Our drought situation is much better. We had 7 inches of rain Tuesday thru Thursday - remnants of Fay. Most of our moisture in the late summer comes from what's left over of hurricanes.

Tuesday a doe and her two fawns showed up in our back yard. It was pretty neat to see that.

Sally got home Wednesday afternoon from her trip to Joplin. Unfortunately, she had to spend most of the time in the hospital where she took her Mother because of severe abdominal pains. She is better now and back at her residence. They think it was a possible kidney stone.

Mike

Had good visits with Megan, Steve and Whitney. They arrived in Columbus Saturday afternoon and came here at 3:00 Sunday. We had dinner at 4:30 then went to see Mom. She seemed more responsive than she has in the past. In fact, before we left when Megan leaned over to tell her goodnight and said, "I love you, we'll be back tomorrow", Mom smiled and said, "That's good." Today they got here just after I had finished lunch. We went over and sat with Mom while she ate, then took her outside in the wheelchair. For a while, the three of them sat on a bench. I positioned the wheel chair so she would face them and suggested that they talk to her. She seemed to enjoy that, looking from one to the other and smiling. After we went back to her room and she got sleepy, we came to this apartment where they stayed until I went to dinner. During that time Megan used her memory stick with this computer and showed me many pictures taken during their cruise. That technology amazes me - how all that stuff can be stored in a little gadget like that. They also brought a digital picture frame with a 14 picture internal memory. She had loaded pictures so Mom can watch them as a slide show. Something else I marveled at was Steve getting on line promptly at 2:30 and printing tickets with seat assignments for their flights (to St. Louis then to Omaha) tomorrow. I said promptly at 2:30, which was the earliest he could "get in Line" so they could get good seats - and some were already taken.
Truman

Left home Sunday at 4AM to get Sally to the airport for a 6AM flight to visit her Mother in Joplin. She arrives back Wednesday afternoon.

Still dry here - farmers requesting aid because of severe crop loss. I don't have much to mow except for the crab grass which is doing beautifully.

I had two funerals last week; one an 88 year-old lady and the other 92.

We had good visits with Steve and then with Maureen and Scott. I had expected Steve later on Sunday, but he drove to Marysville on Saturday, so he came here early Sunday afternoon. We had dinner at 4:30 and then went to see Mom. We stayed with her until 7:00 - watched the Gaither show with her. It was bluegrass Gospel music, a combination I wouldn't have expected to like, but did. Vince Gill was the most well-known (to me, anyway) person who performed. I had seen the Isaacs before and liked them. We visited some after that. His original plan was to come back the next morning for a while, then he and Pat were going to meet up with Maureen and Scott Monday evening. Tropical storm, Fay, changed all that. They got up early and headed for Georgia, wanting to be closer to Naples in case the storm became a hurricane and there might be damage they would want to deal with there. But they had talked to their neighbor who said there was a lot of rain, but no storm surge. The wind was blowing the water away from the land.

Maureen and Scott got here a little after 3:00 Monday. We went to dinner at 4:30, expecting to eat with retired Air Force Colonel David White, a veteran of WWII and Vietnam (he was there at the same time Scott was) but he had a chemo-therapy treatment (for lung cancer) earlier in the day and told me later he was pretty well washed out and didn't come to the dining room for dinner. Also, the people in the dining room were surprised again when I showed up with two guests. I think that's the third time it's happened. Communications sure need to be improved among staff members. We went to see Mom and stayed to watch "Funniest Pets and People" as I have been doing on week nights. They came back this morning and visited for a while before heading for Lakeside.

Scott is on now too

I just received Dad's invitation to post. We are looking forward to seeing Mom and Dad and Steve and Pat next Monday on our way to Lakeside. We are staying in the honeymoon suite again at the Hotel Lakeside. That is the front corner room on the 3rd floor with two windows looking out to the lake and one window overlooking the park. Chris, Alison, and the kids will have a cottage on Kenton Row across from the park from August 23-30.

Andy and Sarah were going to come for a few days but decided not to since Andy has a trip to Brazil around that time and they are also moving to a larger apartment in preparation for the baby, which they just found out is a girl.

Katie seems to be recovering well from the surgery to remove her thyroid. She is off work for a couple more weeks.

Hi everyone! Whitney has spent the summer in Colorado for an internship in social work. She has lived with friends of ours, a friend of Steve's from high school. Whitney will come home this Saturday (yeah!!) for a couple weeks before we take her back to college for her junior year. The three of us will travel to see Mom and Dad later this month. Blessings to you all!

Hello Truman and all!

I received my invitation today so now I can post. I have visited before and read the posts. It will be interesting to see how many of our family will post and/or read the messages.

I'm driving from Georgia to Columbus Sunday to visit with Mom and Dad, then on to Marysville to visit with Melissa and Dave. Pat will join us there as she has been visiting her sister in Mansfield. We'll return to Georgia on Tuesday. We plan to meet up with Scott and Maureen in Columbus Monday evening.

Peace and Joy!

Visitors expected for the rest of the month:
Merry McCuen Thursday, 8/14
Steve Sunday, 8/17
Maureen and Scott Monday , 8/18 They may get together with Pat and Steve later that evening.
Boyers will arrive in Columbus Saturday, 8/23 and leave Tuesday, 8/26. Not sure when they will be coming to the Courtyards.
After that no others scheduled until Sally and Mike on Friday, September 19.
Truman

Fall-like weather

It got down to 59 here today. Probably cooler for those of you up north farther, but nice here for a change. Last year at t his time it was over 100. Still dry, though.

Mike

To Sally and Rebecca,
Welcome to the blog site. Sally, I guess there are some pretty wild blogs. On the other hand, the system allows people who think their stuff is good enough to share to get it off their chests. I think it's a good way for a family to stay in touch. We'll see how it works. Rebecca, those are great pictures. I told Sarah her kids look so grown up. I may not, and should have, said how good looking they are. They are, and so are yours - both good and grown up looking. Easy to understand about the good looks - only have to view the shots of you and Michael.
To Mike,
I'll work on developing a group blog. One way to find out how big the group can be is to keep adding to the list of authors. I'll start with the four of you who have responded so far and see how it goes.
Truman

To Mike and Sarah
Good to hear from you. It's good to have a new way to communicate and to have someone in the family to explain some of the fundamentals of blogging. Tell me more about how to get an e-mail when someone posts a comment. Also, I assume others will read your comments when they click Comments. And when I read your comments, I didn't answer in the space provided - wondered where the answer would appear - so I posted this instead. It would be nice to have a number to call so new users could ask questions. Maybe there is one listed somewhere. I just haven't found it yet. So far I've told Steve, Scott and Megan about this site but haven't heard what, if any, experience they've had with it. Sarah, I was surprised, although I guess I shouldn't be, at how grown up your children look in the pictures taken on the fishing trip.
Truman

Mom was more alert in church today than she has been for some time. I wouldn't say she listened to the sermon, but she was looking in that direction most of the time. She hasn't said or sang anything since last Reformation Sunday, when as I told some of you, she sang all the verses of "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." That was a surprise. Although it's not so every Sunday, today the service contained a pretty complete setting of Lutheran liturgy. As usual, I pointed to the words (as I do to the words of hymns) and she seemed to be following. You have to believe she recognized some of it.

Mom was more alert in church today than she has been for some time. I wouldn't say she listened to the sermon, but she was looking in that direction most of the time. She hasn't said or sang anything since last Reformation Sunday, when as I told some of you, she sang all the verses of "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." That was a surprise. Although it's not so every Sunday, today the service contained a pretty complete setting of Lutheran liturgy. As usual, I pointed to the words (as I do to the words of hymns) and she seemed to be following. You have to believe she recognized some of it.

Follow-up

The first posting worked, so I'll try another. Today for the first time in quite a while, I got Mom (I'll always use that name) to play a few notes from Romeo and Juliet on the keyboard. For some time she wouldn't even touch the keys. Can't hope that this is any kind of reversal, but some changes in medication have been made, and I do think she's a little more alert.
Truman

Hello

This is another attempt to establish a blog site. I decided to call it Trumans and will sign my postings that way. To some of you I'm Dad, to some Grandpa, to some PopPop. Now to all of you I'm Truman. More later.
Truman