Mike's Grave Site

After visiting with my grandma, it was time to do what I think is still, up to this point, the hardest thing in my life. We headed over to visit Mike's grave.

Das Schutzenwaldchen Trail

Today Teresa and I went to visit my Grandma Norma. I hadn't seen her since last year, and a couple months ago she had a stroke. Now she's in a care facility (home). Dad had warned me that she lost most of her short term memory and only really remembers things from the past.

When I went in to see her, she recognized that I was one of "Joe's boys", but she wasn't sure which one. I reminded her that I was the oldest, and re-introduced her to Teresa. We didn't stay there very long. Grandma looked pretty tired and there wasn't any place to just sit down and visit with her.

Dad had told us about the old German Das Schutzenwaldchen Trail that was around the back of the care homes, so Teresa and I decided to go for a walk after seeing my Grandma. Here are the photos from the trail.






The sign from the trail.










Base of the light post.










We took this photo since it looked kind of like the light post from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.










Here is a photo of the start of the trail.








Go figure. Me on the trail looking happy about it. Must have been near the start. :)








Here is a deer track on the trail. Lots of wildlife tracks all around, but we didn't see any, except of course for the mosquitos. :(







After about a half hour, I started to overhead pretty bad. Although the trail was short, it was longer than I we had planned on.







Here was the trail marker that we finally found a seat to rest at.








At this point, I decided to be a smart ass, so I called my mom on the cell. Told her that I needed a medivac helicopter.







Being my mom, she said she wasn't sure how to call for a medivac helicopter and that I should just call 911. After 36 years, how could she not know that I was messing around with her. Only my mom...

Back to Mom and Dad's

After visiting with Grandma Beery, it was back to Mom and Dad's to see Barbara. She had spent the weekend with her mother. Here's pictures from Mom and Dad's taken 2006-06-25.





Barbara holding Shy-boy.








Jason and Shy-boy.








Shy-boy trying to eat my facial hair.








Shy-boy still trying to eat my facial hair.

Grandma Beery's

Of course I just HAD to see my grandma again! We went from Mom and Dad's over to Grandma Beery's.



Grandma Beery, her dog Weiner Schnitzel and Me. Of course I had to be a bad influence on Schnitzel and had him 'kinda' on the table. :)


Grandma Beery, her dog Weiner Schnitzel and Me.



Grandma Beery, her dog Weiner Schnitzel, Me, Dad and Mom. As always, I have to be the center of attention so I lifted my shirt. Amazingly enough, no one other than Teresa noticed. hehe.

Mom and Dad's House

Sunday we were going to take Dad out for a belated Father's day dinner. His choice where. We decided to be nice and since it was his dinner, we told him to invite Jered and family if he would like.

When we stopped to pick up mom and dad, we had to wait for Jered. I know, suprise, suprise. These photos were taken while we waited on my parents deck.




First is me, Mom and Jered's youngest daughter, Jade.








Here's Jered's middle daughter, Angela.










Teresa sitting back enjoying the 75 degree weather.








Barbara's dog Buddy.









Grandpa Joe just sitting around.








Grandpa Joe and his little Jade.








More of Grandpa Joe and his little Jade.








Teresa displaying her socks and sandles.

Mom and Dad's House

I had called dad on Father's day and told him we were sending a package that would be there Saturday and needed to be signed for. Of course he said they would be home and that would be no problem. Guess what?!?! We get there and they aren't even home. Mom and Dad were over helping a friend of theirs move. Bad situation all around, but that's a story for another post altogether.

When we finally got a hold of mom, she came home and we suprised her. Then we went over and waited for dad to get back from unloading the truck and suprised him. After that we were totally exhausted so we went back to the hotel to take another nap.

After waking up, we headed back over to mom and dad's.

Not much more happened. We did stop over at Roger and Virginia's to say 'hi'. Roger was having a Texas Hold-em night and had about 10 people over. I only new Roger, Virginia, Jackie's dad Roger, and Hal from Jewel.

After that we went over to Grandma Beery's and played some Skip-Bo. I'm thinking we probably kept her up a little to late. After that, it was back to the hotel room. It was definitely hard to shake the exhaustion.

Midwest Vacation

We decided to fly up to the Quad Cities to suprise my family since we hadn't been there for almost a year. Since last Sunday was Father's Day, Wednesday was Barbara's birthday, and Grandma Beery's, Mom's and Angela's birthdays were all coming up, we figured it was a good time to suprise them all (and of course to give them all their presents).

Our trip began with with a rocky start. We were flying non-rev and their had apparently been an emergency landing in Phoenix earlier in the afternoon. Quite a few of the passenger going from Las Vegas and Phoenix to Chicago had been reaccomodated. Since we were scheduled on the last flight to Chicago it looked like we weren't going to get out at all.

As it ended up, we got on the plane, and there were still a few empty seats. At first I was crammed between two people and Teresa was in the middle seat 1 row behind me. Before we even taxied to the runway, the flight attendants let us move around. As it ended up, both the people in Teresa's row moved to different spots, and I was able to to move to the row with Teresa. That meant all of us in the two rows ended up being in rows with only two people instead of packed in like sardines with 3.

The flight was pretty uneventful, and we landed at about 3am CST. After grabbing our luggage, I called the Dollar rental number and it said to go outside and wait for a van to pick us up. We waited outside until about 4am and I finally called the 800 number for Dollar and told them I was still waiting. 10 minutes later the van showed up to pick us up and the driver told us America West must have added a flight because they never arrived that late before. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I knew different.

We got to the rental car lot, went inside, and I gave the guy my licenses and credit card. He printed out the papers and told me to sign. Since it was about 4:20 am, I didn't even notice that he never bother to ask us about insurance. He did however inform me that it was an additional $9/day to allow Teresa to drive. One of the more stupid decisions that I made on the trip was to pass on that option. Big mistake!

By 4:30 am we were on the freeway heading to the Quad Cities, and man was I tired.

About 5:30 we stopped at the DeKalb Oasis (McDonalds) to get some breakfast and more importantly caffeine. Then it was off to Davenport.

By 7:30 we were in the Quad Cities so we decided to give it a shot and see if the Best Western we were supposed to stay at, had our room available that early. It wasn't very likely, but we didn't have anything to lose.

Ends up they had it ready. Awesome! So we took a badly needed nap for a couple hours.