We can Crash on the Beach…

It was another busy week for us. It was ISTEP week for Abby, who thinks that all standardized tests are easy and a little fun (I did too – I always looked at it as day off from homework!). Mom continued to hang in there with her chemo treatments and dialysis. She does better in the mornings and gets tired quickly as night approaches. I meant to call her a couple times this week and kept forgetting. At least we got to wear shorts all week as the temps soared in to the 80s and 90s each day.
Luke had baseball practice right after work on Monday and as we were leaving the field, it began to rain. It continued to rain all night. Abby had track and then tap practice with pictures and Matt did his usual lifting (football) and wrestling practice. Abby’s track meet on Tuesday night was cancelled due to the continued rain and the threat of severe weather around the area. In fact it wasn’t just her track meet that was cancelled – so was her softball practice, Luke’s baseball practice and Matt’s wrestling practice. We had simultaneous tornado warnings in Columbus in the late afternoon but thankfully dodged the bullet. The thunderstorms were very severe that evening and we had a couple of very, very close (like less than a hundred feet from the house) lightning strikes that shook the house. I don’t what was louder, the thunder or the kids screaming! Thank God, we didn’t sustain any damage here at the house. Abby and Ann did have jazz practice where they did pictures. We decided to get takeout from Koch’s due to being worn out from the weather. Luke & I got soaked as we brought home the food. Matt was in the newspaper that evening for his participation in the GO GREENsburg big wheel race around the courthouse last weekend and their controversial 2nd place finish.

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It was a scorcher on Wednesday as temps topped 90. We had the A/C on that night. As I was headed in to work, I got stuck down by the park as Park Rd was flooded. I thought about going through the running water, but I decided I didn’t want to chance taking a scenic view of the golf course! I went around and took some pictures from up higher; there was water everywhere! Matt had the night off, Luke had a baseball practice game where they did quite well (Luke was 1 for 2 with a single and played 1st base). We grabbed Little Caesar’s drive through afterwards since Ann was at the high school working on last minute details for the After Prom committee. It was the first American Idol without Elise Testone. : ( One of my football heroes died today. Junior Seau was a defensive stud that I idolized and tried to emulate in my play, along with players like Rod Woodson from Purdue, Mark Gastineau, Lawrence Taylor, Derrick Thomas and Reggie White. His death looks like it was a suicide. It is the 3rd in the recent past that is likely a result of post concussion syndrome, which scares me a little. Another pro athlete also had a bad day as Mariano Rivera tore his ACL while shagging fly balls during practice. He is a pitcher for the Yankees that I have great respect for – as he is my age still playing MLB, along with Jamie Moyer – which may be the last two that are from my graduating class. Matt posted a new picture on his Facebook account. Not real sure what he’s doing, but it looks like he’s having fun, like he always is…and Luke brought home what appears to be a self-portrait on a lunch bag. We received an invite to my cousin Vickie’s youngest son’s high school graduation party at the end of the month.

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Thursday was another sweaty day. Luke had the night off, but Matt had lifting and wrestling and Abby had what is likely her final track meet of the season. They Pirates faced off against Jennings County. Abby again competed on the reserve team in long jump. She missed her all-time best by 1 inch. Her left knee has really been hurting, so it will be good that she will “take some time off??? by only playing on two softball teams this summer. LOL. She placed 3rd for the reserve team. She did not compete in the hurdles due to her knee injury. In fact, her coach really didn’t want her doing any events, but not only did she do the long jump, she also competed in the 100 meter dash for the first time. She got a late start (as did we – thanks to Matt for capturing what he did of her sprint race). Despite being the last one off the blocks, she did make up 3 spots and finished in 5th, but was only a step or two from 4th place. While we were waiting for Abby to finish at her track meet, we put the A/C in our bedroom (thank God!). Thanks to Matt for his help – I couldn’t have done it without him. I slept like a rock that night! I love the man who invented air conditioning…

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Ann took the day off on Friday…well, sort of – she had a field trip around town with Lukey then went to work on After Prom activities until late at night as they geared up for the big night tomorrow – the Senior Prom! She sent me some pictures of them setting it all up – I hope the kids appreciate all the time and work that Ann and her colleagues have invested in this project! On the way to running the kids to school, we noted there were several police officers in the neighborhood. We stopped to see what all the hubbub was about. Apparently, a couple of roudy young men started a half mile away by lighting two cars on fire then made their way to the next neighborhood where they stole a car. Then worked their way out to our neighborhood where they were breaking in to cars and garages. Except they broke in to the wrong guy’s garage. It is a neighbor at the end of the street that is an ex-army guy and still does occasional tours of duty. He chased them away and we have several officers/deputies in the neighborhood that came out and they caught one guy in the field down the street (the police car was being towed out of the field where it got stuck). I thought we moved away from all this stuff. Abby got to watch movies and had a little party because she finished her ISTEP early. Luke was totally spent from the week and fell asleep at about 5:30 and slept all night. I finished Baili’s iPod that she had me to update with all new songs (200 of them!) and several games.

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Saturday was a very long day for both Ann and I. I worked outside all day, awakened early by Luke who was up with the sun. The boys and I took the old pool completely out. It took us about 3 hours to take it all apart, load it in the truck and trash cans and scrap the metal. Ann & I have had several discussions about what to do with the pool. We finally decided that we simply didn’t utilize it enough to fix or replace it. We simply didn’t have the time to enjoy it nor appropriately keep it up. We offered to sell it very cheaply and then even offered to give it away if someone would come get it and haul it off. But the folks who showed an interest never followed through and here it sat. Well we finally got enough of it and Ann gave the word to remove it. The boys were very helpful; I couldn’t have done it myself. It was a melodramatic time for us as we each took turns reminiscing about several of our favorite memories in the pool from years past. Do you remember the hero party for Abby for pulling Luke out of the pool?? That was scary. We got it all cleaned up but destroyed our two garbage cans in the process, so we’ll need to replace them…truth be truth be told, they needed replaced anyhow as the Greensburg city garbage men are notoriously rough on cans. We loaded up all the metal pieces and went to the scrap yard to recycle what we could – the boys were enthralled with the magnet crane! Matt did a great job of helping with the pool; I couldn’t have done it without his help today (and Luke also played an important role as well). It looks weird in the backyard now as we have a giant sand box (Ann called it a crop circle). Luke loves it. He dumped his sandbox in it and has been playing Hot Wheels in it several times this weekend. We may no longer have a pool, but we now have a beach! I took the boys to BK to thank them for all their time and energy this morning. We took a little break after eating and as Matt took a nap, Luke & I went to Gma & Gigi’s house to do their yard for the first time this season. She and Deanna had been doing it, but she wasn’t satisfied with the way it looked and asked me if I would do it again this year and I told her of course I would help her as I could, but warned her that the grass may get a little high from time to time, depending upon how busy our schedule gets! Her yard turned out great but we had to go get more weed-eater string at Topps. On our way out, we of course had to walk over to the ice cream vendor who was stationed out in the parking lot! After I finished, Luke stayed behind to help Gma clean out her basement and play on the slip and slide in Aunt Dee / Uncle Jamie’s yard. I came on home and started in our yard. Abby helped me in the front yard with running the blower while I caught my breath in the shade with a big cup of water. We did our annual stuff to the house to get ready for spring/summer, getting out the hose, the cushions for the patio chairs and opening back up the windows in the crawl space. By the time I was done in the backyard and had everything picked up and put away, I could really feel all the sun I got today – especially my big, fat, glowing-red neck! But hey, it was a gorgeous day today! Ann finally got back home after being gone all day getting things ready for both the After-Prom event and her vacation…err…work’s staff retreat to the Panama City Beach in Florida. It will be sad for the girls when they leave, as the Docs have sold this condo that we are so used to and this will be the last time Ann or I are in it since they close on it later this month. We all went out to Mancino’s for dinner and then over to Wal-Mart to finally get a replacement air conditioner for the playroom, which was also destroyed last year by the tornado (as was the pool). The kids played outside until well after dark, playing basketball out front. Ann got all her stuff packed and left for After-Prom where she stayed and helped until about 4 am and then drove over to Columbus and met up with the gals at the office and headed south. Meanwhile, I became a couch potato for the evening, watching my DVR’ed shows, including the running of the Kentucky Derby an hour south in Louisville where I’ll Have Another won by a half length. The NASCAR Nationwide race had several good crashes and a great finish down in Talledega, AL – which is one of my favorite races of the year. I also got to talk to an old friend that I hadn’t heard from in a couple years – Laura Stoewer. It was good to catch up with her and with things had turned out differently for her and Mike. Thanks Pammy; I hope to see her and Pace sometime in the future.
We slept in on Sunday. We did our weekly household chores and took it easy all day. Luke and Abby played outside for a while in the “beach.??? Luke & I watched the NASCAR Sprint Cup race and saw a few good crashes – one of which collected Jeff, who was already having a bad day, despite starting from the pole position. By getting the pole, he tied David Pearson for 20 straight years of earning a pole. Although I missed Mom who was over with Rob & Sharon at the Sand Pebble all day, I did eventually talk to Rob a couple times as we made plans to get together again in the future.

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Next up, we have our video section, including one small family video and several from around the net.

Next up is our Waybac section. This is our final entry using this last great box of photos from Mom. Of all the photos we’ve featured in the Waybac section over the years, this was by far my favorite batch and what a big batch it was! I think this one lasted almost 15 months! Fear not as I still have thousands of photos to go through yet, including 2 more boxes from Mom B, 1 box of old Scheu photos from Aunt Judy’s uncle, 1 box from Mom O and several books of photos from more recent Waybacs from ’95 to ’04 – so we’ve got plenty of photos to last us for many more years yet. 😉 Leading off this time out, we have a few crops of the last two pictures from Mom & Dad Scheu’s wedding in April of ’68.

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Also included this week, we have our last batch of Mom & Dad B’s honeymoon in ’78 on board the Nordic Prince. I especially like the one of Mom’s feet and the back of Dad looking like he is puking over the side of the boat. I remember those flip flops; in fact I think the whole family had a pair of those at the time! And finally, we have the last of Rob’s school pictures – this time from the fall of ’88 during what I think was his 2nd grade year when he was 8 years old. Nice shirt, buddy! Ha! Ha! 😉

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This spring we have been running a new feature called The Shit Luke Says. We had a couple more this week, but I only remembered to write one down! We were at Mancino’s and Luke was crying over the fact that he had child cup of Coke. When he finished, he asked Ann to get him another, but she would only do it if she got him a Sprite. He was complaining again and took a drink. No sooner did he get it in his mouth, than he began to make a horrible face. …Turns out the syrup was out and it was just the carbonated water. He shouted, “That’s why I don’t like getting Sprite – it always turns out to be soda water!???
Thanks for keeping up with us this time out and we’ll catch up with you next time. Until then, have a good one.
Later, Scheu

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