I do want to share the events of last week. It started on Monday with me driving a BIG moving truck to St. Louis and back. In a perfect world, Beckie would have found an affordable apartment by now and we would have moved her things from the parking side of our garage into her new home. Unfortunately, we live in an imperfect world but thankfully, Emily's garage has space so we moved Beckie's stuff (and a queen size mattress for Katherine Eschrich) from Columbia to St. Louis. Since I was the one who made the truck reservation and since we didn't want to spend the extra $26.00 for a second driver and because we didn't have time to change the reservation into Steve's name - I got to drive the truck both ways. Lucky me!
(hey, Jeanne, your shoes are untied!)
As you can see by the raincoat, it rained lightly much of the day but, thankfully, all went smoothly in spite of the wet. And, I only had to back up twice. First time was after we had loaded an extremely large and heavy mattress at Katherine Eschrich's place and the second time was into Emily's driveway (just barely missing her across-the-street neighbor's mailbox!). At our place, Jim Bonuchi backed the truck into our driveway. In addition to him, we also had Ray Stubbs, and Larry Jespersen to help load here at the house and at Katherine's. The biggest challenge was getting a VERY HEAVY sofa bed out of the basement, up the lawn, and into the truck. This was not even Beckie's sofa. It belongs to Emily and when they were living in Kate's house, she had no room to store it so we brought it to Columbia and I used it in my music studio. Emily found this sofa at a Deseret Industries in Provo and somehow hauled it up a rickety flight of stairs to her little second floor studio apartment on Center St. Then, it was carried back down those stairs into a U-Haul trailer that she pulled behind her silver Honda when she moved back to Missouri and it went into her apartment (on ground level, thank goodness) in University City. Then, somehow it was hauled up TWO flights of stairs to the top of the Mason Lodge until it was brought to Columbia (back DOWN those two flights of stairs). It now resides in the garage in Ballwin and Steve and I hope we NEVER have to move that couch ever again.
After a full day of driving on Monday, we spent Tuesday buying groceries and I attended my last CCO rehearsal that night. On Wednesday, I did my duty as a visiting teacher and as a friend and I helped dress 92 year old Violet Davis for her burial. Her funeral was Saturday right in the middle of our family reunion so this was all I could do for her and her family this week. On Thursday, I made three batches of jam - two blueberry and one blackberry - to try and use up some of our frozen fruit. I put up about 21 jars and we STILL have leftover fruit. Sigh! That afternoon, Kirsti and Ryan returned from their little trip up to Chicago. Friday morning, they helped haul down all the stored boxes and tubs from the attic that belonged to both Kirsti and Sarah. From about eight tubs, Kirsti was able to whittle what she wanted to keep down to one tub. Food preparation took the rest of Friday and Emily and Joe and kids arrived that evening.
Saturday was the BIG DAY! Our Lambson Family Reunion. And, it was a perfect day. I loved every minute of it. In the morning, after a pancake breakfast, Lucy and I strung beads for a necklace with some beads from Kirsti's storage tubs. Julina and Shiloh arrive around 9:30 and she and I left take care of a safety deposit box loose end and we also dropped off a bunch of stuff to hazardous waste. (yeah, that is a pretty random thing to do on such a day but the hazardous waste collection days are only on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month and this was a 1st Saturday and the FIRST Saturday since Steve and I had cleaned out our garage so we had about three boxes of chemicals and paints that were taking up valuable garage space. It was a much needed errand, in spite of an already busy day)
At 11:30, we spread Trissy's ashes at the pond across the street in the park.
( walking over to the pond)
We ate a delicious and easy lunch in our back yard under the shade trees.
then, after we ate, Emily took a family portrait. Mid-day is not ideal for taking pictures but the north side of our house is nice and shady and it provided the perfect light. Next on the agenda was the give-away. I gave each child a shopping bag and list of places in the house where they could "shop"(food storage, games, holiday and sports stuff in the garage). I had some of my pottery I was giving away and I also numbered the paintings I was willing to share and each person ended up taking two home with them. After all that was done, and while folks returned to sitting and visiting in the back yard, I let Noah try out my full size violin and my cello and we practiced a couple of duets. We then went out to the back yard and played our duets for the rest of the family. That was followed by a little family jam session with Steven on guitar, Emily on banjo, and Kirsti on mandolin, Noah on violin, and me on cello. Our repertoire was quite small and limited to the key of G but we had fun! When we were done, Noah and I went back inside for his piano lesson. Beckie had brought Luna (she was dog-sitting for Kyle) and that dog was perfect for the energies of Lucy and Quinn. They loved throwing Luna the ball and she loved retrieving it. That evening, Steven and Tamara provided Shakespeares pizza for dinner. And, eight of the family (Steve, Julina, Emily, Noah, Lucy, Elise, Beckie, and Melanie) came to listen to my Columbia Civic Orchestra concert. We returned home to a campfire and campfire desserts and the perfect day was done.
Kirsti found an old costume I had made for her and she gave it to Lucy who wore it pretty much the entire Saturday.
including the concert!
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