My Grandpa Beachy

As I sit here at my computer, I have a heavy heart. My Grandpa Beachy passed away this afternoon - well actually, yesterday afternoon since it is already early Wednesday morning.

My Grandpa was the final living grandparent that I had. He has been living in a nursing home for I think 2 years now. Up until not quite 2 weeks ago, he was living in a somewhat independent room in the nursing home. He could come and go as he pleased, drive his car when needed (even if his kids thought his license should be retired) walk himself to the dining room for meals, etc. Even though he was 92 years old, he has been in pretty good health. This summer, however, his health has been declining. On July 25th he was moved to the skilled nursing area of the home. So he gave up a lot of his independence for more nursing staff and supervision. He went to the hospital on Sunday afternoon, and that is where he passed away.

As I grieve for Grandpa, I can't help but think that I'm not only grieving for him, but for the loss of his generation in my family. I have been blessed with being able to know all 4 of my grandparents. They were all at my high school graduation, all but my Grandpa Litwiller were able to attend my wedding, and both Beachy grandparents met and loved Meredith. But I now feel bereft without that older and wiser generation of grandparents.


There are so many memories that I have with Grandpa...here are just a few...
- Countless winter vacations in Sarasota: the 2 most "famous" memories are from a trip when I was Meredith's age. Grandpa was going to the "loafing bench", (the loafing bench was the local hangout for the retired men to sit and watch the world go by) and he told me to tell Grandma where he went. When Grandma asked me, I told her that he went to the place where they make bread. On the same trip, Grandpa asked me why he couldn't wear a pretty sundress like I had. My reason: Because grandpa didn't have any hair! Later on I remember lots of time spent at the shuffleboard with Grandpa and Grandma, breakfast at Der Dutchman, and lots and lots of card games.

- Countless summer Sunday evenings spent in Kalona - we'd be at either Grandpa Litwiller's or Grandpa Beachy's, and then would run through the back yards and across 2 streets to go to the other Grandparents house. (We would do the same thing in Florida too - since they lived close there also.)

- There was always something special about being able to watch a ballgame with Grandpa in the basement of their Kalona house.

- Whenever you would visit them in Kalona, chances are you would find Grandpa in his den watching sports.

- Getting Grandpa to talk about how things used to be, or tell us stories from his life.

- Seeing Grandpa hold Jesse as a baby, and more recently, chuckle at something Jesse or Meredith said or did. Jesse obviously won't remember his Great-Grandpa, and I don't know if Meredith will or not. But I will remember and cherish those times.

Those are just a few of the many memories. I'm posting some pictures of Grandpa and Meredith. Last Wednesday we visited him in the home and my mom got some really good pictures of the kids and Grandpa and I. I'll post those as soon as I get them from her.

IMS to State!

The IMS baseball team made it to state, so we played last night at Principle Park in Des Moines. The game was supposed to start at 8:00 p.m., but the 6:00 game was postponed over an hour and a half due to rain, which meant that our game start time was 10:15 - at night!!! We were very fortunate to be staying really close to the ballpark, so the team and the kids and I didn't leave the comfort of the hotel until we needed to...thank goodness we didn't have to sit in a cold ballpark while we waited for the rain to clear. I have a few pictures to post here and some links. IMS won in 5 innings (12-0) - a great game to start the state tournament with! The first link is to the IMS website - there are some good pictures of the game last night: http://www.iamenno.pvt.k12.ia.us/baseball.htm. The second link is for a video highlight of last nights game. Click on the "IMS No-Hits Gehlen Catholic" words and it will go through a highlight of the game. http://www.iowastatebaseballchampionships.com/aspx/videoclips.aspx

It's pretty cool! Here are my pictures - not very professional, but it's the best that my camera and I can do!

Summer Fun

Thursday night proved to be another good night for the IMS baseball team - they beat Keota 22-2. So now they play tonight in the District Final.

Yesterday the kids and I spent a lot of the day outside in the shaded driveway at my parents house. Both Jesse and Meredith had fun riding their bigwheel trikes, and Meredith did ride her own bike for a bit. It will be nice to have a shaded driveway - someday!

Baseball News

Our life seems to revolve around the baseball field - so I'm pleased that tonight we have a night free from baseball games and everything else that seems to take our evenings!

Kent's baseball team finished off their regular season play last Monday and Tuesday. By my count, they ended up 24-1 for the season, but I could be wrong. Regardless, they lost only 1 game and ended up winning their conference.

On Monday evening we had the team over for supper - all 18 players plus the assistant coach and his wife. To say that we had a full house would be an understatement. I didn't count exactly how many burgers and brats we had, but I think it was around 70 pieces of meat. Luckily I jumped in line after most had seconds, but before they went back for thirds, and I was able to get a burger for myself and one for Meredith...we definitely had no meat leftover! I had had nightmares of under cooking the food and giving everyone on the team food poisoning. Their first game of tournament play was last night, so they would have been out of commission for that had they gotten sick! But thankfully everything was prepared as it should have been, so no one got sick. :)

The game last night was at 5 p.m., so they were able to play the full game before the rain came. I guess out of 8 games in IMS' district and the other close district, only 2 games were played. We all got soaked as we waited to see the final 3 outs of the game and then when we ran through the rain to our car, but we didn't mind the rain since we got the win! IMS beat Highland 6 to 1, so IMS will go on to play Thursday night. Here's the website link to see some good pictures and read the write up from the game last night: http://www.iamenno.pvt.k12.ia.us/baseball.htm

As I said at the beginning, baseball is basically our life right now, so I don't have too much to add that doesn't have to do with baseball!

I do have a video clip of Jesse playing. Towards the end he does his coyote howl - isn't he too cute??

Back Again!

Well, I'm back to posting. I took a long break but am hoping to get back into the rhythm of posting frequently.

Life among the corn and bean fields of Iowa is progressing at an alarming rate. What has happened since my last post?
- We took a week long trip to South Bend in April.
- Kent and I got to take a mini-vacation to Cleveland, OH at the end of April for Brian Gordon's wedding. The kids stayed with my parents at home.
- Kent began baseball practice in late April, and games began in mid May. He is the head varsity coach at Iowa Mennonite School (my alma mater.)
- My niece Alyssa graduated from Iowa Mennonite School in May - Yeah!
- Meredith finished preschool at the end of May and is now fully accustomed to the summer routine, or lack thereof.
- Vacation Bible School at our church was at the beginning of June: Meredith loved her teachers and her class, I taught a wonderful 1-2 grade class with both my niece Gretta and nephew Zach in the class, and Jesse enjoyed the babysitting provided during the week.
- Jim and Bev visited for a long weekend: they got to see Meredith sing in the Bible School program, and were able to go to a baseball tournament and see Kent's team play. Unfortunately they also saw the only loss so far for the baseball team.
- Father's Day was a treat this year because we got to see and be with both our fathers.
- We were troubled to see what has happened to Southeast Iowa due to flooding. Cedar Rapids and Iowa City have now begun the long process of cleaning up and rebuilding, but it is a long, dirty road ahead.
- We had anticipated missing my parents during their 3-month adventure/vacation in Alaska. Unfortunately, my dad fell 10 feet to a cement floor last Monday and broke his knee cap...which means that the Alaska trip is postponed for this year.
- Interspersed with all of this has been baseball games, a few rain-outs, and more baseball games.
Reading back over these things, I realize that it doesn't look like much has happened with Jesse. He's been growing and changing throughout everything. He likes his routine, but is also able to roll with the punches...usually. His cutest trick right now is howling like a coyote - I'll try to get a video of it to post - it's adorable!

That's all for now - please post a comment if you read this. I don't know if anyone even checks our blog anymore since it has been so long since the last update. So if you're out there reading this, post something so I know...

Theresa