See Me, Feel Me…Touch Me, Heel Me

We took vacation this week and chilled out for a change of pace this week…well about as much as this family is capable of anyhow. On Monday, we finally got around to picking up around the house a little more. As Abby & Ann went out and did some post-holiday shopping, the boys helped me to put away all our new stuff and get all the trash out of the house. To make matters worse, Matt had forgotten to take out garbage last week…meaning that on top of two weeks worth of normal stuff we also had Christmas wrapping paper and food plus extra trash from all of us being home for the week. Needless to say, we had six cans’ worth of rubbish out at the curb when we were finished. Matt had wrestling practice and Abby had Megan over for the night (Luke was thrilled – she actually played with him as much as Abby!). I had a good chat with an old friend from work that moved to Florida a couple years ago – Mark Porter. He actually held my current position before my friend Dennis took over years ago. I came across some old pictures of Mark when he was still in his rebel phase, playing guitar for a local hair-metal band called Randy Rockit in the early to mid eighties. The pictures I have posted here are actually from some videos I found on YouTube. Back then, Mark was known as “Bunz.??? LOL On Tuesday, Matt had early wrestling practice and I was on the phone to work for several hours, helping to coordinate the salvage efforts at work as the insurance company was wrapping up their investigation…I have a lot of work to do when I get back in there next week. We searched for a couple hours trying to find the power cord to the go-kart before finding it right in front of me on our desk (nice, huh?). We finally got it charged for a couple hours and took it out for rides around the neighborhood shortly before sundown. It was pretty chilly for the first couple days this week, as we held on to our white Christmas for a few days, but a warm-up was right around the corner. The snow was perfect for a snowman or snowballs, but the kids decided not to build one yet… The Boilers won another two games to run their record up to 15-1 as the #11-ranked team in the nation, as they opened the Big Ten schedule with wins at Michigan and at home against Northwestern! …man I really wish Robby was healthy for his senior year…

On Wednesday, we took the kids over to Mom’s house and Ann & I headed over to the Columbus Surgery Center. She has been battling another heel spur (other foot) for several months now. As we did about five years ago, she went under the knife by the same doctor…we are just hoping for a quicker recovery this go round! She came home with a big boot and has been on crutches all week. We got home fairly early and the kids and I went out to run a few errands, including picking up several packages of Grater’s ice cream from Phyllis & Dick! I was able to get a bunch of stuff scanned in to the computer, including Sandy’s Christmas presentation that was just outstanding (thanks Gigi), a few articles in the newspaper that featured write-ups about recent tourneys and even a picture of the team. It was up to about 50 degrees today. We saw most of our snow pack go away and greens and browns began to replace the clean whites that had dominated the scenery for so many weeks. Also included are pictures of Luke’s Polar Express “ticket??? and a couple of Christmas cards from her friends. If you didn’t receive a Christmas card from us this year, it’s not because you’re on the naughty list, but rather because we didn’t do Christmas cards this year…the first in a long time. That evening, I “friend-ed??? another long, lost cousin on Facebook – Emily from my Mom’s side. I fondly remember many days playing at Aunt Karen’s house (her mom) with her and her brother Brent many, many years ago. Karen first introduced me to not only the Beatles but Beatlemania. She had a great record collection that inspired me in my own music collection. I believe it was at their house that I first watched two of my all-time favorite movies: The Wizard of Oz and Charlie & The Chocolate Factory – which were shown around the holidays back in the seventies…

On Thursday, we took the go-kart back to the new neighborhood in the back and rode for about an hour or so on a day that saw it reach in to the sixties, essentially wiping out every last bit of snow and even defrosting most of the pool. We played Wii for several hours on the big screen and took long naps on a day that started out warm but gradually clouded up and cooled off as the afternoon progressed. We found several school art projects from all of the kids. By Friday, it was cool again outside with a pretty strong breeze. We ran over to Mom & Sandy’s house so Bu could give Gma here final gift – a homemade work of porcelain art that drew top bill in the china cabinet! Rob sent us some really good pictures of his Christmas, including 16??? of snow that missed us and blessed him! That day, Ann and Bu cooked all day long (even though she was supposed to be on the couch with her foot up. She has been a horrible patient, up and down all the time and has made her incision bleed a couple times. Because of her foot, we kept it small again this New Year’s holiday. We just had Mom & Sandy and Dee & Jamie over for the evening. Mom and Sandy came over for the “first shift??? and left about 8. Ironically, that was the same general time that Jamie and Deanna showed up for “second shift,??? as the joke went. Ann & I smoked Mom & Sandy early in euchre but they made a big comeback and forced a game three…which we pulled off in the end to win the last game against them for the year! We had SO much food! We had polish mistakes, tachitos, potato skins, cheesy meatballs, spinach & artichoke dip, homemade cheese sauce, veggies and Shallo’s dip, Mancino’s pizzas and lots of margaritas and even mud slides to cap off the evening. Lukey and Matt didn’t want to have any friends over, but instead played Wii & Xbox 360 for several hours that evening. The big kids played several hours of euchre, with Deanna doing a terrific job of catching on to the game! Matt was kind enough to fill in for Ann when she became tired and he did a great job as well. We were surprised to see Dick Clark out there again and although we didn’t watch much TV, he did the countdown again…although he really shouldn’t have – for even though he looked great, he sounded just awful, which is really sad because I think everybody like Dick. Abby spent the night at her friend Brook’s house with six other classmates for a fun sleepover. I thought we got to be late at about 2 am…only to find out that Bu and her friends were up past 3:30!

New Year’s Day thankfully started late for everyone…I would’ve been good if I had laid off the mud slides, but they were so darn good! We all took naps and moved around the house slowly – some slower than others, including yours truly. I hadn’t felt that bad in a long time and it took me a couple hours to get the house cleaned up. Once we finished up, we decided to take the go-kart out for a spin out in front of the house. One of the neighborhood kids also received a go-kart for Christmas so they were thrilled to race and romp around the edition. It was considerably cooler that day and we didn’t stay out too long. Instead, we flopped in the playroom all day. Matt & I watched movies on the laptop and football on the TV for about 12 hours…and I loved every minute of it! We napped on and off throughout the day. Luke & Bu hung out with us most of the day as did the dogs. It was a nice, lazy day that ended with the family tradition of rebel dogs for good luck! On Sunday, Matt went paintballing with his wrestling / football / X-box buddies including his good friends Joel Chase and Jake Hellmich (thanks for taking Matt, Trevor!). While he was gone, I helped Abby do her Science Fair experiment. The junior high science teacher was kind enough to let us borrow the shake table for another earthquake project…the only problem was that it was missing the actual board. So Luke & I went to the hardware store and got some plywood and hardware and re-created it from last year’s pictures. It turned out pretty good, I think. However I did lose my cordless drill. Its motor is burned out and the charger’s cord is broken. I don’t know if you can just put a new plug on something like that or not? It doesn’t have a normal plug on then end, it has one of those big, square black ones – can I just put a regular plug on something like that?? Mom, can you ask Dad if that’s even possible? We watched the final week of football, including two very close games: the Colts locked up the #3 seed for the playoffs this year with a tough victory over the Titans and the Cowboys won their final game of the year to close the year at 6-10 and likely giving Jason Garrett the full time head coach job.

We do have a few videos this week, but only one is a family video:

Next let’s take a look at some Waybac pictures. We start with three shots of the Thanksgiving Day lunch in the mid-eighties with the table set for seven mystery guests…I am guessing Aunt Lou came with Grandmaw & Grandpaw (??); Rob opening birthday presents with Dad watching on, circa ’87; Mom with Peanuts on Christmas morning in ’87 and then at dinner with Rob and Grandmaw & Grandpaw:

Up next we go to Kokomo for the Bryan family Christmas in ’91 with a very young Deena Marie spending time with Uncle Dan, Katie and Aunt Belinda; Rob on Christmas morning with his scooter in about ’91, along with Tuffy enjoying Christmas boxes that same year; Mom, Dad, Matt & I in Columbus in ’96; Ann & Matt on Christmas Eve in ’96 at Mom & Sandy’s house; Aunt Dorothy, Kathy and her son at the ’97 Brown family Christmas; four from the Bryan family Christmas in Rossville also in 1997; nine pictures of us on Christmas Day on Main St in 1998; a couple from the Sand Pebble in ‘May of ’99 – first Ann, Matt & I and then Mom, Dad and a couple who they got to know fairly well; and a couple crops of Matt in the kitchen on Main St. at Christmas of ’99 (in his favorite shirt at the time – his Hot Wheels Tow Jam):

We end with a couple of Mom & Dad on the first Christmas Eve of the new millennium at Mom & Sandy’s in Ryle Edition; then a bunch from Christmas Day also in 2000: Matt & Bu watching Bugs Bunny on TV; Ann & Abby napping on the couch; Matt stuck again in the chair (what was it with him and those chairs and that banister in that house??); and a couple of early morning shots with the presents and the annual picture of Mom & Dad sleeping in our house; Moe in 2001; Tammy’s kids at Halloween in 2002; and end with seven pictures from Christmas Day in 2002 on Russell Dr:

Well that’s it for this edition of the Scheu Family Blog. Thanks as always for keeping up with us this time out and we’ll catch up with you next time. Until then, have a good one and Happy New Year!!
Later, Scheu