Quite A Full Trip West

We decided to make this trip a little longer and visit with more family than usual. Because we’re the kind of people who do that, we left at 1:00 a.m. Friday, headed for Omaha.

 

A short time after we left, I realized I couldn’t find my purse. We stopped, and Murray searched thoroughly. No purse.

 

We called Sarah once it got light, and she searched carefully inside and outside, but couldn’t find it.

 

Because of all that was in the purse, this started us canceling bank cards, moving bills connected to the cards to others, changing the locks on the doors of our house, and other such fun vacation activities.

 

Rebecca and Steve took us to their favorite bagel restaurant Saturday morning, and I told Rebecca about the lost purse mess. “Every time I think about it, I want to cry, but I’m sure a time will come when I don’t feel that way.” Fortunately, I didn’t let it spoil our whole trip.

 

We had such a great time just spending a couple days with Rebecca and Steve. We ate out, talked, watched two movies, including “Princess Bride,” always a favorite.

 

On Sunday morning, Rebecca and Steve took us for a walk on a pedestrian bridge in Omaha, across the Missouri River. Murray asked, “What’s on the other side?”

 

Steve said, “Iowa?” So we walked far enough across so that we could say that we walked to Iowa, then turned around.

 

On Monday, we drove to visit my mom in Missouri. We have started a great tradition of playing scrabble with her, and to my surprise, I actually won this time.

 

My brother Rodney and his friend Marilyn came to Mom’s place on Tuesday, and we played dominoes. Murray and Rodney won most of the games. “A game of skill,” Rodney said.

 

At about 2:30 that afternoon, Mom said, “Oh, I’d better get back to my room. It’s time for Kathy to call.”

 

That evening, we had dinner with Murray’s brother Myles and his family, Heather and Melissa, and Murray’s brother Aaron came, too, for grilled hotdogs.

 

Heather and Melissa showed us their newly-hatched chicks in a cage where they keep them during the day, and I was telling them how we used to get baby chicks in the mail when I was a kid. I loved listening to them cheap and sticking my finger in the wholes in the box to feel how soft they were.

 

While I spoke, Heather took out one of the babies and let me hold it in my hands. So cute.

 

I told Myles about this, and he said, “Yes, they’re just a little bigger than a McNugget.”

 

On Wednesday we drove further south in Missouri to visit Murray’s sister Sherill. She’d fallen the week before, broke her leg, and had to have extensive surgery.

 

When I heard the name of the town where she’d gone for rehab, I thought it sounded familiar. When I mentioned it to Mom, she said that was the town where my cousin Michelle had just moved to from Florida.

 

I contacted Michelle, and she visited Sherill. We had lunch with Michelle and her husband Keith on Wednesday. Michelle and I decided we hadn’t seen each other since 1977, at our grandparents’ 50^th wedding anniversary. We had a lovely talk and said we should try not to wait 46 years to see each other again.

 

We visited Sherill, and although she has a long way to go with her rehab, I’ve never seen anyone who has such a positive attitude. God bless her.

 

Wednesday night we drove to Branson, Missouri, to visit Murray’s aunts Melody and Elena, and his uncle Larry. We hadn’t seen them for six years.

 

Melody was generous and let Murray and me sleep at her place, even though she’d just had surgery the day before. Elena baked brownies and cooked homemade Chinese food, and showed us a quilt she’s working on. We also had a nice talk with Murray’s sister-in-law Sandra.

 

Melody shared her doggy Mini with me. Mini was wonderful, putting her feet up on me so I could pick her up and hold her on my lap. This, and the dogs at Myles’s house, helped me with my missing our kitties.

 

Because we are just like that, we started our drive home at nine Thursday evening, and were pretty exhausted when we got home Friday afternoon.

 

Such a beautiful time, traveling to a bunch of towns, spending time with a lot of family, just talking and visiting. Lovely.