My shuttle picked me up at my Seattle apartment at 9:30 last Thursday night to make my midnight flight to Milwaukee to my son's new home; landing at 8:05 AM. I felt like I had come back home as I walked through the airport and saw assorted cheese-heads, Packers paraphernalia and my favorite: T-shirts that claimed "Nothing Tips Better Than a Cow!" I had to control myself or all my grandchildren would be getting "Pasture Bedtime" T-shirts with a picture of a cow on it for Christmas! (What do you expect from America's Dairyland?) Daughter-in-law, Emily, and granddaughter, Abigail met me near the baggage claim area!
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| Emily & Baker (aka Abigail) |
That night, after Bart got home from work, we went to the Lake Front Brewery where we shared a table with total strangers, had a fish fry, enjoyed the music of a polka band and enjoyed maple-flavored root beer! Abigail especially loved the bubbles released while the band played. She would have really enjoyed Lawrence Welk!
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| Abigail, Bart, Emily & I Lake Front Brewery Fish Fry! |
Al was still recovering from surgery, so we mostly enjoyed a visit with him at home. His daughter, Mary Ellen was there with her husband Andrew (Powell), her children, Logan (4) and Ella (2), and their dog Toby, decked out in his Green Bay Packers sweater! Baker enjoyed playing with her new friends and I'm excited that Bart & Emily will be able to take her to Ella's birthday party next week.
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| Me, Al, Logan, Andrew, Mary, Ella, Abigail, Emily & Bart |
After Mary's family left, Al needed a bit of a rest, so I took Bart, Emily & Baker on a little reminiscent tour of Watertown. I pointed out some places with special memories, especially Mullen's Dairy downtown. When I was 8, my parents purchased the original Mullen farm and we delivered the milk cans to the dairy every morning for bottling. They made the best ice cream, so of course I had to make sure everyone had a sample!
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| Bart, Baker & I Enjoying REAL Wisconsin Ice Cream! |
The dairy looked just like it always had and I felt like I had taken a step back into the '60s as I walked in the door.
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| Mullen's Dairy Bar The same; Inside & Out! |
They have it set up to show how the school was set up. Just don't look to closely at the mannequins. They look a little creepy....
Last stop on the self-guided tour before going back to visit more with Al and enjoying a "senior menu" dinner at Perkins was a stop at the old farm. Amazingly, I was able to find my way to the farm without the use of a GPS (since an address of "Horseshoe Road" isn't enough)! As we pulled into the drive, Bart asked the woman who came to meet us on her mower if we could walk around a bit. The house still looks pretty good and pretty much the same but with the addition of a built-on garage where the patio used to be.
The barn and land made me very sad though. The barn looked so bad, I'm not sure it's ever been painted since before we lived there! I only say that because it hadn't been painted red since BEFORE we moved there in '63 and the red is VERY evident where the paint is peeling away. Boards are loose, the barnyard is overgrown with weeds and the roof on the hog barn looks like it will collapse under a good snowfall! I was glad Bart & Emily were able to see the aerial view photo at Al's house to be able to see what it used to look like!
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| The barnyard used to have a gate and wasn't overgrown with weeds! A tornado cut across the barnyard and went out between the barn and hog house in the background! |
The next day was Sunday, so we went to Sacrament meeting and then Emily and Abigail and I began our Illinois adventure by stopping first in Harvard to see Aunt Grace and my cousin Jeannine. Aunt Grace always has such wonderful family news and stories! I hope she'll be able to start on her blog soon! I'm sure Emily's head was spinning by the time we left with so many new family names and adventures talked about over lunch!
And then, on to Lanie & Norm's place in Sugar Grove to begin the Aurora adventure! Sunday evening was fairly quiet; just taking some time to catch up with Lanie & Norm, their daughter, Laura and her boyfriend, Steve, and getting prepared for Monday!
Lanie had decided to just let people know I would be at her house and leave it up to them to drop by. It couldn't have worked out better! Sunday evening, the only additional visit was with my cousin Marilyn, Norm's sister.
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| With Aunt Grace, Jeannine, Abigail & Emily |
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| Best Friends: 46 years! Since September, 1967! |
Lanie had decided to just let people know I would be at her house and leave it up to them to drop by. It couldn't have worked out better! Sunday evening, the only additional visit was with my cousin Marilyn, Norm's sister.
Monday morning began with a visit from old high school friend Cary. We were all kind of sad that Gracia and Maria didn't make it out for a visit, but it was great reminiscing with Cary after about forty years; remembering graduation night, running around town, playing on swings at the park and our own kind of senior trip to Corny and the great bat adventure!
Later that evening, things became much more chaotic as groups of family descended upon us almost all at once! First to arrive were Lanie & Norm's sons (Brian & Michael) with their families! I don't know when Brian & Michael grew up, but I guess it was about the same time my kids did, since Brian is three months older than Sami and Michael is one month older than Brooks!
Next in the door were my beautiful niece Gail, her husband Rick and her fabulous mother, Marcia! We all enjoyed a moment at Marcia's expense as she gave Michael a hug and told him it was good to see him again, only to come face-to-face with Norm a few minutes later and ask "Well, who did I hug when I came in?!?!?" We had a great visit and I learned that I also have a great-great niece and nephew, thanks to Gail's daughter Amber!
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| With Marcy, Gail & Rick |
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| Marilyn, Laura, Lanie, Kim, Ann, Dave, Me & Norm Pam & Abigail in front! (See why Dave was tall enough to lift me to the ceiling?!?) |
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| 415 North Avenue in Aurora |
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| 450 South 4th Street |
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| C.M Bardwell School |
After a few other stops to see where Lanie lived, where Norm grew up and where Lanie & I attended Jr. High (and my mom attended high school), it was on to Lincoln Memorial Park to visit my folks and place flowers on their grave.
Their grave was pretty overgrown when we arrived, but thanks to Emily's willingness to get her hands dirty and a pair of kid's scissors in Lanie's purse, it looked pretty good before we left! Thank you Emily!
Sadly, our time in Aurora had to draw to a close to start our final journey south in Illinois to the Soybean Capital of the World: Decatur! We arrived a bit late thanks to road construction and found Pop (my father-in-law, George Sloan) chomping at the bit to go to dinner.
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| Abigail & Great-Grandpa Sloan getting to know one another. Reminds me of walks & talks he used to have with Meg! |
He took us all out to a buffet and I was very pleasantly surprised to see how well "Mom" was doing, considering we almost lost her a year ago! It was great catching up with them and all the news of family. Emily and I especially got bonding time with Mom as we had Abigail's pack-n-play in the bedroom with the extra bed, so we had a slumber party in the living room with Mom in her chair, Emily on the loveseat and me on the couch!
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| Abigail & Great "Bama" |
After our tour, we headed back to the Sloan house to meet another Zeta sister, Robyn (Wise) Bathon and then out to dinner and an evening of memories, tears and laughter. I agree with a comment Robyn made the next day, that our evening together helped her understand for the first time that Zeta IS forever. The only down sides to our visit were the fact that we realized we were missing some other very important players to make our trip down memory lane complete and that our time together ended MUCH too soon! We've committed to pull together a Zeta reunion for 2016 to give us time to find some of our missing links AND to give those of us who live across the country the time to plan and prepare!
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| Vickie, Robyn & I At Mom & Pop Sloan's House |
It was definitely a whirlwind trip. As you can tell, we fit a lot into a one-week period, but it was a wonderful trip. No pressure. No strict timelines. Just good family. Good friends. Good visits. Good memories. And when I boarded that plane Friday afternoon, for the first time since 1979, it felt like I was leaving home. In honor of our East Aurora 40th high school reunion to take place this weekend, let's "Wave the Flag of East Aurora!"
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