We said goodbye to winter and welcomed spring…or at least we tried to, but old winter had more to say before it retired for the year. Matt continued to student teach and go to school full time. Abby didn’t exactly enjoy the week off from school, working most of it and learning some tough life lessons. Luke didn’t have any organized sports, but he still managed to get in several hours of basketball and worked-out at home on his weight set. Ann got some minor relief in her knees and spent some time scrapbooking with Shawna. I got to visit my old stomping grounds for only the second time in over 25 years. I did really well with my keto diet, but still need to work on my portion control. I again met my weekly walking goal by getting in 15 ½ miles. The dogs have finally stopped itching and scratching constantly as they’ve gotten used to their new food (grain-free). The weather was all over the place and it was another unusual week – there’s never a dull moment around here… Hello again and welcome back to the Scheu Family Blog.
Ann & I took Monday off to take the kids up to LaPorte for Rosie’s mom’s funeral. It started at the new Cutler Funeral Home, then went to St. Joe’s for mass before ending up at the cemetery across from Kiwanis. We went back to St. Joe’s for the wake where we ate and chatted with Keith & Rosie for a couple hours. Afterward we went around town, looking at how much had changed. We drove by Kiwanis Field and the high school before checking out my old ‘hoods. The Kenwood home looked pretty good but they sold off the side lot and a small house is built where the small wooded area once was. It is too congested and takes away the beautiful view of Lilly Lake. The neighborhood looked really run down, unfortunately. We went by the beach, which looked exactly how I remembered it. We went on to the Rockwood home. The whole area looked so different! The foundry is completely gone and it looks like they are trying to level out the whole area, possibly for homes or businesses. The house looked a little dirty. They redid the front porch so you can no longer be screened-in during the warm months and they took down the fence and grew a weird tree in the backyard. We laughed to see that our old Huffy basketball rim and backboard were still in good shape. The weirdest thing was that all the homes from Mike & Laura’s to Helen & Ed’s were all gone and now it was all businesses. That includes a new Culver’s directly across the street from our house! Then the coolest part of the renovation to the neighborhood was that the old Allis Chalmers building that ran along Truesdell was all gone so that Rockwood no longer T’s at Truesdell but actually goes straight now and you can go all the way to Kroger’s or go under the Pine Lake overpass. It’s pretty cool and really opens-up the area. The route we took was actually faster than our traditional route, shaving off about 30 minutes. It runs straight up the state on US-31 so it was really easy, too. The traffic was actually pretty good both ways, given that we hit rush hour both ways. It was a lousy way for Megan to spend her 16th birthday, but it was good to see all of them. Poor Keith had to wear a mask, as he had the flu. A couple days later, Megan would also be diagnosed with the flu as well. Thanks for the bday present, Dad – geez! It rained all night and I opened up the bedroom window and slept like a baby. Our website was down when we got home. I called Yahoo and they told me I had to get rid of some files – that I had too much storage on their server. I thought it was kind of weird, since I have unlimited storage…but I found some stuff that I didn’t need and got rid of it just the same. It just pissed me off…
It was back to work for Ann & I on Tuesday morning. It was the first time in ten days for Ms. Ann. The kids continued to enjoy their Spring Break, enjoying the second week of their extended time away from school. After raining all night, the temps dropped and everything froze that morning. I had to get all the ice off the car before we could leave for Columbus. After sleeping in, Luke went to Memaw’s house for the day to help her out around the house. That evening, he & Tyler went to the YMCA then he had him over to stay the night. They set up the family room with a dual PS4s and were up way too late. Abby went up to Indy with Ms. Kuyhlia for the next Colts Cheerleader workshop then the girls went to dinner at BWR where Bu met up with Trevin to celebrate their one-year anniversary. I walked 4 miles after work at the mall due to it being at the freezing mark and snowing/sleeting outside. It snowed all the way home and continued snowing all night. They called for us to get 4-6 inches overnight with ice under all of it from the rain we got earlier. As promised, here are pictures from Matt’s birthday party last weekend.
Abs had gone over to Trev’s house overnight where they fell asleep on the couch, watching movies. She called us at 4 am that morning, saying she was stuck and needed help. She said her car had blown up and wouldn’t move. So, we got dressed, shoveled a path to the car (it was really snowing and blowing hard at that point) and got it warmed up and skated down the road and found her. She hit something (likely the curb on 421 by the fire station). It bent her rim so badly that her brand new tire blew out. The roads were pretty nasty because the plows hadn’t been through yet. I moved her car from in front of a driveway on up a little and when I did, it shredded the inside of the tire. WE came home and tried get back to sleep, but instead we just laid in bed and talked while Abby fell right to sleep. It was Matt’s 22nd birthday. I called him since I was already up and to my surprise, he was already awake as well. He said had to teach and do school all day (he’s so responsible now) so he was making lesson plans and hoping to make it out that night with his buddies, but he wasn’t sure. As it turned out, his friends surprised him and they had fun. I cleared the walks and scraped the car for a second time a few hours later for work – the snow was coming down so hard. We ended up with about six inches, I’d say. The drive to Columbus was slow. We passed a few cars, which was exciting but eventually ended up in a line of about 12 cars going 35. It took us about an hour to get in. Columbus didn’t get nearly as much snow. We had Abby to take care of everything – she called the insurance company and got the roadside assistance to come out and put her spare tire on. She took the wounded rim and tire to Five Points where they tried to bang out the rim and save the tire, but both were too badly damaged. They sent her out to Burkhart’s to get a used rim and tire. Thankfully, they hooked her up and she picked up Trevin and they took Tonya back to Five Points and they mounted the new wheel for her – free of charge! She also made an appointment for a front-end alignment. We were proud of her and I know it was a big learning experience for her. I had a fast day at work then walked a 5K around the airport property. What a difference twelve hours made – at 4 am, it was freezing, icy and blowing several inches of snow. At 4 pm, it was sunny and 50…and all the snow had melted! I had planned to walk at the mall, but the weather was too nice had changed to sunny and in the 40s and most of the snow had melted! Luke and Tyler helped Abby today on her adventure, which she was thankful for. To show her gratitude, she ran them out the YMCA for a few hours. Ann made dinner – baked cheesy broccoli & cauliflower as well as Philly cheese steak (not chili cheese cake, as Mom O thought Ann said on the phone!). ???? Afterward, Ann booked Abby’s graduation party at High Point Orchard the day after graduation. Abby’s dance practice was cancelled but the girls got together to dance anyhow on their own (what a great leader). After dinner, Luke ran around the neighborhood with his buddies until after dark. Here are more pictures from Ann & Abby from their trip to Florida last week.
Luke’s baseball practice with Drew and Bryan was cancelled on Thursday, so he went to the YMCA to play basketball for a few hours with Tyler. Abby worked at Wings & Rings then went to Columbus with her friends. Ann had a doctor appointment – she got shots in knees again to help ease the pain. After work, she had a meeting until the early evening. I had long day with our monthly marathon meetings and submitted 20 reports for annual requirements. After work, I was able to get out and walk a 5K around campus and out by the airport. It was a beautiful day in the 50s and there was no snow left on the ground.
The kids had to get up on Friday morning, as their Spring Break ended a day early due to a snow make-up day. Abby went to Stradley’s to job-shadow then worked at BWR until late. Luke said his day was a waste of time, spent watching movies and stuff. Ann had the day off to go scrapbooking all day and night with her friends. I was a little bummed that morning, as I listened to my favorite local DJ’s last broadcast. Todd Barryman of the Y-106 morning show is moving out of town and signed off for the last time today. I enjoyed a fast day then walked 4 ½ miles on a gorgeous afternoon. The time really flew as I talked to Robby then kept talking to him all the way home and then at home for a while. All told, I think we talked for two hours! What’s funny is that Dad called me later that night and we talked for a long while also. Luke had “Mitch??? over to spend the night. They ran around the neighborhood until dark then we went to ElRep for dinner. We came home and I watched the Purdue game while the boys went back out. When they did finally get back, they played PS4 until late in the night. Unfortunately, Purdue forgot to show up for the game and ended their season at 30-7 with a loss to Texas Tech in their Sweet 16 matchup. It was a shame that big Haas couldn’t go, despite the engineering school working so hard on his brace to get him back. Mathias was ineffective and that really made the difference. Without him, the rest of the offense sputtered and they struggled with turnovers all game. Here are random pictures from our recent adventures.
Ann was up early on Saturday to head back out to Burney for scrapbooking. A little later, I ran “Mitch??? home, picked up Drew and ran the boys out to baseball tryouts at Top Flight. There wasn’t a very good turnout, which is disappointing but also expected. The boys were there for about 15 or 20 minutes then we talked with the league officials for a little while. Afterward, we ran to Hibbett’s to get some new equipment then stopped to eat at Wendy’s before coming home. Abby worked at BWR again. Matt went to IU for the weekend to see his buddies. Luke took a long nap while I wrote out bills. Ann came home and cooked some goodies for us to take out to the Sunken Boat Bar for Bryan’s birthday party. We went out and met up with Bryan & Angie, Bob & Pam, Pat & Shawna, Shawn & Ally, and Bryan’s brothers for a fun night of friends, food, libations and lots and lots of laughs… We wrapped up the night with cigars and bourbon on the porch, around the fire pit and space heater on another cold and snowy night. We were supposed to get an additional one to two inches overnight. By the time we left, it had finally stopped snowing. Luke stayed the night with Drew. Thankfully the roads were all cleared as we drove home that morning and we made it home safely. We have lots of social media pictures to share again this week.
We enjoyed sleeping in on Sunday morning. We slowly got up and did our weekly household chores. Abby had to go into work again at Buffalo Wings & Rings. Ann went grocery shopping and picked up Luke. She came home and took a long nap while I worked on the blog and watched basketball. Luke went to the Fieldhouse to play basketball for a few hours with his buddies. Later, Ann made a delicious keto-compliant dinner of cheesy broccoli & chicken over cauliflower rice that really hit the spot. We got caught up on the Taken series and then watched the Walking Dead / Talking Dead to wrap up the weekend.
Next up is our Waybac segment, which continues to feature our next three photo albums. There are a few left, but we are getting towards the end of this batch. I’d say there’s enough for about a month or six weeks then I’ll have to move on to the next round of books. Today, we lead off with our family vacation in May, 2002 – first at the Sand Pebble then on to Orlando at Walt Disney World; next we move on to December, 2002 for a slew of photos – Christmas Eve at Mom & Sandy’s, Christmas Day at our house and up to Lafayette for the big Scheu Family Christmas party at John & June’s.
Next up is our video segment which has one new family home movie as well as a few from around the internet.
And that does it for this week’s entry into the Scheu Family Blog. Thanks for keeping up with us this time out and we’ll catch up with you again next time. Until then, have a good one. We miss ya Mom.
Later, Scheu