Van Horn Monthly Lunch

The group was a little bigger for our monthly Van Horn Class of '73 lunch.

We went back to Salty Iguana for fun, food and fiesta. I love getting together with friends from high school. It makes me feel young.

It was also Val's birthday and it took several tries for me to get this selfie because we were laughing so hard. I must admit that high school was truly one of the best times of my life. I wouldn't necessarily want to go back and do it again but it's fun remembering all the good times.

Blue Springs Fun Fest

In competition with Santa-Cali-Gon Days in Independence, Blue Springs has a Fall Fun Fest. Just one street (several blocks) with crafts and food, a performance stage and pony rides.

After Violet and I walked through the booths collecting all the free give away stuff, we caught up with Melissa at the performance stage. I was so hot and tired and noticed just walking up and down the street, Violet and I had walked 2-1/2 miles.

Of course Melissa looked fresh as a daisy even though she's 6 months pregnant. Oh to be young again!

Car-B-Cue

Jamie had a little car trouble on his way home from work. When they went to Florida back in July, they had car trouble but $20 later, Jamie had the car back on the road.

Melissa was having the same trouble again, so Jamie took the car to the fire station to work on it. On the way home, he noticed smoke coming out from under the hood. When he lifted the hood, oxygen took over and the car caught on fire.

While Jamie began throwing car seats, strollers and tools out of the car, the fire department showed up and put out the fire. We can laugh about it now because he wasn't hurt but Jamie called it a Car-B-Cue! Needless to say, the car is a total loss. Why is it every time Melissa and Jamie have a baby, they get a new car?

Violet Get Glasses

Unfortunately, Violet has been struck with the dreaded near sightedness of my family. She was having trouble seeing the board at school so Melissa took her in to get her eyes checked. Sure enough, she needed glasses.

They're actually very stylish and I hear young kids who don't even need glasses are wearing them with clear lenses. I'm praying her eyes don't get as bad as Melissa's. I think any other upgrade in Melissa's prescription would qualify her for a seeing eye dog!!! 

Doobie Brothers

After holding on to concert tickets for over a year, we finally got to see the Doobie Brothers at Starlight Theater. Such a great venue considering the pandemic circumstances we're in right now.

We didn't realize our seat were so good until we tried to make people move who were sitting further back than our seats. They offered to change seats with us but, of course, we headed on down closer to the stage.

The concert was excellent. While the musicians were old and grey, the songs made me feel as though I was back in high school. Hopefully there will be more concerts in the future.

Checking Off My "To Do" List

There are a few thing that need to be done to my house before putting it on the market. One thing was to paint the bedroom ceiling due to a bad repair of a stress crack on my part.

Michael said I needed to cover the walls so I wouldn't get paint splatter all over. He made fun of me and compared my bedroom to a scene from Dexter. BTW, great series on Netflix if you've never seen it. Maybe it was a bit overkill but clean up was a breeze.

But the ceiling got refreshed and everything looks great. A couple more items plus completion of my new house and I'm ready to move.

Checking on the New House

Trish and I decided to check on the progress of my new house. The front door and the garage doors are installed but I remembered the last time I was there, the back door hadn't been installed.

Even though it had poured rain the day before, I decided to traipse through the mud to get in the house. Bad idea! Walking the 12 feet to the back door through the mud was like walking through quick sand. But after trudging for 6 feet, I was bound and determined to get in my house. The back door is only about 3 feet from the ground but when I tried to hoist myself up, my shoe got buried in the mud. So back down I went to retrieve the shoe. That wasn't my biggest problem. My feet and shoes were so caked with mud, I had to sit for several minutes scraping my feet so I could walk through the house and open the garage door to let Trish in.

I was so mad when I realized the garage door wasn't even locked. I swear I tried to open it before going to the back of the house but apparently I wasn't strong enough to open it or I didn't try hard enough.

Then it was up the make shift ladder to walk through the house. Needless to say it was a very comical evening. Still waiting for the drywall to be installed. Things seem to be going a bit slow right now.