Fall Vacation Day 4 (September 8)

Before we were interrupted with Ram's medical problems, I started to blog about our vacation to IN. I'll try to get back to blogging about our vacation. I know that I will be interrupted so it won't be a daily report until I'm finished, but I do hope to finish about our vacation. Here is what we did on a very full day on September 8.


We arose early in the morning to go to "Grandpa's cafe". The Lambs take turns at home going to our town cafe with Ram. Grandpa teaches a Bible class every Wednesday morning near his house. We arrived just as they were finishing and a kind lady in the group paid for our breakfast. Grandpa and Grandma had eaten first so they helped with the Lambs so we could eat.



Grandpa and Grandma and Aunt Hannah babysat the Lambs and we went on a date. Lamb 3 was not happy that we left, but Lamb 1 and 2 loved the time to play games and go to the park. Lamb 1 and 2 played a Pooh board game that Grandma had in the closet. I don't remember ever playing that game and I can't believe I didn't know my mom had something that was Pooh related.



Our first stop on the date was to our favorite used book store. We put the books in the car seat for the way home. When my parents visit we usually send a box of books home with them to take to this bookstore. We had over $200 credit because we had not been back to Fort Wayne for over 2 years. Besides seeing family, using our credit at Hyde Brothers was one of the biggest reasons we went on this trip.  I cleaned out their shelf of Gene Stratton Porter books. Ram found a few treasures too. We didn't even spend all of our credit, we left when we still had $9 credit. We will enjoy spending that credit and hopefully add to it before we go again.

Our next stop on our date was to the restaurant we had our first date at. (Can anyone that lived in Fort Wayne guess which restaurant?) We even sat at the same booth as our first date. It was almost exactly 10 years ago. The difference was we went to lunch on this date, and we went right before they closed on a Sunday night for our first date. It was so nice to have a meal without any Lambs!

 When we got home after our date, this is the mess the Lambs made while we were gone. My mom got out some tiles (think 2 dimensional Legos) and Lamb 1 did a great job building with them. The other Lambs just made a mess of them. My parents only had girls, and we didn't own Legos, so they weren't quite prepared for this big of a mess!

 After our date we picked up the Lambs and my sister, and we went to visit my last living great-uncle. Uncle Carl had called and said that he had good days and bad days and we better not come visit in case it was a bad day. He can't hear well on the phone so instead of calling him back, we just showed up at his apartment. He was a little upset that we came, but I think he was also glad that we took the time to visit him. This was the first time I had been back to Fort Wayne since his wife died, so it was a little difficult to go visit him without sweet Aunt Alice. Perhaps that is also why he didn't want us to visit. When it was time to go, he said, "I had planned to write you a letter, but since you came, now I don't have to." I know his letter would have been a sweet well thought letter. I'm a little disappointed to not receive a letter now, but glad that we had a little time to visit him in person.

 Then we went to the public library downtown. They have a play room in the children's section and our Lambs loved it! Here's Lamb 1 being a butterfly. My sister babysat the Lambs in the playroom while I went shopping at the used bookstore at the library. We purchased 9 books at the library book store. We also bought the Lambs Dunkin Donuts at the library. When I was in high school I worked at Dunkin Donuts but the location that I worked at closed. So this was as close as the Lambs could have donuts from "Mama's store." I couldn't believe how fast the Lambs ate a bag of donut holes-they lasted much longer when I brought them home from work when I was in high school!

Lamb 3 in the library play room.

The books that we bought at Hyde Brothers. (Click on the photo to see the books better.)

We also went to Half Price Books this afternoon but we only bought 2 books there.

Finally we went to dinner at Cebollas (Mexican) with one of Lamb 3's godfathers. Darin is engaged, but it was impossible to get together with his fiancee between their two work schedules and the limited time we were there. After dinner we came back to my parents house and talked for awhile and he played with Lamb 3 a little too. We were disappointed not to meet his fiancee, but we are hoping to go to their wedding next summer.

It was a fun day. We got to spend time alone without the Lambs, with my sister, and with our friend Darin. The Lambs got to do and see some fun things in Fort Wayne and also spend time with my parents. We also accomplished a lot of book store shopping!