Santa-Cala-Gon Days

Today we went to the grand daddy of all local festivals- the Santa-Cala-Gon. It celebrates Independence's role as the start of the three main routes west. Santa Fe, California and Oregon. It involves over 10 big old craft tents and blocks and blocks of other booths. And yummy food sold by area churches, boy scouts, high school bands and other community groups. Food that smells amazing.

We gave the boys $10 each to buy some of that yummy food and arranged to meet them a short while later. The boys were oh so typical 12 year old boys. Jackson spent his at the how-fast-do you pitch booth. And Daniel spent his at the booth where you make the cool sand in a bottle. And then they shared a big old basket of fried chip potatoes. How funny. Jackson said he must have eaten 200 crispy fried potatoes. By the way Jackson pitched 52 miles per hour.

We parked at the big Mormon center with the spiral sea shell and then took the shuttle. Check out Jack's new Chicago Bear tshirt purchased on Michigan Avenue.

Bounty

We were at Deb's on Thursday when the girls received their Chicago trip bounty. Lauren was super excited to get new clothes for her doll Jay.

Erin was thrilled with her new bitty baby that she named Alice. But she's more thrilled to see her beloved Uncle Johnny.

Among John and Jackson's many souvenirs were these fun little chocolate caskets (or cases as Jack called them) from the Funeral Museum.

Oprah: Day Four

We journeyed home on Wednesday. But oh what a ride it was. Check out my silly sisters riding outfit. Just cracked me up.

We saw the world largest covered wagon. Except the cover was being repaired after some wind damage. And Debbie got a nasty splinter on that wooden fence.

We returned to Springfield to visit the Funeral Museum which was closed on Monday. It was really fascinating and very quirky. We learned all about the embalming, funeral practices, and about Lincoln's funerals. This Cowboy coffin is a replica of Lincoln's. Just as we watched the video about Lincoln's funerals (there was one in every city that the funeral train visited) Deb leaned over and said "you have very, very bad breath it smells like a dead cats." Which of course made me laugh hysterically right in the middle of the hearses and mourning attire. This was also not the place to wear the "come on be happy" partridge family tshirt. We left with little chocolate coffins.

We rolled in to home about 11 with four days absolutely full of fun memories.

Oh yea we're "living our best life" now!

Oprah: The Day of the Show

We wake up at 4 to primp and preen. Caught the hotel shuttle at 5 a.m. We take the blue line hop off and walk, take the number 20 Madison bus, and then walk some more. And finally we arrive. Oh yea. We did it! Oprah is just as kind and genuine in person as she is on tv. We watch a show about dogs! We were selected because I wrote in when they asked for dog lovers. We saw dogs. A dog that could count (everyone in America is going to be talking about Maggie), dogs that danced, jumped rope, did handstands on their people's hands, the littlest dog in the world (little Boo Boo was scared to death), and a little Italian Greyhound with only two legs. The show was actually a follow up to last season's most highly rated show about puppy mills. A man from Pennsylvania talked about legislative initiatives.

This is one of about 50 pictures we took of every sign on the block. When we were done cheesing it up. We hit the new Oprah store. We carefully selected all sorts of things tshirts, mugs, key chains, note cards, even socks.

Then it was off to see the sites. We packed it all in to a 8 hour spree through the city. We ate Chicago style pizza, saw the Art Institute, ESPN Zone, Crate and Barrel, the Millennium Park, that big bean thing that we didn't know the name of, and the American Girl Doll Store. We must have walked 20 miles. No kidding.

Luckily Chicago has all sorts of beautiful spots to sit and rest.

Deb bought Erin her very own Bitty Baby and clothes and all sorts of goodies.

We visited a farmers market and saw the weirdest site of all. A lady was just carrying one (1) ear of corn. Who ever heard of just buying one corn. This summer Mom bought me a bushel of 30 ears of corn. And here's this lady just walking around with one! And I do believe that every homeless person in Chicago asked us for money. One lady asked me to give her the bus money so that she could go to a battered women's shelter. We saw a homeless lady and her baby struggling under a heavy load and then when she got closer we realized um there's not a baby in that bucket. Everyone in Chicago was super friendly though to two country gals with bad sense of direction.

Oprah: Day Two

We are in Springfield, Illinois. A great little city about an hour outside of St. Louis. We eat in the Hen House. And learn that this little dinner is reported to be haunted by the ghost of a former cook for a wagon train. Ya just don't get this stuff on a plane trip.

We are in the land of Lincoln, and enjoy touring Lincoln's house and Lincoln's tomb. His entire neighborhood is preserved from 1861. Did you know that his was an integrated neighborhood. Three doors down was a free black man whose house was a stop on the underground railroad. Or that someone tried to steal Lincoln's body for ransom? (the plot was foiled) Or even that Lincoln exhumed his son Willie twice just to look at him?

We arrive in Chicago just in time for rush hour. We search for an hour and a half for our hotel near O'Hara Airport. Thank you Gina for helping us reserve the hotel. You rock girlfriend!

Oprah: Day One

I got tickets to the Oprah Show! One week ago Harpo Studios called and invited me to a taping of the show. I couldn't get to Deb's house fast enought to tell her the exciting news. We're going to see Oprah! We rented a snazzy little red car that totally sipped the gas. $114 to Chicago and back!

We enjoyed St. Louis with a stop at Grants Farm. It's a small zoo with free beer. Anheiser Busch Beer. It was a beautiful relaxing Sunday afternoon with warm sun, happy animals and cold drinks.

We dined at the Old Spagetti Factory and then got back on the road.

Jamboree Day

It's Jamboree Day at Myers House. The start of the Mustangs football season. The team played a series of mini-preseason games to try out new plays. John took the opportunity to coach the kids in things they could do to improve their game.

Jackson during warm ups. Cause I'm not going anywhere near that line of scrimmage during a game. Those boys are big. They hit hard.

John is determined to make this a positive experience for every boy. We have a couple boys who have never played before and he makes a special effort to help them keep up.

Same age. Same team. But what a difference in size. Wowzie. Somehow Jack always ends up standing next to the tiniest boys on the team. Jack was double teamed for a good part of the day. That frees up the smaller but quick and tough center to break through the line and nail the quarter back.

The start of seventh grade

This week marked the start of seventh grade. We're off to a good start. New school, new teachers, new schedule, new friends.

And because I share all major happenings at Myers house..... Jackson sustained his first football related injury last week. He took a helmet to the knee that resulted in a sprained ligament and a bruised new cap. We thought we were in for major medical intervention but the doc says he'll heal. And he has!

Butterflies and Presidents

We celebrated all things butterfly at the Powell Garden Butterfly Festival.

This picture was taken just shortly before Jack's butterfly peed on him. Yep. He looked confused and asked the naturalist "um did it just..." Yea. We also learned about the sex life of these beautiful monarchs. If you are a monarch born in time for the migration you live 9 months. And winter in Mexico. But if you are born in the spring you get to mate. And well it takes a lot out of you and you don't winter in Mexico. But you do have a wild two weeks.

This is just not something you see every day. This insect specialist let these newly hatched butterflies perch on his beard and face while they "dried."

And here is something you definitely don't see everyday. President Lincoln made an appearance at the Battle of Lone Jack commemoration. Earlier in the day he was dressed to the nine's with the top hat and all. But we caught him eating a burger and a Pepsi later in the day.

Orientation Day

Myers house was up early, early, early this morning to see Jack off to the big middle school orientation day. It was basically a walk through of his classes and a chance to spend a few minutes getting to know his new teachers.

Awaiting him when he returned was the new football cleats! Boy are they sharp.

And Cooper. Cooper missed his boy. Crawled up on him and kissed his face like in the movies. Cooper used to actually sit at the window and watch the bus go down the street every morning and would run when he heard the bus again in the afternoon. He's a very traditional dog. Well except for his odd habit of eating toilet paper. Just a little bit off the roll and then he runs under the table and chews it. On second thought he's and odd dog.

Celebrating the season

Tonight we celebrated our baseball season. The boys play together and then take a few minutes to accept their team pictures, a disk of wonderful pictures from the season, and this year a trophy for taking third in the tournament.

A team mate invited the team to his house for a swim party. He has a beautiful pool. Toss in some pizza. And the boys had a blast.

The boys of summer.

A Day at the Fair

It's Fair day at Myers house. Deb and I took the girls to Sedalia for a day of old fashioned fun.

The highlight of the fairs culinary delights is the corn dogs of course. Deb and I have a long history of champion corn dog eatin too. We sat and ate these yummy corn dogs as we watched beautiful Belgian draft horses. Erin gnawed her corn dog to death.

Carlee's a friend of ours who is visiting Debbie this week. She lives in Florida. Smokey the Bear is always a hit at the fair. Except for when Lauren was a little bitty munchkin and she didn't realized that the thing talked. And talked in this low deep voice that nearly scared the bee geeza out of her. She nearly clawed my neck to bits trying to get away. That would be Erin's red snow cone slopped all over her cute little shirt. Oh and I think it was right about this part of the day that we realized that we'd given sweet little Carlee a red snow cone. Yea she's allergic to red food dye. Not good. Luckily Deb had the Benedrile packed.

Future fair queen material for sure.

Lauren's riding the slopes of that dragon roller coaster.

Stuck in a jam

John and I made jelly this morning. Delicious peach and plum jelly.

Monday

One of the heirlooms that we purchased at Granny's sell was an armload of hand em bordered linens. After carefully washing them. I put them on the line to be sun kissed dried.

These pretty linens were made by either my granny, my great grandma Lonnie (who was an extremely talented seamstress), my great grandma Drew or my dear Great Aunt Alida. All of whom probably either made or gave my grandparents their handy work.

As I put them on the line I wondered about what their minds were thinking while their fingers created these priceless heirlooms. Were they sitting around the porch at night talking about the war. In France? In Vietnam? Or were they talking about the latest gossip from the church supper. Whom was seen kissing who. The newest couple to announce a new baby. Or the mysterious new family in the country.

Or were they sitting next to the fire or the stove on a cold winter night. Wondering about what they would feed their children for breakfast. Or if their little one's fever would break. Or one of the universal things mom's have worried about for ages. I'll never know. But I know that they put a lot of love into these pillow cases, shelf and table runners and tea towels.

Sunday

The best tattoo you can buy for 50 cents.

We should sell tickets to watch the Olympics with John. He was hysterical. His imitation of people stuck behind all the bikes trying to get to work was a scream. We listened to announcers tell us that the International Badminton Federation was working to bring badminton to Africa and their plan to solve this problem. John deadpans "wow I thought it was the starvation and the aids who knew the real extent of the problem." And Jack. He couldn't believe that water polo was an Olympic sport. When he started in about how they prevented peaking we started to question him. He thought it was the Marco..... polo. That we play in the pool. My family is always good for a laugh.

By the way John says if there was an Olympic medal for ideal conversation.... I'd get the gold.

country bound

They sold my Granny's house and all the stuff that was still inside on Thursday. It was a very emotional day for Deb and I. We had to bid and pay for anything that we wanted of my Granny's. My father and his evil controller wife absolutely stunned the people of the country with their frozen cold hearts. What kind of cretin sells his fathers funeral book or his military dog tags or who makes his aunt purchase the brass bucket that had been in her family as long as she could remember. Was that $50 worth it to sell your soul?

The wench twice tried to throw Deb and I out. She wanted us and more importantly the girls away from there and now. Luckily the auction company refused. And they warded off the ensuing total riot that would have occurred. There are good people in this world who will do the right thing even when faced with difficult evil. They proved their integrity in taking the high road even though I know they paid the price in the deal with the evil wench. My Dad has never seen his beautiful grand babies. So it must have sent daggers in his heart to see them play and run and laugh. We hope it did anyway.


The thing is that good will always overcome and Deb and I were shielded by many, many prayers. You simply wouldn't believe the kindness that people showed to us. Folks who stepped forward and said "you can store whatever you want in our shed" and "you can use our truck" and over and over we heard "we bought this box for this one thing, is there anything in here that you girls would want." Complete strangers. And people who simple came and stood with us. Who hugged us and cared about us. Let me tell you right now there is no amount of paper that will buy that kind of love. None. So even if the bank account added a precious few 0's. My Dad and the wench are so very very poor.

The day after the sale Deb and I went back and were able to have a few peaceful minutes to say goodbye. We have a lot of wonderful memories in that house. Wood makes a house. But it's things like this piece of re bar that makes a home. It's one of those strange little things. My papa died unexpectedly in his early 60's and when he died that re bar was holding up the tree. It just shows how much we've all grown and how far we've come.

All three of our kiddos have all sorts of surrogate grandparents in the country. Harry and Ruthie are about the sweetest people in the whole world. By the way Jack didn't make the trip due to football practice.

And in the country there are always kittens and critters.

Just how much money would it take for you to turn your life away from this sweet little face? Geez we could hardly turn ourselves away from that little kitten.

In fact we may just have to go back and get them all. But don't tell John or Brian.

Red Sox Game

I spent much of the day at the middle school schedule pick up. But alas my 12 year old is absolutely mortified at the thought of pictures within a possible range of his friends. We carefully plucked out that locker combo at least a zillion times. And then hiked through the high and low to walk his schedule. Up the steps. Down the stairs. Back up the stairs.

But I do have some much fought for pictures from our night at the Red Sox Game. Ok the Royals have really suffered the last few seasons but it was just plain weird to go to a game and see more jerseys from the opposing team. Red Sox Nation was out in force.

Especially when they first opened the gates and waves of Red Sox fans entered the stadium. Our seats weren't really in this section. We were about 15 rows from the top way up there in God's country. But I couldn't stand it so we moved down at the 5th inning.

The collection of memorabilia was incredible. Our final count was jerseys for 15 different current Red Sox players and 9 former or retired Sox. Contrasting we saw 4 different current Royals jerseys and 4 traded or retired jerseys. And most oddly only a very very few Manny Ramerez jerseys. (he of the recent trade to the Dodgers).

Waiting for the gates to open and sporting every color of Red Sox Jerseys.

the practices begin

The mighty Mustangs officially began training camp this week.

Coach John blocks a tackle from 5'8" 160 pound Jackson. I had to stand in the next county to get the pic so pardon the blur.