Now I Get up around Whenever, I Used to Get up on Time

What a wild week! It�s been an enjoyable week or so since we touched base last time. On Monday, we still had Matt�s best friend, Brayton, staying with us. The boys slept in past noon again. If those boys aren�t sleeping, they�re eating up all the groceries in the house. Ah well, they�re growing boys� They were really good for each other and seemed to really enjoy each other�s company. I had aspirations of them doing some work on our shed in the back yard; but that never came to fruition. After work, we went over to Grandma and Gigi�s home to celebrate Gracie�s 9th birthday. We all signed a card for her and even Brayton signed it �Smith-Scheumann.??? 🙂 She seemed to genuinely enjoy the gifts we (and when I say we, I really mean Ann) got her. She was so funny; she swore that a pair of flip-flops she received from Grandma had been previously worn. She kept saying, �I can see the foot prints!??? 🙂 �Only from the mouth of a child� Mom�s cake is always the best and this night she did not disappoint! The older boys enjoyed watching the MLB All-Star home run derby as the girls played with Lukey, popping balloons and running back and forth between the two houses and just generally being as loud and obnoxious as they can get away with over at Grandma and Gigi�s. 😛 �which is something the kids do very well�

Tuesday was perhaps one of the best days I�d had a very, very long time! At work, I had a discussion with my CEO, Kelly, and current supervisor, Dennis, about the possibility of taking on some new responsibilities in the Plant Ops dept., such as becoming the Safety Officer for the facility. Again, it was merely a discussion, just to talk about what the company�s needs are and what I was willing or able to do to help fill a partial piece of that need. So, we�ll see where that leads next week� I don�t know that I truly have a preference either way at this point. It�s a lot of extra work that I�m not sure our busy home life will afford�I foresee it coming down to either advancing the career or advancing the family�and in the past family has always come first. I assume it will continue in this situation as well, but it is nice to know that someone is at least taking notice of the work I do at our facility. We kept Brayton (originally, we were going to take him home on Sunday or Monday) a couple nights longer so that we could take him out to the Decatur County 4-H Fair on Tuesday night. It didn�t feel like fair week at all. It was MUCH cooler this year�and I�m not complaining! The boys went to weight lifting (Matt goes every Tuesday & Thursday) together and told coach that Brayton is thinking of moving to Greensburg. LOL! That night, Sandy had a WTRE promotion to get everyone free parking for the night and hand out $2 bills as well as free wristbands that allowed the wearer to buy one ride and a second person rides for free! She was handing them out of the back of the ‘TRE Suburban – which she was able to park right in the middle of the midway! At the end of the night, we gave her a great big Scheu family ‘thank you’ hug!!The whole family rode rides for hours and the kids had a blast! Luke talked me in to going through the fun house. No big deal right? �except that I forgot the only way down was a curly cue slide that was as wide as Lukey�s behind. I was doing great for about the first 1/3 of the trip down. Then, my right knee stuck to the inside and as I left part of my skin on that beast, I was spun around and found myself headed down the slide on my back, head first! Apparently, I had many admirers as I graciously descended the last 2/3 of the slide and finally made my way off it! Ann just shook her head and walked away� I think Aunt Dee got pictures of my acrobatic maneuvers that night�so those may eventually surface on this forum. 🙂 My favorite part of going to the fair is, of course, the food! We again enjoyed all of our old favorites, but mine is still the fish fry by the Letts� Volunteer Fire Dept and the fresh corn on the cob booth. In addition to all of that, my cousin David Scheu offered to try and find tickets to the Brickyard 400. Let me clarify�not just tickets, but the cool part was that he was trying to find �hot??? pit / garage passes! That means that we could be in the garage or in the pits during the entire weekend � even during the race itself! How cool would that be? He had worked for a couple decades with NASCAR and mentioned that he would get with Joie Chitwood & Robby Gordon!! It�s not a done deal by any means, but just the gesture of offering to spend time to pursue these was a very cool thing for him to do� Thanks David…
Here are a few fun clips from Gracie’s party & the fair this evening:

On Wednesday, Matt was sad that Brayton had to go home. The boys again slept in past noon, so I don�t know how much waking time they truly spent together. I just know that Matt really enjoyed having his best friend over to spend time with�they rarely get to spend any quality together at all, so this was special for Matt. After work, Luke & I went over to Grandma and Gigi�s house to mow. The temperatures continued to be cooler, although this night it was considerably more humid. The next morning, the temperature was uncommonly colder (lower 60�s) and super foggy. It stormed on and off most of the day, but cleared up in the afternoon. Grandma watched the kids for us that night as Ann & I went over to a work-friend’s house for a surprise party for my good friend and boss Dennis. There were about 15 of us that showed up. He recently married his long-time girlfriend / fianc�, Lenny, and – sadly – he has accepted a promotion with the corporate office at PSI (the folks who own our facility). His last day is this coming Friday. 🙁 We had a lot of fun, talking & laughing with our friends from work. The food was great and Ann�s spinach & artichoke dip was the hit of the party! It was nearly gone by the time we got around to eating dinner…and by the time we left, the casserole dish was empty. She ended up giving the recipe to a couple of the ladies in attendance. As we were leaving, my friend Kevin from HR and I �decorated??? Dennis & Lenny�s truck with newlywed paraphernalia. 🙂

Here�s some fun video from the night:

On Friday, it was again much cooler. It felt like a fall evening and not at all like one from the dead of summer. It eventually got pretty cool (upper 50�s), but that didn�t stop us from attending the annual close of the fair and the biggest attraction at the grandstands � the demolition derby (or smash up derby, as Luke & I refer to it). Ann was not with us, as she was off scrapbooking with her friends at Mrs. B�s. Luke went to his friend Alex�s house during the afternoon, so we picked him up from Christy�s and came home long enough to pack a cooler, grab some blankets and chairs and head out to the fairgrounds one last time for this year. They were already closing several of the booths when we arrived, as this was the last night for the county fair. We had a blast and got right down front for the action. It was really loud and the track was dry enough to make the action pretty exciting. The best part for me though, is the people watching! I see people out there that I�ve never seen anywhere else. Where do they all come from and where do they go afterwards? I guess those are questions that will remain a mystery. You always see such interesting people at a demolition derby in Greens-tucky, IN! LOL!! We closed the fair week with more of our favorite food, but this time we added elephant ears. This was the first time the kids had experienced elephant ears. To top off the evening, we had to grab ice cream as well. The pineapple was out, so we talked with the vendor about the ingredients in his vanilla ice cream. He read from the label and we found nothing peanut-related. So, with epi-pen in pocket, I decided to let Lukey try it. Thankfully, he didn�t even bat an eyelash. The children were melancholy about the fair ending so soon after starting (but the check book is grateful). We had two tickets left for rides that night. Abby chose to do the Pharaoh�s Fury and Luke chose the Fun Slide. Abby�s good friend Baili earned reserve grand champion with her goat and it was on the front page of the paper where it sold for a cool $1600!! Ann got home late (early?) the next morning and took a page out of Matt�s book as she slept in �til noon on Saturday�

Here�s a couple videos from out at the fairgrounds this night (sorry, they’re a little long & redundant)�

�and here�s a little more�

On Saturday, we bummed around the house, happy to not have any responsibilities for a change of pace. It was so relaxing. We all slept in �til after eleven!! I can�t remember the last time we all did that! However, after a delicious lunch of Ann�s baked spaghetti, Matt, Luke & I headed out to Topps True Value to pick up supplies for our shed refurbishing project. We got her all scraped and sanded down real good before we started priming. We got three sides covered before we ran out and had to go get more primer/sealer. When we were heading back, we were asked to stop by Grandma and Gigi�s house for a plumbing issue. We attempted to get a leak stopped in her bathroom sink, but I’m not sure it is fixed completely. By the time we got home, it was time for supper and it had gotten too cool to continue painting (it dropped down in to the mid 50�s overnight). So, we started cleaning up when Matt found a wasp nest full of the little buggers in the top pole of our swing set. We got them sprayed good with Black Flag, Ann took Abby out to her BFF Megan�s house to spend the night and the boys enjoyed big bowls of Ann�s Fireworks popcorn!

On Sunday, we again took it easy for most of the morning. I updated our homepage with some corrected links and a few new pictures here and there. Abby came back from Megan�s house with lots of stories. Her sister, Mallory, had all the cheerleaders over for a cookout and campout overnight, so Megan & Abby were in seventh heaven�just what I needed� She is already 9 going on 15; this didn�t help. We finally started doing chores after lunch and the boys headed back out to complete stage two of the shed restoration project. We finished priming and got the first coat of paint on her. Then the boys proceeded to have a paint fight; which didn’t end well for Lukey…Ann wasn’t very happy with the boys being boys and, of course, it was my fault… Matt has been charged with the task of completing this project. I helped him get a good jump on it, now he has to complete it this week. He is working off a phone bill from over the winter as well as his new phone too. 😛 It finally warmed up enough late in the afternoon / early evening for the kids to get back in the pool. I�m sure the water was still a bit chilly, but the kids didn�t seem to mind. I�m just glad they�re finally getting some use out of the darn thing this year�
Here is a short video of us fixing up the shed:

Well, that�s it for new info at the Scheu abode. Let�s switch on the Waybac feature and see what�s in the vaults for this week; shall we? 🙂 This will be final installment of the Granny-only version of the Waybac machine, so enjoy… First up, we have an old one of Granny, Aunt Mary and Billy at the Highland home in January of �68.

This next picture is one that was featured a year ago on our old blog and is in the archives, somewhere on this one as well. But, it�s too good to not put up again. It is again at the Highland house, this time it�s Christmas in 1971. It is a classic and and one of my favorites…it features me, Cathy, Mary, David (I also got one of those ABA basketballs that year for Xmas!), Granny & Jackie�oh and uh, Mark Spitz too. 😛

Here are a few taken around Thanksgiving of 1992, also celebrating Aunt Sue�s big FIVE-O! These look to be taken at Sally & Jeff�s house out St Rd 26 near the I-65 interchange. Let�s see if I can name all the attendees in the pictures�Barney, Steph, Nick (?), Bob, Chris, Billy, Sue, Chuck, Mary, Tom, Vicki, Daniel, Fadi, Hank (!), Sally, Jeff, Erika, Granny, Lindsey (cute!!), Steven, Kimmy, Chuck, June, Jackie, Haley, Jason, Barb & Cindy. Cathy must be taking the picture?? Where the heck was I??

These next two are cool. These are from Big Sur with Granny, Sue & Jackie in 1993. I would love to go out there one of these days�

And finally, we have Granny & I in June of 1995. I think this is Jason & Erika�s wedding�but judging by the picture it�s easy to see why my memory of this function is a little foggy.

Well, that brings us to the end of this installment of the Scheu family blog. Thanks again for keeping up with us this week and we�ll catch ya next time. Until then, have a good one.
Later, Scheu