THE LOWE FAMILY NEWSLETTER VOLUME 162 SEPTEMBER 2025
Dear Readers.
On July 2nd Lori and Claudia drove from Fort Madison, IA ( where they were visiting old family friends, Lori and Roger Griswold, and Sue Welch Sauders) to Kansas City. They stayed with Coryn and Jeremy in Lee’s summit with Blake flying in from Seattle to join us on Friday! We love a reunion with the Indy Lowes! Josh had returned to Kansas City shortly before, after spending his first two weeks back on American soil with the Remsbergs in their new Winter Garden home!
Lori and Claudia arrived at my house on Thursday and were quickly overwhelmed by Alex, Liam, Lochlan and Cilian who were spending the day with Grandma !The boys were delighted with all the extra attention but I sensed that Lori and Claudia might appreciate a break from being used like monkey bars by the boys who scrambled all over them. I decided to set up my bounce house,slide and pool to divert the boys attention and thus we were able to sit in relative peace watching the boys play! Later in the afternoon Coryn arrived with Ava Claire and Owen and once they had finished working Sarah,Sean and Kay arrived and we all enjoyed supper together before they all headed home! Unfortunately this was the only time that the Flaigs had to spend with Lori and Caudia as they were flying to Washington DC the next day to visit Kay’s parents and her Uncle who had flown in from Singapore to visit friends in New York before arranging to meet up with the Flaigs and return to Kansas City with them.
Josh, Grandma, Coryn, Kay and Sarah watching the kids play 
Lori and Caudia proving that everyone love's Grandma's snacks 
Claudia with Alex in back, Cillian, Liam and Lochlan all clamoring for attention!
The next day was July 4th and Coryn hosted the family that day - as living in Missouri they are free to shoot off fireworks in their own neighborhoods whereas in Kansas to do so is strictly prohibited. To kick the festivities off her ever generous neighbors, Jenny and Kevin invited us all over to their pool that afternoon - all fifteen of us Lowes - good thing they have a large pool and plenty of seating! Not to mention the enormous buffet put together by them and their neighbors!
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| Fun at Jenny and Kevin's pool! |
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| Claudia, Jeremy, Kevin, Josh,Jenny and Coryn |
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| Emmy Lou loves swimming! |
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| Fun pool for the kids! |
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| Blake,Claudia and Lori |
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| Sean and Ava Claire watching the litle ones |
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| Claudia wih Emmy Lou, Liam, Lochlan and Sean |
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| Cillian |
The neighbours in their cul de sac had pooled their resources and made several trips to purchase fireworks and as always we enjoyed a front row seat at a show that was as good as many firework displays I have seen!
Much to Uncle Jeremy’s delight he had an enthusiastic helper in Liam - who was much more into it than his own children! Ava Claire stayed inside the house most of the night declaring it too noisy and was joined for much of the time by Emmy Lou who sympathized with her older cousin!
Liam was in his element helping set the fireworks on the ground ready to be lit by an adult and kept up a running commentary on what was going to explode next! I do not think Liam left his uncle’s side that night. Of course Loclan and Cilian loved it too - especially when the fireworks exploded and rained down mini parachutes on them!
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| Grandma with Blake and Claudia |
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| Auntie Coryn dancing with Cilian in the pink smke |
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| Owen with dad Jeremy and Liam who was clued to Jeremy all night! |
July 5th we all got together at Sarah and Sean’s house where the highlight of the day was an activity that Claudia had planned for the kids : tie-dyeing tee shirts! Since this was a messy project,especially with so many little kids, plus an extra friend of Emmy Lou’s who showed up, it was decided to do the dyeing outside on tarps and then all the shirts were taken back to Coryn’s house to be washed and handed out to their creators the following day! Lori treated us all to a catered barbecue lunch which was a big hit of course.
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| Claudia's tie dying project was a big hit! |
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| Sarah and Josh pitched into help and make their own too! |
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| My Fair Lady at Theater in the Park |
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| Ava Claire, Coryn, Claudia, Lori and Blake |
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| Some of the family in their own artistic shirts! |
On Monday Lori drove back to Indy while Blake flew home and Claudia flew to Utah to meet up with friends before she moved into her first apartment and new job! We wish her every success as she enters the next phase of her
In early August we had another family get together. The Remburgs flew to Des Moines to take in a Hot Air Balloon festival and to meet up with some college friends! Marc Andrew was talked into joining them there and driving down to Kansas City in their rental minivan. And of course they used the trip down to devise a story that would have mother teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Their rental car pulled into my driveway and Craig, Leslee-Ann, Ray and Callie got out but no Marc! . Leslee Ann and Craig assured me that they had checked with him after he failed to meet them for breakfast at their hotel and that he told them to leave without him as he was having bowel issues and would make his own way to my home once he felt able to get his butt off the toilet! This was a feasible story as Marc has all kinds of anal retentive issues ! I was surprised that Leslee-Ann and Craig had not just decided to wait for Marc. To find out what was going on at his end - literally and figuratively- I called him and he claimed to be on his way down I35 after hitching a ride with a trucker to the exit just yards from my oh so conveniently situated house! I asked how he could choose such a risky way to get here and questioned why he hadn’t rented a car - after all with his recent multi million settlement he won for a client he is not exactly in a situation where money is of any concern! Before I could get any more details he rang off and I was left to ponder the feasibility of this story. Josh was the only one of my boys who I believed capable of thumbing a ride - so I was very dubious about the validity of this story. Eventually Marc arrived, sporting a big grin and a straw hat, looking like a scarecrow! Hard to believe anyone would give him a ride looking like that! Eventually I found out that the Remsburgs had dropped him off at his friend's house ( another lawyer he had worked with in LA) as he wanted Marc’s help setting up a new computer system! The friend had then driven Marc to my house! The kids were delighted that they had given me a few anxious moments of course!
These were not the only anxious moments I endured that day - my microwave started smoking after being used to make about five cartons of mac’n cheese for the kids! Ava Claire was most distressed as she was the one making lunch for all her cousins! I suggested that we unplug it, wait for it to cool down, and then try again. I plugged it back in but it was definitely fried. That microwave is essential kitchen equipment with the eating habits of my grandchildren and of course the fact that most of them only drink hot milk at my house. Leslee-Ann and Craig immediately offered to run up to Target to get a new one for me but ultimately Coryn took on that task so my problem was resolved!
Jeremy made a very dramatic entrance into my house later that evening in honor of his visiting brother-n-law Craig's love of World Wide Wrestling- which he does a lot of work for with his production company.
Jeremy in costume!
Last year, when we had our family gathering, Bryn had very generously purchased Kona Ices for everybody from a truck circulating Coryn’s neighborhood so when all 22 of us were spending the day at Kay and Richard’s new house, Coryn arranged for an ice cream truck to pull up in front of their house! She announced that we all got ice-cream treats on Uncle Marc ! I applauded my daughter's ingenuity at Marc’s expense! I had no idea that you could book an appointment with an ice cream van driver!
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| Marc organizing the line for icecrea orders! |
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| Who knew you could order an ice cream van? |
One of the highlights was meeting Bryn’s lovely girlfriend, Gabby and their Pomeranian ball of fluff named Mazzy. Some of the family had already met her when visiting their LA brothers so at least we weren’t all new to her! She has a very easy going personality and was very chill when all the children were petting, playing and feeding the dog endless treats! She and Bryn seem to be making some long term plans!
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| Gabby and Bryn relaxing amongst the chaos! |
The Remsburgs and Marc stayed with me initially but once the Remsbergs left to fly home Marc decided to move over to Coryn’s house as he was staying for another week and had a lot of work to do and thus decided that sharing a house with Ava Claire and Owen was preferable to staying at my house where most of the little kids would be attending Grandma's summer camp for the week as their camps had shut down for the season and school was not opening for a another three weeks!
Sarah and Sean hosted us all one day and we all thought of Norm and Ming-Lee that day - who both loved to cook and knew how happy they would be to see Sean, with Coryn and Leslee-Ann making wontons from scratch with Norm’s special sauce! Most of us ate so many of them that we had little room for all the dishes that followed
Coryn, Sean and Leslee- Ann coking together
It was certainly lovely to have most of the family here at some point this summer - time just flew! But not for everyone - Ava Claire decided that she was going to start school this year wearing contacts in place of glasses. Coryn made her an appointment with an optician to help her make the switch but the whole process was extremely difficult for her! Every-one in the family who does or did wear contacts offered to help her - Sean, Blake and Leslee-Ann all worked with her but she just struggled to get them in and of course the more she tried the more emotionally fraught and distressed she became.Coryn had her go back to the optician’s a couple of times again in hopes that they could finally teach her how to do it but it ended up being a friend of Coryn’s that succeeded in teaching Ava Claire how to pt her contact in and then take them out again - just in time for the first day of school! What a relief! It had been a very stressful few weeks for us all!
I almost blew a gasket when I recently discovered that I needed to replace a valve on my bathtub. I had noticed that shutting off the water was becoming harder for me at my times and wondered if perhaps I was developing arthritis in my wrists but one night when Josh was fortuitously staying with me he came to the rescue when I could not get it to shut off. He checked the situation out and said I needed a new cartridge probably but unfortunately I would need a plumber to do the installation as he did not have the specialised tools needed - and besides which he was flying to Greece that weekend!
I checked with Kay and Richard for the contact information for the plumbing company that they had used to remodel their bathrooms, checked their customer reviews online and they came out the very next day. The plumber advised me that replacing a cartridge was a fifty/fifty situation. Sometimes it worked , sometimes it did not and a valve replacement, although more costly at $1,100.00 compared to $400.00 for a cartridge, was guaranteed to fix the issue. Thinking of the age of my house I opted for the valve. Unfortunately in order to do the job the plumber had to remove a few tiles - which broke! Sean, on seeing the gaping hole in my tile work, decided to temporarily install a piece of drywall over it so the kids would not be tempted to drop things down it or worse yet to have a mouse or snake pop out of it! More about the mouse and snake later! Unfortunately he broke more tile in the process and so I abandoned my first solution - which was to insert a contrasting tile that would look like a decorative accent rather than a patch job - but since I have a separate standing shower I would of course have to do the same decorative accent there as well and realized that the chances of removing a section of tiling without cracking any adjacent tiles were very slim. Therefore I decided to retile both the shower and tub.
I was very relieved when one of my neighbors stopped by to see my bathroom and said she had had to replace all the valves on her tubs and showers too!
As we all know I love to take a bath over a shower so I was very anxious to have my bathroom back in working order as soon as possible.I went with the most reasonable bid - one contractor quoted me $17,000.00 just to rip out the existing tile around the tub and shower and replace it with his companies grout free panelling which looks like the acrylic baths and showers we had back in the eighties to me - just a marginally nicer finish- or tile! That was without replacing the tub, shower pan or fixtures! Who would be crazy enough to spend that amount of money for so little?
I am pleased to say that I got a new shower pan, drain and clear glass doors, tile and all other supplies plus labor for under $3,000.00 which is an excellent feat in my opinion!
Now back to the mouse and snake. Josh moved in with me for a week whilst Sarah’s parents were visiting and once his work day was finished he decided to check my basement for possible entry points for mice. I have had several mouse traps in my basement for years, along with all the high tech noise emitting plugins that are supposed to get on their nerves- so much so that they run from your house never to return - but they do not seem to work! Josh found a mouse in one of my traps and was determined to keep them out forever this time! He removed all the insulation from my storage room, pulled off the siding outside under the deck and found the entry point! He also found a black rat snake which he claimed was behaving very aggressively so he disposed of it! It was probably due to that snake that I have not had a mouse problem for a long time!
Joshua’s efforts to rid my house of all mouse portals led to one of my neighbors, Elena, calling me, and when I did not answer my phone she asked another neighbor to check on me as she had seen a strange man walking back and forth around my house and she was convinced he was casing the joint and feared for my safety plus he didn’t seem to have a vehicle!! My other neighbor, Steve, arrived at my door with his firearm and asked if I was alright as Elena was worried about the man she had seen checking around my basement! I found it quite hilarious that my son had been mistaken for a possible intruder and explained that he was looking for mouse holes! I also mentioned that Josh spends very little time in this country as he can work anywhere in the world and does not need a car as he just borrows one from whoever he is staying with when he is in the USA. I have the best neighbors - they all call if I leave my garage door open after dark, forget to put my porch light on or if they don’t see me out and about!
I have started to work on the Bee themed nursery for my soon to be here second great grandson! Kay is feeling more tired with this pregnancy and was having to go for more frequent check ups than usual because the baby was in the 98th percentile for size! Last week he dropped to the 87th percentile so hopefully he will not tip the scales at 12lbs plus! I joked that he would probably be born walking! I still remember when 101/2 lb Callie sat herself up in my lap when she was just two months old! Cutting out quilt blocks has given me another focus - other than my bathroom and hopefully soon to be scheduled basement drain tile and second sump pump installation project !
Currently we are enduring another heat wave and prolonged dry spells which means I am moving sprinklers around my garden and hand watering my pots daily, drenched in sweat! I am using my upstairs bathroom right now and I will be so glad when I can fill my tub with bubbles, listen to my classical music and relax as I hope the water comes up far enough to cover my belly button! Perhaps I should have splurged on a soaker tub after all but with my luck the floor would cave in with the additional weight - water that is, not me- and my new bathroom would end up in the basement - but it would have a garden view! Love Mother
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| The kids chasing rabbits around my front yard! Some in their PJ's after bath night at Grandma's |
