Katelyn's Final Week in Sadieville...Part 2

Friday, August 20th, was the beginning of a very full weekend for our family.

I made the apple butter, did that second attempt at the apple jelly, put those tomatoes in the dehydrator, and pulled things together for the arrival of my kids and grandmonsters.

Katelyn and Claude did they final repair job on the brick base around the satelite dish. They also took care of the final pieces of Katelyn's finances. Katelyn also did her laundry and packing.

Then the three of us headed for our final placing of the directional signs for Sadieville's August MusicFest. We headed to City Hall to help with selling food.

We did take cameras to get a picture of Katelyn with Cindy, her employer for the summer. Cindy is our City Clerk and has really kept Katelyn busy through this summer. Katelyn cleaned out all the file cabinets in the basement, she even weeded and stripped and painted things.

Andie, Hayden and Bailey arrived to an empty house. They unloaded their things and then came over to the MusicFest. Claude bought them their hotdog dinners. After eating a good dinner, he opened up the caboose for all the kids that were there to play in.

Now a caboose that is open and you can run and play and climb and explore in is like some gigantic playhouse to kids. They just love this Sadieville treasure. Here are a few pictures of the kids playing and pausing every now and then to dance to the music at the Warring Pavilion next door.

The mini-Marx's were now ready to head back to Eagle Bend and find their beds for the evening. Andie was ready to find her double-stuffed Oreo's and milk snack and have a bit of quiet time.

Katelyn, Claude and I would stay to sing a bit and help with food sales some more before we retired to Eagle Bend for the evening after picking up the directional signs.

We awaited the arrival of Nissa and Jacob much later in the evening. They got in closer to midnight. Then we all found our pillows for a bit of rest.

Saturday morning we all arose early. Katelyn was to be baptized at 9am at the Church. Cinnamon rolls, orange rolls, cereal and bagels were quick breakfast fare as everyone tried to be ready on time. The first carload would leave at 8:15am (Katelyn, Claude, Nissa & Sandi). The Marx van would leave and arrive at start time for the baptism (Andie, Hayden, Bailey & Jake).

We made a nice program and kept it very simple for Katelyn's baptism. She asked Elder Allen to say the opening prayer and Elder Bloxham to say the closing prayer. Eddie Bolton conducted the meeting. I played the piano and gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. Papa gave a talk on baptism. Nissa played some of Katelyn's favorite Janice Kapp Perry music while Katelyn changed clothes. Jake led the music. We sang "I Need Thee Every Hour" for the opening hymn and "I Am A Child of God" for a closing hymn. Claude performed the baptism and the confirmation. We had three other ladies attend - Bernie Bolton, Alicent Manwaring and Jennie Jenkins. Katelyn wore the dress I made for her mother to wear in the temple. It was a most tender and sweet baptism.

We do not take pictures of the actual ceremony so as not to disrupt the spirit of the meeting. But we did take some pictures previous to the baptism itself.  Here they are:

Nissa & Katelyn singing before meeting

Katelyn ready for Baptism

Katelyn & Claude

Nissa, Katelyn & Claude

Sandi, Nissa, Katelyn & Claude

Nissa, Katelyn & Papa

4 Generations - Sandi, Nissa, Katelyn & Claude

Elder Bloxham, Elder Allen, Katelyn & Claude

My one pictoral regret...yes, I have one...we took these pictures before the Marx's & Jake arrived (I believe) and I do not have any of our family group at this baptism. Without fail, I always download photos of family and wish I had taken one shot that I didn't. My apologies to Andie, Hayden, Bailey & Jake. They are in family visit pictures but not in these and I truly regret that.

The baptism went well. It was even enjoyed by Hayden and Bailey. They knelt by the glass in front of the font to watch what was happening. I was concerned they might not understand 'Pa' (Claude) immersing Katelyn in the water. Silly moi!!!  When it was finished and I took a very wet Katelyn back to change into dry clothes and Nissa hurried to the piano to play some quiet music while Claude and Katelyn changed, Bailey stood pounding on the glass..."More, do it again!!"

It was a pure joy to have Katelyn accept the gospel and be baptized. Katelyn has a faith-driven heart. She enjoys things sacred and always has. She grately enjoyed her missionary discussions. She always wanted to go to her Sunday School class. She is just a beautiful (inside and out) daughter of our Heavenly Father. This baptism was the highlight of the summer for us.

After the baptism, Andie, Nissa, Hayden, Bailey and I headed to the nursing home to pay Mimi a quick visit. What joy little ones bring to a nursing home. They are just full of energy and fun and a fresh view of life. It truly brightens everyone's day in a nursing home. Even if you don't know the residents in the nursing home and you have little children, stop in a nursing home and spread some of their joy with those residents. It will brighten your heart. I promise.

We entered the nursing home and found our Mimi sitting in her wheelchair at her lunch table. Hayden and Bailey went to the front of her chair and as soon as she realized she had little people in front of her, she smiled so big and you could just feel her warm up. Here are a few pictures from our visit.

Hayden holding court with Nissa, Mimi & Andie

Bailey made friends with Vina.

Nissa, Mimi & Andie

Bailey & Hayden

While we visited, Claude, Jake & Katelyn made a run for the Kentucky Fried Chicken store for lunch to take back to Sadieville. We left the nursing and joined them in Sadieville for a nice lunch.

Katelyn's Final Week in Sadieville...Part 1

There is an old saying..."All good things must come to an end." While I don't like to look at all things that way, it definitely applies to the 'Summer With Katelyn'. We were on the downhill run of this summer. It was Sunday morning and Katelyn would leave the next Sunday morning.

When I feel overwhelmed with the enormity of something or I just need to feel a bit more organized, I make a grid. I knew Katelyn had all these things she wanted to accomplish before she left and we had not done them all. I knew Claude and I had things we wanted to do with her before she left and we had not finished our lists either. That means a 'grid' is definitely the way to get all three of us on one track.

My grid this time had 3 columns. The first was the date, the 2nd was the things we had all calendared to accomplish on that day (work, appointments, etc.) and the 3rd column was a list of things we wanted to accomplish. I eMailed the grid to Claude and Katelyn so they could tweek as they saw fit. Then we had a final product we all agreed on. The thing about this grid was the ability to say, "I have time here and can accomplish this item on the to-do list."  It just gave us the ability to do the things we committed to and accomplish the 'I want to do this" things that we could in our last week together.

Sunday, August 16th was Church. In the afternoon Katelyn and I read more in the Book of Mormon. We had a restful final Sabbath together.

Monday, August 17th we were off and running:

• Claude and Katelyn cut Nancy's grass
• Katelyn worked in the afternoon at City Hall
• In the evening Katelyn and I accompanied Claude to the Lexington 1st Branch Family Home Evening (with dinner at Max & Erma's prior to and ice cream at Dairy Queen after). Claude taught a great lesson about 'time management'.
• Sandi started on the 'apple project'. The first dehydrator was filled with apple slices and some apples were frozen in slices for pies and diced for apple muffins.

Tuesday, August 18th we kept on trudging along:

• Katelyn worked in the morning
• Claude had a City Meeting
• Sandi woke up feeling very under the weather. After trying to function a bit, I took some cold capsules with antihistamine in them and fell asleep for a nice LONG nap. I remained groggy the rest of the day and only accomplished rest and some computer time.
• Katelyn and Claude did manage to get one more movie in they wanted to see in the evening.

Wednesday, August 19th found us booking along (as we used to say in high school in 'my day'):

• Vernon Morris & Cindy Foster planned a surprise luncheon for Miss Katelyn at Ruby Tuesday's. We got Katelyn there and she was totally surprised. Vernon gave her a little ring that said 'FAITH'. It was really sweet and she was a very happy girl.
• Sandi sang at the nursing home in the afternoon with Papa.
• Claude and Katelyn went to the Church in the evening to teach the Young Women how to do indexing. Claude had already taught Katelyn and she was able to use her computer to share her knowledge with the girls. Claude said he watched her and marveled again at her ability to work with others in a cheerful, pleasing way.

Thursday, August 20th the house was full of apple scents and we were movin' forward:

• I managed to get more apples through the dehydrater and in the freezer. Katelyn took some to Cindy with my apple muffin recipe.
• Claude had several meetings through out the morning and early afternoon.
• Katelyn worked in the morning (her final day at City Hall).
• I did my Bridge Call with LDS Family Services from Noon until just before 1pm.
• I picked up Katelyn at 1pm and we headed to Georgetown for lunch at Arby's.
• Then we met Claude at the Church and Katelyn had her baptism interview.
• My evening was spent in Lexington. I sat under the pavilion at the Stake Center and worked on my talk for Katelyn's baptism. Then I had a Stake Council meeting the rest of the evening.
• Claude and Katelyn enjoyed one more night of 'guy food' while I was gone. They had steaks and watched some TV.
• I brought them a chocolate frosty when I returned from Lexington.

During all of this we didn't get the purse made and a ton of other things but we had fun filling our final week together. 

Our apple picking yielded 3 quart bags of dried apples, a lot of 1 cup bags of diced frozen apples for apple muffins, 4 gallon bags of sliced frozen apples for apple pies, 2 attempts at apple jelly ("It must be syrup 'cause jelly don't pour like that!!"  I've never had jelly not set before. I gave it two valiant attempts and they both didn't set. I shall call it apple syrup and feel a little success...just a tiny, 'y'ittle, bit.), and 6 pints of apple butter. I still have one more batch of apples to put in the dehydrater. They had to take a back row seat for one dehydrater full of tomato slices to dry.

Friday would be the arrival of family...

Next Preserving Project...

Friday morning it turned out Andie needed to visit Hayden's school. So it was fortunate we were there to all handle Miss Bailey while Andie took Hayden to school and covered the other bases she needed to cover without wrangling Bailey through all of it. Three adults to one Bailey is pretty good odds!!

After Andie returned home she and Katelyn headed for a morning of errands together. They were having a great sale at Whole Foods on some juices that Andie really likes for Hayden and Bailey. Katelyn wanted to make a purse like mine and needed to go to a fabric store, so they did that. They even managed to find a few other errands to do and have a bit of lunch at Subway together. This was great fun for them to just be together with out the little ones. They have always had a particularly close bond and it was really good to see them out enjoying each other's company again.

Claude and I managed Miss Bailey very well. She is a little delight. She wore her Princess Jasmine costume for a bit. Then we changed outfits so she was Nemo. She loves PlayDoh and we spent at least an hour making things out of PlayDoh. We fed her lunch and watched her show so she would be ready for naptime when Andie returned.

This last picture of her in the PlayDoh reminds me of a little 'ditty' Papa used to sing about Junie, Neffie and me when we were little girls and managed to accumulate dirt and/or food around our faces. He would sing "a little angel...with a dirty face". Can't put the music to it here but I can still hear it in my head whenever I found our 'little angel' with this 'dirty face'.  (Pause for a moment of tender feelings...)

A highlight was her 'asking' to go potty and then really going by herself. Andie has been working diligently to get her potty trained. We were so excited, I called Andie so she could tell her mom what a good job she did. Andie had some donuts in the house and Bailey felt like she had earned one for a treat. Andie said that was okay. Bailey downed her donut.

A little later Bailey tells me she needs to go potty. We hurry to the bathroom and she attempts to do her thing. Nothing occurs. We wash hands. Then, ever so innocently Miss Bailey looks at me and assures me she needs another 'donut' treat for going potty!!! Such a kid.

Katelyn & Andie returned. Katelyn got a bit more playing in before we headed back to Georgetown.

Katelyn had one last discussion with the missionaries. We finished this at the Church in Georgetown.

Then we headed to Tom & Mary Walker's home to pick up apples. They have two apple trees in their yard and it was time to pick.  I had 3 canning jar boxes in my car and we filled them. Then off to Sadieville we headed.

We were about to begin our last week with Katelyn. My how this summer flew by having her with us.

Jersey Boys...

Thursday, August 12th we got Katelyn to work in the morning. Claude and I did as much as we could at the house. I got the wash done but no ironing. We also packed for a night away.

At 1pm Claude got Katelyn from work, she came home and packed and we were out the door and headed toward LaGrange. We made a stop at Burger King for dinner (Claude had coupons). We made a stop at a lawyers for me to do some more with mom's nursing home care, then it was to I-64 and run like the wind to LaGrange. We wanted a little play time with the mini-Marx's before our big date.

Claude has always wanted to see the Jersey boys. Some time back we purchased tickets to see them in Louisville. We only had the two tickets and needed a place for Katelyn to be. Andie agreed to house her while we went to the theater. Then we would all spend the night at Casa Marx and return to Sadieville on Friday.

We enjoyed the kids and read stories, watched a show on TV and played some games.

Then Claude and I headed to Lynn's Paradise Cafe for dinner. This is a really fun place to eat. We ate there once before and I blogged about that experience. Our server was a trainee and he was delightful. Someone from the kitchen brought us our order. Claude ordered tomato bisque soup and a bacon, lettuce & fried green tomato sandwich. When the person from the kitchen put his plate with the sandwich on it on the table (the sandwich was cut in half), one half of it just slid right off the plate and onto the booth seat by Claude. Hmmmm...the server was aghast. We just chuckle. The server took the half sandwich and came back with another half sandwich to replace it. I just SURE he brought a new half, I'm really sure he did!?!?!

Our meal was great and we headed into downtown Louisville to see the Jersey Boys. As we pulled up in front of the theater and were preparing to make the turn down the side street and into the parking garage, I noticed a billboard that said 'Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons' would be there on September 19th. Can you see the humor in that? Claude and I were very amused by us seeing the Jersey Boys which is a play about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.

The Jersey Boys was an excellent play. It was very well done. These guys are from Jersey and a tough part of Jersey at that. There was some language and there were signs warning about the language. It was not all the time, just a few place to accent points. They really could have made that part a lot worse but the limited it. I found it cute that in the bios for the actors one of them said, "I don't talk like this to my mother!!"  The staging was excellent and these guys sing just like the real thing. Very talented and well worth the time and cost.

I liked that the band played music as we all left the theater at the end. It was like we got an bonus concert.

Then we gratefully headed back to Andie's to spend the night. It was really a blessing to not have to drive the hour and a half back to Sadieville.

Wednesday Was Full...

Wednesday, August 11th was another full day for me.

It was Hayden's first day of kindergarten. I thought about our little guy all day and hoped he was having a successful first day.

Quarterly the nursing home has a meeting with the families of each resident to share their concerns and successes and to give the family members a chance to ask questions and share their feelings and concerns. Wednesday was the day for this appointment at 1:45pm. I did all I could at home before heading to the nursing home. I got there at exactly 1:45 and Papa's car was not there. I parked my car and called him on my cell phone. He had fed mom the hour before and forgot about this appointment. He hurried over and we had a nice visit with the nursing home staff.

Mimi is doing fine. They would rather she didn't have to be in the wheelchair all the time but they don't worry about her falling. She can't walk without help anymore and really needs the wheelchair. They were appreciative of all Papa does and any help I can give. We were able to express our gratitude for the love and care they give my mother. I never wanted to use a nursing home for my parents. Such horror stories we hear about them. But this particular nursing home breaks that stereotypical mold to pieces. I'm ever so grateful my mother resides there. I often feel it may be part of the reason we felt we should move to Kentucky.

I had a little time to run an errand I needed to do in town before returning to the nursing home to sing with Papa.

Then I had a hurried dinner from Arby's. There were enormous rain clouds rolling in very quickly. I got my food at the drive-thru and drove to the area of the Church to eat my dinner in my car while the rain poured down again.

I did get a quick call in to Hayden after my dinner and before my meeting to see how his first day of kindergarten went. The little guy was flyin' high and bouncin' off walls. I caught him as his family was going to Steak & Shake for a 1st day of school dinner.

The evening was spent at the Church with my presidency having our monthly presidency meeting. I just love these ladies. We are planning a wonderful event in October for all the sisters in Relief Society titled 'Circle of Sisters'. We had great fun during this particular meeting working on the handouts we are giving to each sister. What a pleasure it is for me to have these great ladies in my life at this particular time. I know it is a blessing and tender mercy from my Heavenly Father.

On the way home I picked up Frosty's for Claude and Katelyn. They were happy to have 'guy food' for dinner since I wasn't home. They like things spicier than I do and they relish the opportunity to enjoy those meals when I'm not home. They are going to miss each other terribly in another week when Katelyn goes back to Michigan.