Sunday, April 21, 2019 - Easter Sunday
I rolled out of bed a little after 5, turned the coffee pot on, and did my exercises. By that time, there was enough coffee made for me to pour myself a cup. Yum, I do love my morning coffee. I recently bought Garibaldi coffee for the first time. Dean and I both love it.
After getting settled in my recliner I read my Bible. A little while later Cindy texted me and wanted me to call her. We talked yesterday about possibly getting together for lunch, then the guys could go play golf. We confirmed our plans for the day.
Dean and I attended church. I enjoyed seeing several people I haven't seen or talked to in awhile. Can you tell I'm a people person? I guess I have a lot of my mom and dad in me when it comes to that as they both enjoyed being around and visiting with friends.
We ran home after church to get the hamburger patties I made before church and a few other things. Misti is working at the golf course today and Haleigh is working at the grocery store, so I am taking their lunch to them. When Dean and Elmer go play golf they can take Misti's, and Cindy and I can deliver Haleigh's.
Lunch was great. Cindy grilled the burgers and they were excellent! She bought some of the small round thin breads which are perfect for burgers - so, you get to enjoy the taste of the burger without so much bread.
After the guys left and we had cleaned up from lunch, Cindy drove me to the grocery store (G&W) so I could drop Haleigh's lunch off for her. She was very happy to see me, and even more so when she found out what I took her. I made her favorite meal - chicken, bacon, cheese & ranch quesadilla.
From there Cindy and I took a ride to Chetopa. We drove by our "Nana & Papa" Blackledge's old house. It just doesn't look the same. Then we meandered through some of the streets before turning south toward Main Street. Of course, we can't come to Chetopa and not make a drive to the Neosho River. Our Papa and Nana Blackledge took a drive around town or somewhere in the countryside almost every single evening. Cindy and I would often spend time with them. Part of their evening drive always included a stop at the river. Now, it just seems a natural drive when we come to Chetopa. As we drove by the Community Center we noticed a lot of people outside, then realized it was our Aunt Wilma Nash's family. After stopping for a few minutes at the river, I suggested we stop and say hello to our Aunt and family. Aunt Wilma is my mom's sister. She's the second of five children our Grandpa and Grandma Stapleton had. It was wonderful to see them all and many of their kids and grandkids.
After having a great visit, we said our goodbyes and headed back to Oswego. Back at Cindy's, we visited until Dean and Elmer returned. Dean helped me load up the items we brought with us and headed home. Tomorrow is another busy day.
Monday, April 22, 2019 - Trip to Joplin with Granddaughter Kamron & Meet-up with Great Aunt Cindy.
I told Kamron I would pick her up at 7:30, so I was out of bed shortly after 5 to have my coffee before showering and getting ready to head to Parsons. Dean is playing golf with a group of men that play most weekday mornings, and Elmer is giving him a ride. It's time like these we could use a second vehicle. Thanks to Elmer for doing this for us.
We had a nice visit on our ride to Joplin. Our first stop was Hobby Lobby - Kamron's favorite store! We spent a little over an hour there, then on to the next stop at Books A Million - her second favorite store! She loves to read and she found 3 books on sale for slightly over $10....all ones she wanted but didn't expect to find them at these reduced prices.
Great Aunt Cindy was coming to Joplin today too, so we decided to meet her for lunch at Panda Express. We had a nice visit with her before heading to our next stop at Target, then the Mall for Claire's, Icing, Rue 21 and finally Bath & Bodyworks. She managed to find a few things at some of these stops. Our last stop was at McDonald's for small caramel frappes. I haven't had one all year....we agreed, they were soooooo good!
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| Having a little fun in Hobby Lobby |
We left Joplin around 1:45 because she needed to be home for golf practice at 3:30. We stopped in Oswego to pick up Papa (Dean) and then headed to Parsons. We dropped her off at Marc's workplace and of course I had to go inside and say hi to him.
I had a great day with this young lady! Thanks Kamron. I hope you enjoyed the day as much as I did.
Dean and I made a quick stop at Walmart to pick up a few things then we headed home. It was a fun day but a long one too. When I hit my chair that's where I stayed until it was time to go to bed.
Tuesday, April 23, 2019 - Lunch with Friends; Visit with Family
Dean has been working at the garage whenever he gets a chance and that is where he headed this morning. It started to rain about 9 or so, and continued to rain, increasing in intensity as the morning went on. There was a break and he took advantage of it to come home. There was water standing everywhere around Bentley. It looked like a swamp.
I am having lunch with my friends Peggy and Linda. We try to do this a few times a year. They picked me up a little after 11:30 and we headed to Parsons. We weren't sure where we were going to eat. We had heard there were a couple of new restaurants so we drove through downtown and finally decided to try the Iron Press. It is more of a breakfast restaurant (per their menu) but they had sandwiches and a salad bar, too. Linda chose their cheeseburger and Peggy and I both tried the salad bar, which wasn't too bad. More importantly was the opportunity to visit with each other. Fortunately the rain let up while we were eating which made for a better drive back to Oswego.
I really enjoyed spending time with Peggy and Linda. We have set a date, the latter part of May, for one more excursion before we take off again.
Later in the day I visited my Aunt Betty and my cousin Barbara for an hour or so. It was good to catch up with them and I really enjoyed the visit. Aunt Betty is my mom's oldest sister. Barbara and I are only a year apart in age. She grew up in Texas, and I always looked forward to her visits to Kansas. Her family always stayed with Grandpa and Grandma Stapleton. Often I would get to go out and stay for a day or so, to keep Barbara company. We liked climbing in the apple tree (even though we weren't supposed to) and walking in the field south of their house (loved feeling that soft dirt between our toes, warm on top and nice and cool if we dug our toes in), and of course, we always enjoyed Grandma's cooking!
Megan sent me a text - Josh had received his birthday present from us last night and he is building it today. She told me he was really excited and kept saying this is super cool! Lego's are something he is really enjoying now, so we bought him an Incredible 2 Lego set.
While waiting for Dean to return, I made some chili for dinner. We ate soon after he returned. I was cleaning up the dishes, when Misti called to see if we wanted to go eat supper. I told her we had just finished eating, but I had some leftovers, and she was welcome to stop by. She declined but said she might stop by later.
I was sitting in my chair; the blind was still up at the back window; when I noticed her car coming down the road toward us. I stood up, then noticed the white jeep right behind her. I was elated - it was our grandson Logan. We were not able to go to his graduation from A-school in San Antonio last week because Dean had his follow-up doctor visits in Springfield & Branson. Come to find out Dean knew, Cindy knew and they kept me in the dark, but oh, what a wonderful surprise! It was so good to see him. I think he is taller since we saw him in Chicago last December - do grandma's/nana's always say that to their grandchildren?
I didn't want to let him go once I hugged him, but wasn't sure he'd want to stay in my arms all evening, so I reluctantly let go.
They stayed awhile to visit! I just love that young man! Before they left Papa and Logan set a golf date for tomorrow.
Wednesday, April 24, 2019 - Health Insurance Meeting; Phone Call with a Cousin
Dean called Logan and suggested they play this afternoon, instead of this morning since it was so wet from the rain yesterday.
I had Dean drop me off at the City Office a little after 8. I am still on the city's insurance plan as a retiree. The city is in the process of changing insurance companies effective July 1. A representative of the new company met with employees (and me, the retiree) to answer any questions and to complete the enrollment forms for the new plan. Once I had finished I visited with Carol and Renee for a few minutes before I headed back to the RV.
We are going to Wichita tomorrow to visit Heath, Jarred and their families. We haven't seen them since last December when we had Christmas at Heath's shortly before we left for Texas for the winter.
I have been cleaning out cabinets, closets, drawers, under bed and couch storage compartments. I've accumulated quite a few things I want to take to our storage unit, so we took care of that. I also wanted to get some laundry done before we left. In between, I put away as many things as I could in order to make the move go a little quicker in the morning.
After lunch Dean left for the garage to work, so I took the opportunity to call my cousin, Martha to visit with her. We tentatively made plans to get together in a couple of weeks. I have some family history questions I want to ask her about and she recently found some pictures she wants to give me. I look forward to our visit.
This evening Logan, Misti, Dean and I drove to Scammon, KS to Josie's Restaurant. We all love Josie's, but we were VERY surprised at the price increases. The servings were close to twice as big - but who needs that much food? We ordered and everyone but Dean took something home. My lasagna was huge - clearly it was two full servings. I ate one serving - which was really too much, but it IS GOOD! I brought the other helping home (and had two more meals out of it later in the week.) We had such a nice evening. I cannot believe I did not get a picture of the four of us!
Thursday, April 25, 2019
Today is our grandson Joshua's birthday. He is 5 years old. I texted Josh (via Megan) to tell him happy birthday, and asked him how it felt to be 5. She sent a text (via Josh) - he said thank you, and it feels good to be 5! Lol!
Matt had Josh call us soon after that. It was good to visit with him for a few minutes. He was looking forward to his day.
After breakfast we started putting things away and soon we were headed west to Wichita. We arrived a little before 2. We hurriedly got Bentley leveled and unhitched, did the minimal things inside and then headed to Emerson's daycare to pick her up for the afternoon. She made our day when she was so excited to see us. We took her back to Bentley until Dad (Jarred) got off work. She's a character and is very creative. I love listening to her talk to her dolls. Quite the imagination. We'll get to see her again tomorrow.
This evening we attended a music program at Gideon's school. It was really great and we enjoyed watching Gideon bounce a basketball in rhythm with LOTS of other kids without a ball getting loose from the students. It was really amazing. They stood most of the time, but towards the end, they got on their knees and then set on the floor, all the while, continuing to bounce their basketballs.
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| In the middle - gray and white striped shirt - that's Gideon! |
He also participated with several classmates on their ukuleles. Last time we saw him (December), he played and sang me a song on his ukulele at their house. He did a really nice job.
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| Playing the ukulele, on the right bottom |
Kamron played in her last golf tournament for the year today, so I called to see how she did. She placed 2nd on their home course, the Katy in Parsons. I am so proud of this young lady. This was her first year participating in golf at school. She participated in 6 tournaments, and placed 6th, 4th, 3 times in 3rd place and then today 2nd. She really loves the game.
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| Kamron at her last golf tournament of the year! |
Later, Dean and I found a Braum's for some ice cream. I had a junior scoop of sugar free vanilla bean. It was small, but I made it last almost as long as Dean's two scoops. I just took tiny bites and I felt like I had as much as he did. Lol!!
Friday, April 26, 2019
We feel fortunate that this weekend is giving us the opportunity to see all of the grandkids in Wichita participate in something either at school or a sport. Today we are going to Abram's school for a Wax Museum presentation. Each child has selected a historical figure to portray. They each prepared a poster board to tell about the individual they are emulating. Abram chose President Donald Trump. Each child has a paper stick-on "button" on their hand. When you press it they tell you about the person they are portraying. Of course, we stopped to hear Abram first. He did a great job. We listened to a few others too before we left to have lunch with Heath & Casey at Pizza Hut in Goddard. They had a great buffet and salad bar, and we enjoyed visiting during our meal. They left to return to work and we had a plan for this afternoon.
Dean and I have been talking about buying a used car that we can drive when we are here in Oswego to save miles on the truck. You might wonder why we sold our van in the first place. The main reason - we didn't have anywhere to store it. Misti was good enough to let us put the van in her garage the first winter we were gone, but in the mean time, Haleigh started driving. She needed that garage space especially during the winter months - and after this last winter I was glad she had it too. Our van had always been garaged and even though I loved it, we just didn't want it sitting out for several months during the time we are traveling full-time, so....we sold it.
Fast forward a month or two later - we bought a piece of land with a garage on it! As it was, we could not have put the van or any other car in it over the winter because it had a bad leak on one side, so it all worked out - we have hired someone to repair it and expect to have it done before we leave here the first of June.
When we are in Oswego, especially mornings, we often go separate ways - Dean likes to play golf in the morning, and sometimes I want to run errands, visit friends/family and it has been tough during this month we've been back. We didn't want a new vehicle, just a good used car I could use around Oswego and the area, and one we could use when we need to run to Joplin, Parsons, etc. just to save on fuel costs and some of the local mileage with the truck.
We started looking online in the Wichita area a few days ago, knowing we'd have a bigger selection, and since we will be here for several days. We found a 2008 Toyota Prius. After talking to my niece who owns one we felt a little more positive about it. We drove over to Broadway St., near Old Town in Wichita to look it over and drive it. It was a very nice car - the condition outside was excellent and inside was very good. We stopped in an empty church lot so Dean could look at a few things and then he drove it awhile before we returned to the lot. We told them we would think about it over the weekend. Needless to say, there was a lot of discussion about it over the weekend between the two of us. Heath and Casey also own one. We visited with them as well and even drove theirs as a comparison.
After leaving the car lot, Jarred called to let us know Emerson appears to have pink eye. He called their doctor and they are going to order eye drops for her. She won't be playing soccer tomorrow morning, since she is in the contagious stage. Andrea had some plans for the evening, the guys (Dean, Heath, Jarred, and Heath's three boys) all have tickets to see the new Avenger movie, so I offered to watch Emerson for the evening. She was so good. I thought she was going to go to sleep right off the bat....but it seemed she just needed a little rest, before she got her second wind. She kept me in stitches. About 8:00 she said I want my mommy. After letting Andrea know we were headed her way, we loaded her and her toys up and we headed to their house. It wasn't too long until Dean and Jarred showed up and we visited together for awhile before heading home. It was a long day - a little stressful trying to make a decision on that vehicle, but spending time with Emerson for me and the distraction of the movie for Dean helped us leave it behind for awhile and that was a good thing!
Saturday, April 27, 2019 - A Little Shopping, Visiting and Soccer - Mexican Food!
We had planned to attend Emerson's soccer game this morning at 9, but since she is not playing we decided to have breakfast out and then run a few errands. After stopping at Cracker Barrel for breakfast, we headed to Sam's. We eat a lots of mixed nuts for a snack now in the evening. Even though we limit them to a small container - we seem to go through them quickly. We buy one of the large mixed nut containers and then mix it with a large container of cashews. I always buy the ones with the least amount of salt on them too. Dean loves almond bars and he wanted another box of those.
Since Sam's is near Menard's we made a stop there as well. I am still on a quest to find a new toilet seat for Bentley. The one we have is a very odd shape and we are having a difficult time finding a replacement, and once again, no luck here either.
After we took our purchases back to Bentley we headed over to Andrea and Jarred's, where we ordered lunch from McAlister's Deli. After lunch, Emerson entertained us with her soccer skills in their yard, and the new bike she got for her birthday just a little over a month ago. Then we played with the babies (dolls) inside. She's going to make a good mommy someday!
Roman (Heath & Casey's youngest son) had a soccer game at 3:00. Dean and I, and Jarred and Emerson drove separately to the soccer field. We have had such a good time seeing both families and getting to see Emerson and all of Heath's boys participate in something while we were here.
After the game we went back to Heath's and hung out for a few hours catching up with everyone, before we headed to a Mexican Restaurant they really like for dinner. Dean and I ordered fajitas to share. Talk about reasonable prices - $11.99 and we both had plenty, plus we took some home with us! After returning to their home, we visited awhile before we returned to Bentley for the evening.
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