THE LOWE FAMILY NEWSLETER VOLUME 80

NOVEMBER 201

Dear Children, Family and Friends,

I shall be spreading my feathers over an almost empty nest this Thanksgiving. Only two chicks, Bryn and Sean to feed. Joshua has flown the coup again – headed back to the rain forests to volunteer at an animal rescue reserve for a few months. He is planning on spending time in Bolivia, Columbia and Peru. Worse more of my brood will be flying out in January to join him. Sean, Bryn and his girlfriend plus Leslee and Craig will be making the four day trek to Machu Picchu as part of their adventure. They were all on their phones one Sunday discussing their various travel dates and flight times, seemingly vying to have the worse connections, lay overs and airlines. It seems to be a torturous two day trip before they even begin biking and hiking. The only thing I can be thankful for is that my suitcase will not be “borrowed” by anyone for this back backing trip.

Coryn and Jeremy are spending Thanksgiving with his family in Oklahoma City – I was hoping that they would host it this year but they are still without dinning tables and chairs but their new furniture will be here in time for Christmas! Apparently Coryn decided that their old furniture was not suitable for the new abode.

Ming Jon flew out for a weekend visit at the beginning of the month to spend some time with his dad. Ming- Jon is being very pro active in seeking out other job opportunities in case his hours are further reduced at work. Hopefully Obama's re-election will help as they rely on some public funding. He will be staying in Washington to spend Christmas with Kay who will be flying to Myanmar on December 26th to spend the holidays with relatives there. Unfortunately he missed Bryn - he was in Las Vegas with his girlfriend who lives there. Apparently Bryn met her when he was there for Jeremy's bachelor party and they have maintained a long distance relationship for a few months. Bryn was able to keep this quiet for awhile but now that I know that one of my highly eligible bachelor son's is dating I am very anxious to meet her.

The last Thursday in October found me driving in rush hour traffic and torrential rain to the airport to catch my flight to Indianapolis to spend a few days with Ming-Lee, Lori, Blake and Claudia. Sitting in traffic on I35 I was relatively calm knowing I had plenty of time as my flight was delayed due to a 'mechanical' problem . It took over an hour to get to the economy parking lot where I found a space as close as possible to the shuttle bus stop as it was still raining. I grabbed my suitcase and dashed to the shelter where I whipped out my cell phone and took a snap of my bus stop number whilst trying to commit my row number to memory. I frequently suffer from the ' where the hell did I park' syndrome when I leave a store. My car never seems to be where I think it should be.

In a few minutes a shuttle arrived, dropped me at my terminal where I hurried inside to strip for the security check in line. I am amazed that people still elect to wear so many accessories: hard to remove shoes,multiple layers, belts, scarfs and hats when they know it all has to come off. Some girl further up the line was hopping around on one foot frantically trying to pull her boot off the other. A guy held us up trying to pull his belt through his too tight pant loops. I would have told him to drop his pants and get a move on. I have my jacket off, my slip on shoes off my feet and my arms in the air way before I get to the bins.

Once aboard my flight Ming called my cell to let me know that he was tracking me and would be

ready for my call to let him know where to pick me up outside the terminal. This I did upon my arrival but it took a little longer for Ming to arrive than I was expecting so I hopefully scrunched up my eyes and peered into every car that pulled up to the curb to see if my Ming was behind the wheel. When a pick -up truck with a trailer attached pulled up I didn't bother to squint. I was surprised when Ming jumped out, gave me a hug and grabbed my bag . Apparently the airport is near the city leaf dump so Ming decided to drop of all the leaves raked from his yard before he picked me up.

I arrived in Indy to enjoy a far pleasanter day than I had left in Kansas with warm sunshine that allowed us to enjoy a delicious home cooked gourmet dinner on the patio – a treat in late October. Lori had picked up a fall themed jig- saw puzzle that we all worked on after dinner with the exception of Claudia who was very into the activity book I had picked out for her.

Friday morning Lori, Claudia and I shopped while Ming and Blake did their thing. While shopping at Jo-Ann's for thread Lori and I picked out a fabric sample that we thought would work well to recover her dinning room chairs. Then we moved on to another store where we found a table /tray for the sun room and what I thought was the perfect shelf for their newly remodeled bathroom off the family room. They have gone with a French theme and I thought this painting of the Eiffel tower with a shallow shelf attached would be perfect for displaying some French books .Ming was not enthused about it at all. He is definitely as into decorating as Lori! But he did like our other choices.

Whilst dinning at a seafood restaurant that evening I was able to feast my eyes on my grandchildren enjoying sushi – raw seafood is something that I will not touch. Then they each ordered a very adult entree. They don't seem to have normal kid taste buds at all. When I suggested that they might enjoy McDonald’s more they were horrified. They don't like fast food! They truly do have sophisticated palates – unlike Grandma who still loves milk shakes and french fries! Kudos to Ming and Lori for introducing their children to such diverse dinning. When Norm and I were both working the only diversity in our menu was between pizza franchises , Kentucky Fried Chicken, Hardees and McDonalds. The positive outcome of this childhood junk diet being that all eight of our children are relatively healthy eaters, who are into whole foods, organic foods and colon cleansing shakes. Ugh!

Friday night I decided to accept my hosts kind offer of a long, relaxing hot bath in their pristine master bathroom's whirlpool tub. Such a contrast to the moldy, rank and dank bathroom at Marc's place. Lori gave me a bottle of bubble bath, piles of towels and candles. I was rapturous thinking that my belly button would be submerged again – something that never happens in our small and shallow tub at home. Once settled into the tub I decided that I would switch the jets on for awhile before I used the bubble bath. It took me a while to figure out the system but once the water was pulsating and my insulation was vibrating I waxed nostalgic about all the wonderful bathrooms in my past. I think it was two minutes into my spa experience that I realized I had company in the tub. At first I thought little fish were swimming around ( maybe I need those meds more than your dad) but when I touched one I realized it was something else but what? I pushed buttons until the jets stopped and clambered out of the tub to get my glasses so that I could see what ever was swirling around with me. Frankly it looked like runny diarrhea. I wrapped myself in a towel and rushed downstairs urging Lori to come up and take a look at my bath. She was horrified and summoned Ming. He diagnosed the problem as dirt built up in the jets after a lot of baths with all that stuff females love to toss in and too few uses of the jets. I now felt in dire need of a bath as my body crawled with dirty thoughts of what had literally been washing over me. Lori handed me her robe and suggested a nice cup of tea while I waited for the water

heater to make bath number two possible. This I took in another bathroom with lots of cleansing bubbles!

In between a game of scrabble, shopping and eating Lori and I found time to sew a skirt for Claudia. I think Lori did very well for a first skirt project, producing a cute and very wearable garment.

Saturday we headed over to the Lake House where I again admired the stunning view albeit from inside as it was very chilly that day. Ming and Blake were soon busy moving the boat from their dock to winter storage, mowing the grass and loading branches from a recent storm onto the trailer. Ming offered to fire up the hot tub in the enclosed porch but no-one was game so we did another jigsaw, snuggled up to the wood stove with hot mulled cider and candy! This grandma's hand was in the bags more often than the kids!

Initially spending time at the lake house was worrisome for me as previously they had no internet access out there and I was concerned about printing my boarding pass out exactly twenty-four hours before flight time. Southwest airline has a cattle call system: no assigned seats so if you want any chance of not being in a middle seat, having a space in an overhead bin or avoiding the screaming baby you have to be in the early boarding group A or at least the first 30 of Group B. The morning before my flight I was at my computer exactly twenty four hours ahead of time so that I could print of my boarding pass and I made it into group A. What a relief! Of course since flying is Ming's vocation he was far was less concerned about my boarding position being a frequent 'standby' flier himself. I was very relieved when I discovered that they now had internet access and that their neighbors had a printer we could use. Thankfully I made it into the single digits of Group B for my return.

Sunday after lunch we headed to the airport – again with a trailer hitched behind us so that Ming could dump his branches in Crawfordsville this time. My flight was on time and I drove home before it turned dark to find that Norm was once again well taken care of by the kids. We had hired in some extra help for one of the days and Norm liked her so that worked out very well.

Mother had the stuffing knocked out of her one recent morning when I looked outside and saw a couple of deer bedded down in between my house and Daltons. I grabbed my camera and went outside in my nightie to take some pictures of the “dear” couple. Knowing that Jeremy had been deer hunting with no luck the previous weekend I sent Coryn a picture to show him what was available in his mother-in-laws backyard. She thought Jeremy might camp out in my back yard next time. The deer stayed in the yard all day, just moving from side to side. Too bad there was no snow on the ground for the perfect Christmas picture.

I hope you all have a very special Thanksgiving and know how special to me you all are. This chick is very thankful for my large brood- who ruffle my feathers, gobble my food, and keep this old bird in fine fettle . Love Mom