Monthly Archives: June 2006

Sis Graduates High School

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Sis on the way back to her seat after giving her supreme speach. Kristy yelled at Lauren from the stands and Lauren proceeded to “Strike The Pose”!

Lauren, 1 of 276 graduates, graduated from O’Fallon Sr. High School in Missouri this past weekend. She was honored by being selected as the student speaker at the graduation ceremony. Lauren was her class president for 4 consecutive years and received the distinction of being a ‘Summa Cum Laude’, which means ‘the highest honor’. She is quite a remarkable young lady who has won a number of awards and scholarships for college. She plans on studying journalism and is still deciding on whether she will go to NYU, Columbia or University of Missouri.

After attending her graduation, we went to Lauren’s house for a party with the rest of her family and some of her close friends. During the party Lauren and her friend Matt played the guitar and sang some songs including one called “Foxy Lauren”, based on a Jimi Hendrix tune, “Foxy Lady”. Lauren has such a beautiful voice and it seems that no matter what she puts her mind to and with practice, she’s successful. What an amazing and talented young lady!

Our Visit With Hubby’s Family

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Hubby and I went to his brother’s house the next couple days. My sister-in-law and I sat and visited both days and even went outside to enjoy the cool of the early afternoon and evening. I’m so frustrated with myself for not getting the boys (our nephews who are 12 and 10 years old) pictures while we were there. The boys were out jumping on their trampoline performing some cool stunts and even nominated my sister-in-law and me to be the official judges. Of course Aunt Deb said “I think you guys are both very good” they both play baseball and are each on two teams this summer. I asked my sis-in-law how in the world she keeps up with these two busy guys who play on a total of 4 teams. She is at practice almost every night and inundated with 4 games on the weekends. Wow!

Making Our Way Back Home

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On Monday evening after Hubby and I had a nice quiet dinner together he had his second wind and wanted to spend some more time with the kids. His son wanted to play some chess and Sis and Hubby needed to discuss more about Sis’s College and plans. I asked Hubby if he minded if I hang at the hotel as I wanted to get some sleep before our 12 hour trip the next day. Hubby no more than left and I went sound to sleep. He did not surface ‘til sometime after 2:00am. I was so thankful for the extra sleep and he was happy to have the extra quality time with the kids.

The alarm rang sometime around 8:00 Tuesday morning and I began bouncing around filled with all kinds of energy. Hubby was a bit tired but he managed to get right up and at ‘em. We packed the car and went back over to see Sis and Bo. Hubby helped Sis get her new lap top computer (her graduation gift from Hubby and me) registered and we spent a little time there before taking everyone to lunch.

We hit the road around 1:00 PM Tuesday afternoon and I was the designated driver. I drove till sometime around 9:30 PM when all of a sudden we all heard a loud noise in the rear of the truck. I didn’t hit anything in the road but the noise had my nerves on edge. Shortly after the loud noise, I started losing control of the wheel. There was so much play in the steering and Hubby noticed that we were rocking too. He asked if I was getting sleepy but that was not the problem. He then asked me to pull over to the side of the road as he thought it was a flat tire. Sure enough the tire was barely holding any pressure so off we went to a service station, fortunately seconds from where we were. In we pull and I got a little frantic as we were not in a good part of town. The service station had huge bars up to the windows and to make matters worse a bum was there carrying on conversations with himself throwing his arms and body about all the while creeping out both Kristy and me.

Hubby finally got the tire filled with adequate air pressure but he could hear air spewing out so we needed to move fast to another area where we felt safe to change the tire. Hubby thought for sure that the noise we heard earlier was a nail or something freeing itself from the tire, making that loud noise by hitting up in the wheel well. Off we go down the road not even a mile when we come to this ‘Mamma Lou’s Diner’ open 24 hours. I breathed a sigh of relief as we felt safe and Hubby proceeded to change the tire. Fortunately for us, Ford Explorer blessed us with not just any spare tire but the “REAL DEAL” – a tire that could take top interstate speeds just like the other Michelin tires on our truck…another big sigh of relief. The only thing the spare tire needed was a little more air so off we go to another service station in our quest for much needed air pressure. We finally found a station where Hubby whips in to fill the spare. We notice a shady looking character lurking about so Hubby instructed me to lock his door the instant he got out. Hubby was out there braving the night with all kinds of suspicious characters while I was ready at any given moment to free myself from the car to provide assistance if need be. We finally were good to go and we waved good bye to our troubles in Oklahoma City and we were on the road again with a grateful heart. Just 4 more hours left on our trip and between Hubby and me, we made it the rest of the way home a little after 2:00 AM Wednesday morning – safe and sound.

There’s no place like home!