We now have a small lake in our side yard that we may as well begin stocking fish in, since it seems it will not get repaired anytime soon. At least that way we could charge people to come fishing and help offset the cost of water bill this month! Our neighbor, Ed Dodds, came over on Monday night, during the biggest snow storm in the past decade in this part of the state and said we might have a problem. He noticed that the yard should have been filled with nearly a foot of snow between our houses…instead there is a large, round circle that is defrosted and saturated (and getting bigger by the day!). We knew we may have a leak when we received the dreaded yellow card of high consumption late last month. We checked inside and couldn’t find anything. It never dawned on us to check outside (or perhaps in a bit of denial?). Anyhow, we found a plumber that night, but we’ve had numerous obstacles that have cropped up throughout the entire week. To begin with, it is frigid outside and there is a foot of snow on the ground and we had several problems getting the various buried utilities to come out and mark the ground for several days. What really grinds my gears is that on Thursday, it was safe enough for us to send our children to school on buses in the snow and ice, but somehow it wasn’t safe enough for the gas company and water company men to drive in their pick ups!? Are you kidding me? That is pathetic. On top of it all, the after hours emergency line for the water company is a joke. It goes to an unmanned voicemail box but doesn’t allow you anyway to leave a message! Mom suggested I have Sandy say something about it on the air…which is interesting. I may just have to talk to her about that… It now looks like they might finally get started the first Monday of February; nearly 6 weeks after our first indication that there was a problem…
In other news, (as stated earlier) we finally got some of the white stuff to go along with our cold temperatures! It started snowing late Monday afternoon and didn’t stop until Wednesday morning. We continued to get heavy flurries until Friday morning. In between, we got about 9 inches of snow all told, along with about an inch of ice (sleet / freezing rain) right in the middle of it all. It was cool, as everything was held in place because of the ice pack in the middle. The swings held the entire 10 inches of precipitation, as did the mailboxes and cars. The kids went to school on Monday and again on Thursday, but were off the other three days. Lukey was the first to go out to play in it. He got out and just kind of stood there for a few minutes and took it all in. Lola loves the snow and constantly wants to go in and out of the house now.
Matt was supposed to have his first two wrestling meets this week (on Tuesday & Thursday) but both were snowed out. Ann celebrated her 31st birthday for the 9th year in a row on Tuesday. Granny also celebrated a birthday the same day, turning a robust 93! I tried to call her that night, but got no answer. I finally got a hold of her the next day. I asked her if she had been out to dinner the previous night and she just kind of cackled for few seconds and then said she had taken out her hearing aid and didn’t hear the phone ring! J As Ann likes to say, we celebrated her birthday week! J On Tuesday morning, she received a call from Sandy & Mark and was on the radio for a couple minutes during our ride to work. That night, we gave her presents. Among other things, she received a couple Longaberger pottery pieces she had been wanting as well as two Snuggies. Abby made her card again this year. I thought it was pretty clever. You have to understand that the kids have Spring Fever pretty bad and have been getting in a little trouble for fighting with each other lately. Appropriately, Abby wrote “Hope your Birthday is A Hit!??? and drew the three of them fist-fighting each other along with myself in the background shouting, “Stop fighting you kids!??? We both thought it was cute. MaryAnn was supposed to bake a cake with Abby during the day for Ann to enjoy that night. However, for some reason it didn’t turn out right and she had to throw it away. Instead, Ann wound up with Birthday Twinkies. L Poor gal; how lame, right? Thankfully, she was a good sport about it and on Saturday, she had a real cake. Early that morning, the Owens gals picked her up and took her up to Shelbyville to Indiana Downs’ new casino, called “Indiana Live! Casino.??? When they got back, we got to finally have some of MaryAnn’s homemade cake with ice cream (well worth the wait, I might ad). Today (Sunday), Ann’s birthday week wrapped up with a trip with Amy to Archiver’s in Indy to get away from all the football insanity. Can you believe that the pre-game is actually scheduled to be longer this year than the Super Bowl itself?!
The highlight of this week for the kids was finally being able to go sledding!! They’ve waited for over a couple months for this time of year to finally get here! On Wednesday, it was pretty nasty outside. School was cancelled, the roads were a mess and we had to meet with the plumbers; so Ann and I decided to take a snow day ourselves to get everything accomplished. After lunch, I took the kids down to the park and went sledding on our favorite snow hill for about two hours. We were exhausted, but it was great exercise. On Saturday, with Ann out of the house and Matt in Rushville (he decided to travel with the ‘A’ team basketball squad to the year-end tourney to help keep stats after Coach Green called him Friday night to see if he was available), I decided to take the two smaller ones back to the sledding hill for another couple hours! The hill was much faster this time, and there was a new ramp at the bottom, which kept things exciting! Matt had a blast, getting Pizza Hut as a treat for helping the team. The boys won, so he was excited. Even though Ann will be gone for tonight’s Super Bowl, she made sure we were taken care of, by setting us up with plenty of easy-to-make (thanks Honey!) foods and plenty of snacks for game time!
I have hundreds of new photos scanned for this year’s Way Back feature, so let’s get to this week’s adventure, shall we… (in chronological order, no less!):
First up, we have a picture of Grandma & Grandpa Scheu at their first apartment, back in ’68.
Next up is another picture of our trip to the St. Louis Zoo in ’70.
Here’s the other picture of our 3rd grade class luau in Ms. Brickler’s class in ’78. I heard back from her this week. It was pretty cool that she remembered our class and said she enjoyed the pictures I sent. I hope to someday get back to Oakland Elementary to actually see her face-to-face again. To my right is one of my best friends, Mark Crum.
Here is a picture from our kitchen at the house in Temple City, CA. This was the time Aunt Lois & Uncle Hi visited us in ’79.
Next up is a picture of Rob & Katie from ’81 at Great Grandma Bryan’s old house (I think Vird & Belinda were living there at the time).
Here is a picture of our undefeated freshman football team. I’ve been catching up with old high school buddies on Facebook and this team has come up a few times. We had a great team, capturing the Duneland Conference championship in the fall of ’83. BTW, I see that the conference is different (easier) than what it once was when we were playing. It used to carry a lot of weight back then, as the conference included perennial powerhouses Hobart and South Bend St. Joe, along with the usual mix of Michigan City Rogers, Valpo and Merrillville; plus this article hints towards LP no longer being a 5A school?! Mom, do you know if that is correct? My, how things have changed…
Next is my junior year wrestling picture. Matt is so anxious to have his first meet. Looks like it will now be this coming Tuesday. This picture is from the ‘85/’86 campaign.
Here’s a great one at my college graduation with Grandpa Bryan. This was taken in my bedroom at the Phi Delt house. That was a great day at FC in the spring of ’91.
Here is a picture of Ann & I on the balcony of Mom & Dad’s condo in Treasure Island, FL in ‘93. We hope to make it there on Spring Break this year (only a couple months to go now!).
Next is a picture of Ann’s new, hot sports car (’93 Ford Probe in Easter egg green!), parked out in front of Mom & Dad’s dream home in Rossville, IN in ’94.
And finally, we have another picture of Ann at Stacy’s bachelorette party in late ’95.
Whew! That was a long post this time; lots of great pictures! Thanks again for keeping up with the Scheus and we’ll get you caught up with our continuing struggle next time! J Until then, have a good one…oh; and Happy Groundhog’s Day!