Dear Readers,
I think my children are trying to kill me! The first weekend in August Lori, Claudia, and the Remsburgs came to town so we had family get-togethers at my house, Kay and Richards, and Coryn and Jeremy’s. While we were all enjoying the ambience of Kay’s yard, Sean was organizing a football game with some of the kids and was a player short so I promptly volunteered my skills once no-one else did! Sean, the only one of my children to express any concern for my safety pointed out a tripping hazard in the yard which I duly noted but unfortunately in my enthusiasm to catch the football and running at full speed I tripped right over the hazard and scored a touchdown without the ball! Sean and Owen helped me to my feet whilst my other children and grandchildren were laughing too hard to care and of course Lori caught it all on video! I only suffered a minor cut and a couple of bruised knees! Just goes to show what eating cheese as your primary source of protein does for your bones! Most old ladies would have probably fractured a few in taking such a fall but of course I have a nicely cushioned body to ensure I bounce rather than break!
Later in the day a group of us were sitting in the living room when someone asked if we could do an Asian squat. Some of us had no idea what this was and so a demonstration ensued: basically you have to get as low to the ground as possible with your feet together and your thighs resting up against your calves. Some of us could and some of us could not - I of course was one of the could nots and fell over, bruising only my ego! It was suggested that perhaps only Asians could do this but this theory was debunked whenJeremy tried it and succeeded very impressively- especially considering that he has had knee surgery! Coryn failed too which amazed me as she is so into fitness and was a beautiful ballet dancer! We all missed Marc being there knowing how much family fun we would have derived from his attempts to do it! |
| Jeremy and Owen pose perfect on the Asian squat! |
The next day I took my third fall in Ava Claire’s bathroom! I managed to successfully complete the obstacle course across her messy room. She is just like her Auntie Leslee: as a teenager it was almost impossible to see a patch of flooring under the heaps of clothes, shoes, bags and stuff! I made it to the bathroom, kicking more stuff aside as I lowered myself onto the toilet seat only to land on the floor, with the toilet seat, and my knickers all in a twist as we say in England.! Ava Claire said she noticed it was broken a couple of weeks ago but just shoved it back on and thought it was fixed! Obviously her little butt was not as efficient as my big butt in dislodging the seat! I have been assured that a new toilet seat has been installed.
Cladia was the first to arrive for this family weekend of fun - so early that I was still in my nightie and drinking my first cup of coffee! Jeremy dropped Ava Claire and Owen off, then the Remsburgs arrived, and Lori drove in from Indianapolis around three having made a very early morning start to avoid stormy weather en route. Coryn, Sean and family Kay and the boys and lastly Jeremy. I fixed supper for twenty two! Chicken Fajitas, beef tacos, shrimp, a cheese tray, dips and chips! I had prepped all the peppers,onions and tomatoes the night before so they were ready to cook or serve raw. I used three chickens and three pounds of hamburger!
Kay and Ricard grilled hotdogs and hamburgers for us and on Sunday we feasted on Kansas City Barbecue! We were also celebrating Claudia’s birthday - a day early - and she made her own birthday cake from scratch - a very delicious orange flavored cake with chocolate ganache! |
| Claudiia's birthday cake! |
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| Claudia and Lori posing in front of Coryn's banner! |
Coryn’s neighbors opened their pool to us again which was greatly appreciated as we were suffering through another very hot and humid day and after four injuries in as many minutes on the slip and slide in the Logue’s yard it was a much needed change of scenery!
Lucas was greatly admired by all our visiting family who were meeting him for the first time! He has the most infectious smile with his big dimples and delighted coo’s. He is certainly the center of any Kansas City gathering as his cousins adore him, especially Lochlan who will often choose to play with the baby over doing anything else!  |
| Lochlan chatting with Kay and Lucas |
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| Lucas is the center of attentionwith his cousins! |
Callie and Ray were soon happily playing with their cousins and enjoying my new basketball hoops! We now have a mini half court in the driveway! Josh refurbished my old backboard, hoop and pole - which I thought was beyond repair and hence had purchased a brand new one! So we now have two hoops in my driveway which has worked out well as we have set one at a lower height for the younger children! I have to say the big old boys seemed to have as much fun with my new and improved setup as the children!
On Monday morning, August 3rd, I was babysitting Lucas with the Remsburgs preparing to head home later that day whilst Sarah and Sean stopped for a short while so the cousins could have one last playtime together! Sean and family were heading off to Fort Madison that day so that Sarah could see the small Iowan town he had grown up in before they drove on to Wisconsin !t was sad to see pictures of the old YMCA that we had renovated into a family home so unkept. I wonder if anyone even lives there anymore. Junk fills the driveway and the house is so overgrown with weeds and vines. Sean said he could not even identify my store amongst the largely empty storefronts that line Avenue G. But the kids enjoyed their trip to Halls Icecream shop, mini golf, and lunch at the Subarena!  |
| We ate a lot of sandwiches here, especially when they were located downtown near my store!! |
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| One last cousin visit! |
In late June I was motivated to paint my kitchen walls the same color as my adjoining family room. I was hosting a gathering of my neighbors for a farewell dinner for a couple downsizing to apartment living so I decided to patch some minor cracks and clear some old decor off the countertops and hopefully give it a more updated look. While I was halfway up a ladder, rolling paint on the walls Josh stopped by with an old friend, Evan Fahey, from his High School days. Evan questioned why I and not Josh was on the ladder, obviously much more concerned for my safety than my kids! However I took the opportunity to mention that although I was fine with painting walls I would appreciate some help with installing new hinges and door pulls on my cabinets! Then Evan and Josh headed out to the Power and Light district to join in all the festivities in honor of the FIFA games being held in our city!
The next day Sean showed up with his kids and offered to finish up the painting in exchange for my watching the kids! I pointed out that there wasn’t much left to do but Sean was very keen so I handed over the roller and played with my grand kids! Sean even returned another day - with the kids - to caulk and paint one wall where the join between the wall and ceiling
was uneven. He never fails to point out this and other household repairs that he has accomplished for me on most of his visits to my house!
Josh came through with the hardware and replaced all my old brass cabinet hinges and pulls with streamlined stainless steel to match my kitchen appliances! Ava Claire was staying with me at the time and Josh enlisted her help to clean and do some touch up painting on all the cabinet fronts when they were removed. The new hinges did not fit into the previous slots so Josh had to add some wood wafers which necessitated using some very stinky glue but of course I knew better than to utter a single complaint! I also said nothing when my deluxe Marha Stewart dining room was commandeered by Josh as his workshop!! Thank goodness he set up my rickety folding table that I use for painting furniture instead of using my dining room table! And of course it just so happened that Sean showed up with his kids the day Josh put all my doors and drawers back inI Teamwork!  |
| Joshua's make shift work space in my Martha Stewart dinning room! |
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| Josh and Sean updating my kitchen! |
So thrilled was I with this improvement that I dared to suggest that the family room cabinets would also look much nicer with updated hardware: preferably in black. Josh did not seem too enthused about this project so I was pleasantly surprised when he showed up one day with a box of new black hardware in a dressier style than those in the kitchen! This time Owen was staying with me and he was enlisted to help - with Josh letting him use a power drill on my cabinet hinges propped on my sofa! I had visions of holes being driven right through my upholstery but of course said nothing. I am thrilled with how much better they look and for the first tim since I have lived in this house the doors on the television cabinet are properly aligned! |
| Thank you Josh! |
Kansas City seemed to do a stellar job of hosting the four teams who elected to base themselves here, my England team being one of them! I certainly enjoyed watching my boys play and felt that we could have won the whole thing! Next time we will for sure! Now of course I am back to cheering on my Kansas City Chiefs!
Many of our family members have been traveling recently, Sarah and Sean flew to Los Angeles over the Labor Day weekend - the children stayed with me,and Coryn, with assistance from Uncle Josh! Sarah and Sean stayed in Bryn and Gabi’s house but without them as they were vacationing in Italy! They met up with some of Sarah’s college friends and managed to have dinner with Marc one night only as Marc had another ongoing big court case so was working all weekend. Craig has been working in Paris, then went on to Greece leaving Leslee-Ann home with Ray and Callie. Ming Jon flew out to Kansas City to see the Flaigs, meeting Lucas for the first time, whilst Jeremy, Ava Claire and Owen went to Oklahoma City! Coryn elected to remain behind to help me out with the grand kids and to nurse her very itchy rash that covered her legs. I had urged her to see a doctor to get some medication which she thankfully did! Just imagine if this had happened to one of her hypochondriacal siblings - they would have been incapable of helping out with their niece and nephews but Coryn came by after work on Friday to have supper with us all -Josh too and then after bathtime she headed home. I have to admit it was a challenge to get everyone settled in for the night: at first they were going to sleep upstairs and tried out various combinations but no -one stayed put. Liam then decided that he wanted to sleep on the living room coach, where Owen always beds down so Lochlan joined him demanding that I push the coaches together to make one big bed! Emmy Lou decided she would join her brothers and Cillian had to squeeze onto the makeshift bed too as Emmy claimed he could not sleep without her! I snuck off to my bed and for a few blissful moments thought I was going to have the bed to myself for the night but the noise from the living room soon convinced me that four children in one space was not going to allow anyone to sleep so I carried Cillian into my room where he was promptly joined by Emmy Lou who was determined to mother him in her mother’s absence, piling my bed with extra blankets - (in the middle of a heatwave), enough soft toys to set up a shop and of course cups of water! I had to threaten the boys with the loss of all the treats in my pantry to finally get them to sleep! But by ten-thirty all was quiet! |
| Kids love the sofa bed but it is not great for sleep! |
Coryn came over the following day bringing lunch and offering to take two of the children to her house for a sleepover that night and the other two the next night. However the two not selected for the first night were so upset -Cillian in tears, shut himself in the toy closet - that Coryn bravely volunteered to take all four and that resulted in four smiley faces and promises to be extra good at Auntie Coryn’s house otherwise I would drive over and pick them up!! While I was packing clothes, swimsuits and pajamas for the children, Coryn was out in the broiling sun setting up two car seats, and two booster seats in her vehicle to transport the children. All this activity in the intense heat caused her rash to flare up but she soldiered on and took the children to a Splash Pad, McDonald's for Happy Meals, and to her neighborhood pool where Josh joined them as Coryn was not wearing a bathing suit in public with her rash!
I slept so well on Saturday night and was ready for the children’s return later in the day!Coryn dropped them off around lunchtime and Josh came by in the afternoon with a treasure hunt game he had devised, complete with hidden written clues, monster sound effects and the discovery of ice blocks and fruit syrups in a cooler to make monster slushies! Earlier in the day I had let them throw ping pong balls over the upstairs balcony down into bowls below! The bowls were worth different points and poor Cillian was very upset that none of his balls landed in a bowl! But they wore themselves out running up and down the stairs to retrieve the balls and I got a lot of exercise moving the sofa’s to chase out balls that had rolled under them! |
| Washing my car in the broiling heat! |
On Sunday night I had all four children bathed and in bed by nine-thirty! Coryn and Josh returned on Monday and Coryn had the children wash my car in their bathing suits before she headed home! Since the children were already in swimsuits I set up my splash pad for them in the back yard and they ran around for quite a while despite the triple digit heat! I sat on a chair, gulping water and hoping the fat was melting off me!
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| Uncle Josh and his slushies treasure hunt was a big hit! |
Sarah and Sean arrived from the airport around four and were very happy to be home - having missed their offspring a lot! I was very happy to send them home with my four grandchildren! But seriously they were fun for the most part! Ava Claire and Owen will be staying with me the first weekend in October as their parents are going to Herman, Missouri for Octoberfest with friends. I'm sure that Sarah and Sean will want them to spend a night at their house to entertain their cousins! I am so blessed to have this time with my grandchildren, spending two days a week caring for Lucas, and spending my Friday afternoons with Cillian!
It is fortunate that spending so much time with my family does not allow me to dwell on the totally chaotic world that narcissistic Trump and his sycophants have created in two years. I can only hope that the mid-terms will bring some sanity back to our politics and policies.I was delighted to see that the Irish gave him the welcome he deserves! Definitely time for term limits for all politicians, age limits, cognitive and health assessments!
Love from your Mother who is hoping for cooler days as we head into fall, for the clocks not to fall back and for me to stay on my feet!
