Trip to Michigan to help Mike and Julie and more............

Julie's  (our son Mike's wife) dad Loren Rigterink had a bad summer ---- to put it mildly.  He was finally diagnosed with a "fungus on his artificial heart valve".....surgery was needed.  Surgery would take place on September 9.  When Mike called to tell us about it, he said it would be nice if we could come out to give Julie a little relief.  A family of 8 is a VERY busy household and then add the time spent at the hospital....... Julie definitely could use some help.   As she said "we are making do OK"......but Mike just wanted her to be able to relax a little and not have such a heavy load.     We left for Michigan on Sept. 6.

So I tried to put a little dent in Julie's day.  I helped with the laundry --- loads and loads of laundry...... and made the evening meal.   Halle and Colton were being home schooled - so I helped keep them on track with their Reading assignments.

Gary had other tasks.........   Julie and Mike were in the process of moving the laundry room.  They had the room all prepared but now for the plumbing and so on.  Trenton and Austin and Mike and Gary all got busy and after some trips to town for plumbing needs and some scratching of the brain on the amount of "drop" needed in the drain pipe.....the whole thing became a reality.  What a nice room she now has ----- the laundry is  no longer part of the kitchen!!!

What's next....... could you put new brakes on the Suburban??  Yup.  That  wasn't too bad.

  A day's rest from car work brought Gary to Dennis and Holly's to see about the lights on the combine.  He got a few of those working but the ones on the auger were a complete puzzle.  Dennis will have to look into them a little more.

Then Rick wondered if we could come down to Kalamazoo on Wednesday evening --- he would like some help moving his few belongings to his new place of business.   He and a gal who is editor of the little paper Rick writes an article for are going into a business together. I really don't understand it completely so don't want to mess it up with writing something wrong...... but it's some type of "float tank for emotional - physical  - mental therapy" (best way for me to explain it).   Anyway......they found a place for this business and Rick can live in the back portion.    So would we be available to help move.   Yes - we can do that and also get to visit a little with Tim, Marti and Oliver and Keller. We got to move Rick AND enjoy a meal with everyone and spend a little play time with our 2 grandsons.

NEXT --- Austin's little black car -- a Hyundai --- had several needs.    Brake job and ball joints ......this on one of those "foreign" cars!!!!   AUGH!!!!!   Things were so ?? rusted together that the sledge hammer was called into action!!!  Parts stores don't keep those parts on hand so it had to be ordered. Thankfully, they came in the next morning.  Again....Austin, Trenton, Mike and Gary all got into the game on Saturday morning.  Austin and Trenton were given jobs......but it was also a good time of learning for them.   All in all it was a successful job.

Can't be all work ---- Mike and I celebrate a 9/11 birthday together--- so we went out for pizza with the whole family.  That too was a memory maker.  They wanted to try the new "Giordano's Pizza" place (Chicago style pizza).  When we got there we were told it was an hour and a half wait. .......so we put in our name and then headed out to Menards for some ??? parts and pieces for one of the jobs.  We got back to Giordano's at 7:00 --- waited until about 7:45 .....was seated .....put in our pizza order and was told it would take "75 to 90  minutes" for the pizza to be ready. (And they write that down on a piece of paper so there is no misunderstanding).  One good thing was that we "sort of" knew this was going to happen before we got there so there weren't any real big surprises.  And it DID take the 75 minutes.   We had a couple of appetizers and the kids drank tons of Strawberry Lemonade and we watched the people.....and we waited and talked and .......well you know.   The pizza was good --- ?????  but not that good. (My opinion).  But it WAS a fun way to spend time with the family.

We are now back in South Dakota --- took Halle and Colton along with us.  They will be here for a couple of weeks.    And Gary had a big job waiting for him when he got back.   OUCH!! I would say this hay hauler got backed into !!  NOT GOOD!!

Gary praises and thanks God for his talents ---- and I am thinking that the neighbors do too.
Fall is in the air and it is good.  We try to enjoy all the seasons ......our garden is finished for the most part.   There WAS one delicious muskmelon waiting for us when we got back.  I am thinking it will be a good project for us to clean out the garden plants and make it look better.

Later.............
Barb and Gary