?) Mark lovingly came and put them in their boxes this morning, They looked very active. They are right next to my apricot tree which has blossoms on it!

Erich Williams

 When I was working at Topics, the sports editor was named Erich Williams. One day we were out test driving a car (did I buy that car? Was it Stanley?) and a voice said, in my right ear, 'You need to talk to him about the Church'. So somehow I did and invited him to meet with the missionaries. Apparently I even told him they would go and get ice cream after. (He said they never did, he was too interested in talking to them.)'

Erich started dating Heather. He had a baptism date. She broke up with him that day. He still got baptized. Married my dear friend Tiffany - see that Indy YSA branch was awesome! Then I went to Idaho. We sort of lost touch - but Facebook!

They had six kids. He just finished serving as bishop and his son will be home next month from a mission in Boston. Wow. Listen to that voice people.

We got to have dinner with them Sunday night. It was wonderful. I love you guys!

George Rogers Clark memorial

  A major fixture of my childhood was the George Rogers Clark memorial. It commorates the battles        fought in the area by the Americas vs Indians vs English (at various times) .  We went there in the summer because... they had AIR CONDITIONING!! We did eventually get air conditioning at home (but here is a cute story - one time Dad said 'we need to turn the heat up in the house' when asked why he said 'because we have babies on the floor')

We went down there like once a week (it was two blocks from our house). We went to the visitor center - home of the famous movie! Now, they have reused a lot of the footage from the orginial movie and added new voice overs). And we liked to check out the level of the river.  Vincennes has a lot of leves to block the river from flooding the town.

The big building is just basically murals on the walls and a big marble bench all the way around you can slide on.

Rest of Vincennes

So as Josh and I ran around (drove, and took pictures with my left hand),. Here are some of the other Vincennes memories.

Lic's ice cream - it was there growing up! Fancy ice cream. We were too poor to go there.

Captain D's - on payday Fridays, sometimes, Dad would go there and get a box or two of fried fish - BEST EVER! Sometimes he would  jingle the change in his pocket and say 'go get in the car' and we would go to Wendy's and get chocolate frosties. But I hate frosties and he would let me get a small root beer instead.

This old strip mall used to have a movie theater in the corner. That is where I went to see Star Wars when I was 7.

Rainbow Beach - where I had my first real job  - lifeguarding. Worked there off and on during the years. Apparently they have a big play set now.

Our Wheatland Road house. After I left for college the first time, the family moved to a house more out in the country. It had a basement that apparently interrupted an underground river. It was always damp and smelly down there. 

Vincennes ward

 And here are a ton of pictures of the Vincennes ward. They were glad w hen our family moved it. John and Sara were born there. I remember my mom going to do her visiting teaching, there was an old lady in the high rise building just two blocks from our house. She would go and visit her every month and talk and laugh. My mom was a real friend to her. I believe in visiting teaching. 

The people I remember are the Williams (showing Rick (who looks exactly the same) and his youngest Katherine (who I really didn't know). The Trabants - who  taught me to dance/date your spouse. He used to give us haircuts. The woman who influenced me on the organ was not there - but a shout out to Carol Goldman who faithful played the organ for years. I think of her. And Jenny - who was in my high school graduating class (first high school class in the  new  building - you can go and see my name on a plaque on the wall yet today). She joined the church right after  I left for college .

And the Gelb family invited us to lunch. So we drove around like crazy taking pictures and then had a delightful lunch with them. Sharon Gelb was sort of my mom's best friend growing up. When we got bigger she told us (mainly me and Heather ) that we could call her Sharon, but we were always petrified and called her Sister Gelb still.

Vincennes

 I grew up in Vincennes, Indiana. My dad got a job at Vincennes University teaching electronics after he graduated from BYU. The department needed another guy and a member of the church who worked there convinced them to hire a member- so that guy went to Provo and hired Dad. We moved there and stayed with their family while we looked for a house (the white one with the porch swing). 521 South Fifth Street. It used to be blue and dad put up a porch swing. One night mom sewed up "Honey Mutt" a dog we somehow had who had been in a fight. (Dad didn't like the dog, said "I call my wife honey, not the dog" - think this dog went to a 'farmer out in the country'.  It had two bedrooms and one bath. Over the years, Dad added a top floor in the attic (the aunt, uncle and cousins from Michigan came to help - two bedrooms and a half bath. And the remodeled the basement - two bedrooms and a full bath. So we all fit inside nicely. 

There were huge 4-leaf cover patches in the yard. Dad put in an dwarf apple tree that eventually grew to be 10 feet tall and a peach tree that never grew an inch. Mom had a garden and there was asparagus patch in the back, but I didn't know what it was and aways mowed over it (I did lawn care - it seemed no one else would ). 

We went to LaSalle Elementary . We walked every day. Once it snowed like two inches and some kids were hanging out in front of their house and they told us school had been cancelled and we didn't believe it - but we went home and asked mom and she was shocked that they had (she grew up in South Dakota). 

Here is my miracle story about LaSalle (they tore it down a few years ago to build more hospital space). It was the smallest elementary in the school district. I was not reading, in the lowest reading group. Somehow I got noticed and went with a teacher one day to this big building where I did a lot of testing. I don't know what happened, but after that a specialist came once a week and helped me learn to read. I have 'B' and "D'  ( b/d  see how they look the same?_ confusion (it is a real learning disability - also applies to q/p. I also confuse right and left - but I am way better at it today, still ask me quick and I have to look at my left hand ring.  She came and we looked at articles and stuff to see the difference  like bed ' looks like someone is laying down. I remember an article about plants that I was suppose to read and circle all the 'b' (or maybe d's?). Anyway, it worked and in six months I was in the highest reading group and never stopped. Now I have a Master's degree and teach college. I think about that teacher a lot, coming to my little school to teach just me. I try to remember how important the 'one' is.

Dad worked at the University (really a two-year school). Mom stayed home with the six of us. Sometimes we had two cars, sometimes just one. So mom would drive him to work if she needed the car. We would sometimes have to (no cell phones!) go inside and remind him we were there. This big building was called the ice house (because that is what it was used for back in the day). There was a big freigh elevator and it smelled weird - like fried electronics.

We all grew up there. Well, Sara did some time in Michigan. But we all left. This was my first time back in 23 years.  It is ok to leave your hometown.

After Tipton

 So Ron eventually moved unto a bigger newspaper - a group of papers called Topics Newspapers. Eventually I got hired to be the county government reporter there. Heather moved to Utah. I found an apartment and some roommates from the Indianapolis Singles Branch. They both lived somewhere else and only came to our apt sometimes, so it was like living alone. I started taking cello lessons there (because I always wanted to), so I rented a cello and found a teacher and studied for about a year (I did not practice a lot).

I went to the YSA ward and it was awesome! We had a member that was on the Pacer's team - I felt super coo, to know him. I made tons of good friends there. Dated some guys (I only started liking guys at Purdue). There I met Allen - he had red hair and tap danced. We started dating. I was working at Topics - I eventally got demoted down to the Sheridan News - a one page paper covering a tiny town north of Indy. 

But my social life was awesome! FHE with the branch on Mondays, always an activity, dance or something on the weekends. It was grand.

But when Josh and I drove by, it was completely empty, stripped down and being turned into something else. The death of newspapers is real. After this tour, Josh and I went back to the hotel and slept. emotionally exhausting.

Also a picture of the Indianapolis temple. When they announced it, I felt pride, like my time there somehow contributed to its being build.

Tipton part 2

 So Heather and I found a rental. It had two bedrooms. A skanky kitchen. A 'dressing room' with three inch high shag carpet and a skanky landlord. We were happy there. When our pipes froze one winter, our neighbor's husbands came over and tried to defrost them with blow torches (not sure if that worked). 

This is where we got our tithing beds. We had no beds and right before we moved in, we found  two beds sitting on the corner by our house. We asked the lady and she said we were welcome to them! Mine sort of                       folded up in the middle - but hey- it was a bed!

It was also here that I met Ron and introduced him to Heather. He and I sort of dated. We had fun nights - once we invited him over for a huge 'treat' - Kraft mac and cheese AND fruit cocktail. He probably thought we were crazy. 

Here is my first job building. The first day I showed up bright and early and no one was there! Neil (the Quaker) showed up 10 minutes later. It was all good. I remember (being the only reporter) that almost all my stories made the front page. One day I wrote SIX stories and the whole front page was me!

Beth took pictures of stuff. I wrote stories... but IF I took a picture also, I got $5 extra, so I was happy to take pictures! Her's is the brick house. See why I wanted it? Gorgeous!

One time I got mad at Neil for something and threw a container of white-out at the wall, and it hit the ait vent and left a mess. Maybe not too professional. 

We went to church in Kokomo. They didn't really seem to know what to do with us. First we got called to nursery and something else. When Heather went to check out the nursery she was looking death stares at the children. Someone asked her and she replied 'I hate children" shortest calling ever!

So eventually we got called to be in charge of the Young Single Adults. We called ourselves the Frisky Friends (doesn't that sound so much better?) We had tons of activities, including woodworking with a YSA who never came, and lots of people came, It was totally cool.  Don't forget the YSA!!!

So Josh and I drove around and tried to find our other rental (after the pipes incident) and we lived in an apartment behind a little old lady. She was cute. But there was no door on the bathroom, so you had to stand in the kitchen and yell "Naked or not!" to see if the person was decent. Ron came over a lot. Heather had the real bedroom and I slept in the 'family room." It was one long house with rooms in a row. Heather found me a piano and I gave piano lessons to save up money for something. (Going to Europe?)

One thing I did at the newspaper office was write Club Notes. Now Tipton was a bedroom community between Kokomo and Indy. So there were'/are a lot of churches. Big old houses, little stores. There were a lot of homemaking clubs, etc. So every week I would type up the club notes - the notes the secretary took on the meeting. And every single note ended with this "And a good time was had by all." So now I use that all the time to describe an event. 

There is also a picture of Josh cutting up my canteloup up for me, because of my wounded wing. We  ate at Jim Dandy's - but Heather and I never ate there - too poor. 

Oh those Tipton days

 So I graduated from Purdue and Heather graduated from her three-year interior design program at Ricks. And we ended up as roommates. Heather commuted to Kokomo to work for Shafner Kitchen and Bath and I worked at the Tipton Cuntry Tribune. Here are the pictures I could find in one afternoon, driving in a car, using my left hand to take pictures:

Here is the gorgeous Tipton Courthouse. Here I learned to search records and always be nice to the clerks.  You can get a lot of gossip from those big old books. Really, this is the center piece of Tipton.

Next is the firehouse where I learned to always be nice to the firefighters. They know ALL the  juice in town. And I got to be Sparky the Fire Dog in the parade one year. And practice being a fireman by wearing a face mask and following a fire hose around - part of the fireman test.

These fun signs started appearing in Chicago. Good to know for tornadoes!

Indiana!!!!!

 Guess where I got to go????

Indy!!!

Josh headed out for a test at the Indy Speedway (two days after my surgery). They drove three days there and then set up. That Thursday I got to go visit!! I have not been back to Indiana for TWENTY TWO years!!! So of course I had to go check things out. Here is my adventure getting there.

First my flight was delayed, no way to make the gate change. So I get routed through Chicago. No problem . Lightening storms in Chicago. Wait two and a half hours to get on the plane. Go wait in like an hour. TURN AROUND and go back to the gate. Wait another hour. Get on another plane. Go to Indy. Only 3.5 hours late. Yah my sweetie!! He even came in to get my bag.

 Here is what is happening.

The girls had friends over and played video games. A good time was had by all.

I had my rotor cuff surgery! It never really hurt BAD (maybe peracet?). And now I am on almost three weeks of recovery! On Tuesday I can 1) get in the hot tub 2) sleep without my brace on!!!!

Ellie got two big cavities filled. Brush your teeth!!