THE LOWE FAMILY NEWSLETTER VOLUME 108 MAY 2016

Dear Readers,

RAIN RAIN GO AWAY, COME ON BACK ANOTHER DAY – NEXT MONTH! My new mantra children as I keep one eye on my sump pump and the other on my dehumidifier in an desperate attempt to keep my basement dry. So far I have had little seepage which is amazing considering the torrential rainfalls of the last few weeks.

The last week of April flew by as I found myself hosting two sets of longtime friends from Fort Madison. Bonnie and Gary Niehaus drove to Kansas City's Airport to fly into Denver to visit their daughter Kari, and family in Longmont , Colorado: spending the night at my house to break up the long return trip. They decided to forgo their usual choice of my chocolate bedroom in favor of my recently redecorated paisley room. A wise choice, in my estimation ,because Joshua's clothes are seemingly permanently stored in the chocolate bedroom's closet and I fear that a couple of unwashed shirts may be responsible for the slightly male locker room scent which whiffs past my keen nose on the few occasions I venture in there to clean.

Coryn happened to be around in the days before their arrival whilst I was mulling over possible menus -she suggested that they might prefer to dine at one of my many neighborhood restaurants. I was confident that Bonnie and Gary would rather relax -after a stressful day of traveling- in my Martha Stewart dinning room but decided to offer this option to them and was delighted when they both adamantly confirmed my belief. I took great satisfaction in letting Coryn know that I was right yet again!

They had such a good experience using the Kansas City Airport that they are repeating it this week: apparently it is also more economical than flying out of Cedar Rapids or Moline where one nearly always has to transfer to a major airport anyway. There is so much to love about life in Kansas City.

They left on Wednesday and I spent Thursday preparing for the Friday arrival of my great friends Evelyn, Sherry, and Becky. Evelyn and Sherry were driving down from Fort Madison: Evelyn drove after working the night shift ! Her stamina never ceases to amaze me but I have to confess that her addiction to caffeine has me worried – she even drinks coffee before sleeping to ward off a caffeine deprivation headache on waking! Becky was up in the middle of the night to catch her flight at five in the morning on the first leg of her trip from Savannah. I am so grateful for their decades of friendship which has endured two of us moving out of state.

I picked Becky up from the airport at noon and we arrived home before the other girls who arrived about one-thirty. We drank tea all afternoon, enjoyed a shrimp pasta dish that I made from scratch and enjoyed an early evening visit with Coryn and the grandchildren. They saw that all though Ava Claire looks exactly like her mother at three years old she does not act like her at all – she favors her Auntie Leslee with her self confident, every one pay attention to me and lets do things my way attitude. Owen is a much less demanding child who loves to snuggle and wins everyone over with his huge dimpled smile.

Unfortunately the weather did not shine down on us for our reunion weekend so instead of heading to the arboretum we stayed out of the rainy, cloudy weather by shopping. As always we headed to the just up the street from my so conveniently located home to the Carter's outlet store where Sherry bought something pink for her third grandchild - in hopes that after two grandsons there would be a little girl to shop for and days later her hopes were realized when a sonogram revealed that baby number three would be a girl.

We fixed lunch at home and headed back to the stores, making stops for clothes , plants and garden accessories. We had dinner at Bolings and then decided to walk a couple of miles around my neighborhood of character homes in an effort to burn up some of the calories. The exercise must have improved our stamina because we almost pulled an all nighter, staying up until two in the morning on only one bottle of wine and we were all up by eight the next morning! It's a wonder I could function!

Evelyn had bought some plants for my garden from hers and I was happy to share some of my plants with her so we braved the rain and cold on Sunday morning to dig in the dirt. We ate lunch together and shortly afterwards Evelyn and Sherry headed back to Fort Madison while Becky and I enjoyed another cup of tea or two before heading back to the airport for her late afternoon flight back to Savannah. I was so glad that she had been able to leave Lysander and Merovy for a couple of days with their father while she had a much needed break although with all our activity and late nights and early rises I worried that she was probably more sleep deprived on her return than on her arrival!

Friday the 6^th of May began a week of woes for me . That morning I was up with the birds, thanks to Ava Claire, who had spent the previous night at Grandma's. After breakfast and tubby time we headed to the grocery store where Ava Claire rode the quarter horse surrounded by the bubble gum and toy prize machines and then- as always- insisted on sitting in an oversized shopping cart done up to look like a car. Grandma's engine barely revs up enough these days to steer the clunker up and down the grocery aisles. Ava Claire always happily cleans the dual steering wheels with a sanitizer wipe while singing about the wheels on the bus all through the store. Since I was planning on taking her to the animal farm and home to Lee Summit later in the day I decided to go to the gas station too. Once home we put away the groceries; picked up toys; ate lunch and then drove to Deanna Rose to enjoy all the farm animals.

As always the place was packed, especially with school children on field trips. This year they have started charging an entry fee so I decided it would be cheaper to buy a family pass since we will probably be there at least twice a month. I paid with a credit card and off we we went to feed bottles of milk to baby goats and quarters to machines that dispense food for the animals. Two hours later I decided to take Ava Claire home. Unfortunately our car had been baking in the sun and was uncomfortably hot so I downed all the windows and cranked the air conditioning on full blast. Soon Ava Claire was complaining that she didn't like the wind in her face so I rolled up the windows, noticing that the car still seemed baking hot. I played with the direction of the air conditioning vents but cold air did not seem to be blasting out. I was driving a different route home than usual : instead of the interstates I was on highways with multiple stop traffic lights: maybe I just needed a long stretch of road with no stops to kick my air conditioner into high gear. Ava Claire was a sorrowful sweaty sight in the back seat so I opened all the windows again only to be told to close them again. I tried to explain that Grandma was having a problem with her air conditioner. “Fix it Grandma.” I was getting quite hot under my collar about the whole lack of cold air and knew I was going to have to get professional help. Once at Coryn's Ava Claire was happily cool again and I decided to stop at Hancock Fabric on my way home, as they were having a going out of business sale. I took the interstate route there but had to admit that my car still seemed to be overly warm. Once inside the store I found some things I needed and headed to the checkout, rummaging in my purse for my credit card. I found one but not my preferred card with the reward points for using it. I also realized that my gas card was missing too.

Once home I dumped out my purse and wallet, then every purse I owned and finally searched the car thinking I might have thrown the cards on the front seat after gassing up but although I found a lot of stuff there were no cards. I checked my receipt from the farm and realized that I had used my less favored card there so I deduced I must have lost it at the gas station. I called both the gas station and farmstead in hopes that someone might have found and handed in my cards but no such luck. I notified the credit card company , canceled my card and had to wait a week for a new one to arrive in the mail. I went online to request a new gas card. I was too exhausted from all this activity to face my car problems so I waited until Monday to take it to the dealership. This was bad news. My magnificent fully loaded 2005 Ford Focus -which has needed no major repairs in the eleven years I have driven it- now required a two thousand dollar one. I palpitated and debated with my service guy the wisdom of making such an expensive repair on a car that's value is at best about four thousand dollars considering that I only have 50,000 miles on it. He said that if I was his mother (thank god he didn't say grandmother) he would advice her to make the repair and keep the car which should be good for at least another five years with my usage. I was surprised that he didn't shove me into the new car show room so decided that his advice was probably in my best interest. Apparently they were going to have to remove not only the engine but the dash board to replace my cracked unit hence the huge cost. I was given a loner as it was a two day repair. Now we come to an even more dire situation.

The day before happened to be Mother's day and Coryn and family came with lunch for us all. When I picked Owen up to snuggle I thought he felt warm so Coryn checked and sure enough he was running a mild fever but his appetite was good and he seemed to be his usual self. The following day Coryn reported that he had vomited during the night, was running a higher fever and had developed a rash so she had taken him to his pediatrician who thought he had a virus which would resolve it self in a couple of days. I told Coryn that I would come over the next day if needed after my car was fixed.

After paying for my car repair I wasn't feeling too good myself but headed over to Lee Summit to offer my help. Owen was much sicker than he had been on Sunday and I urged Coryn not to hesitate to take him back to the doctor if she had any concerns. Since Owen needed his mommy's full attention I took Ava Claire home with me where she stayed for a couple of days as early the next morning Coryn called with the frightening news that Owen had been hospitalized late the previous night at Children's Mercy Hospital. They were running tests and taking into account his Mastocytoma and suspected that he might have Kowasaki disease. Fortunately this was not the case but he was in the hospital for a couple of days with a very high fever. Coryn and Jeremy stayed with him there while Ava Claire remained with me, spending a night at her house to take care of the dogs. Thankfully Owen has made a complete recovery although the doctors were never able to figure out his illness.

After my harrowing start to the week I was glad that I was able to help Kay out with her schools “Fun Day” for the students to mark the end of the school year on Friday, May 13^th. I was warmly thanked as I walked into the school for volunteering and was asked to go to the art room where they desperately needed help. I walked in to find out that I was going to be face painting. My blood pressure soared, my heart beat frantically, I broke out in a cold sweat and confessed that I had no experience - I hardly even paint my own face these days. Apparently no one else had any training either – we were all new to the game. They had only been able to find one experienced volunteer and she was missing in action.

I felt sorry for the children as I did my best to turn them into wolves, dogs, butterflies and ladybugs and was so grateful to the ones who only wanted a spider or football on their cheeks. I consoled myself with the thought that they couldn't actually see my artistic handiwork on their faces until the lady who knew what she was doing arrived with her own materials and a huge mirror which all the kids were soon checking themselves in. Frankly I was glad that none of them burst into tears once they looked at my paint jobs! I think I was getting the hang of it by the time I got to my twentieth kid though!

That night I decided it might be a good idea to pay some house hold bills. I wrote out my first check- which happened to be the last in my current book- so I opened my drawer to reach for a new book of checks only to discover that there were none. I couldn't believe that I had to deal with yet another problem. Thank goodness for the days of twenty-four seven instant customer service! I ordered them that night and they were delivered a few days later. Another crisis resolved.

The next big event was Ava Claire's 3^rd Birthday Party – a princess themed gala event. Coryn had spent a lot of time on handmade invitations, turning her entryway and staircase into a Cinderella at the Ball scene, and the princess décor continued into the backyard which was decked out with a bubble machine , helium filled balloons, a shade canopy , Disney music and four live ponies to ride.

There were Disney Princess pictures to color at the children's tables and a box of princess dress up clothes which the girls enjoyed – I had spent hours altering a princess dress for Ava Claire because Coryn had bought a bargain Rapunzel dress that was too big and needed a laced corset back detail in her opinion. As any one who sews knows it can take longer to deconstruct and redo an outfit that it does to start from scratch but your ever anxious to make her children happy mother obliged and noted that Ava Claire spent all of thirty minutes in the dress before switching with another girl who wore the dress for the remainder of the party! I had also been coerced into making tissue paper flowers as centerpieces for the tables. Coryn was eyeing my in full bloom clematis trailing up the deck at my

house earlier in the week and musing about the possibility of my cutting it up into long pieces to lay down the center of her dinning tables. I made it quite clear that was not happening and suggested she head to the flower store- unless she wanted something more whimsical like the tissue flowers we used every spring at the store. She vaguely recalled so I quickly made one up and was told that would be perfect. I offered her my tissue paper to use but she looked at me and said she couldn't possibly figure out how to do it! Surely I could make up a couple of dozen for the table bouquets. Of course I caved.

Josh has just emailed to let me know that his return to Kansas City has been pushed back from July to early September, obviously he is loving Europe like Sean. Marc is also heading over there this summer and Ming-Lee and family should be there in a matter of days. Sometimes I think I would see more of my kids if I moved back!

If any one is thinking of staying in this country don't forget that Mother's home is always open to you, with my English country garden, standard English cuisine and authentic accent – why do you really need to cross the pond? I'll even fly the Union Jack, love Mother.