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3 Aug 1983
Dear Mom & Dad, Can you find out for me who the Harding professors are that are (or will be) at the Florence campus on Labor Day in September? It looks like Michael may have a 3-day weekend then and we may just drive up there for a couple of days. If there is anyone there we know, we may ask to stay with them and then return the favor when they come to Naples or Pompei. Since September is not far away, I need the answer as fast as I can get it so that we can make arrangements. We may not get to go, but I hope we can. Forget the request for sandals from Wal-Mart. I found some good leather sandals for the kids here and paid less than $5 a pair for them. Faye and I and the kids went out to the Fumalare shoe store the other day. I bought 7 pairs of shoes for £45,000 which is about $32. I would have paid more than that in the States for just the red leather sandals I got for me. I got 3 pairs for me and 2 pairs for each of the kids. Michael is wanting to go find him some now. Angelique got your card and the $4.00. She's not sure what she wants to get with it yet. She's been wanting a little purse -- maybe I can persuade her to get that instead of a toy. We got a 14" red bicycle with training wheels for her. She and Steven both love it. She can just barely reach the pedals to make it go. Michael had bought her back a Slinky from Philadelphia. She opened it and said, "I have been whispering and whispering for this for a long, long time." I finally asked her if she meant "wishing for this" and she said, "Yeah, that's what I mean. We had enrolled Angelique in the Dr. Seuss book club. The first set came just before her birthday, so I wrapped them up for her. One of those books is Bears on Wheels. She picked it up today and read the whole book aloud all by herself. No one had read the book to her first. The only word she didn't know was "twenty-one." We were shocked. At 6:00 PM Tuesday, 3 families from church came over for Angelique's party. Michael cooked hamburgers on the grill. The kids ate out on the patio while we ate around our new table. We played "pin the tail on the panther" since that was the party theme. She had pink panther plates & napkins, etc. I found an American lady close by who decorates cakes. I took her one of the Pink Panther plates and she made Angelique a beautiful Pink Panther cake. She only charged me $10. She's new here and I think it's the first cake she's made here. She'll get plenty of customers now. Angelique and Steven thoroughly enjoyed the party. In all there were 10 kids and 9 adults. She got a Barbie doll from one of the little boys at the party and has played with it a lot. Brenda sent her a card. Freda sent her one of the Strawberry Shortcake characters. Steven finally took off on his own in swim class today with his floaties on. He was so proud of himself and had the best time swimming all over the pool and chasing Angelique. He thinks he's a big boy now. He sure does talk a lot these days and runs up to his favorite people and says, "Hold me." Michael had a wild weekend. He was on call and we saw very little of him. Friday night he flew to Germany on a Medivac plane with a girl carrying twins whose membranes had ruptured at 32 weeks along. And the first baby was breech. Luckily, he got her up there to the big Army hospital before she actually went into labor. He didn't get back until 5:30 PM Saturday. At 4:00 AM Sunday he got paged and delivered 3 more babies by 7:00 PM. We did get to eat lunch with him at the hospital Sunday at noon. Monday night at 2:00 AM they paged him to deliver another baby. Needless to say, he is quite behind on his sleep. Michael was real impressed with Germany. Very pretty and clean and pleasant weather. Our weather has been so hot, but today has been very pleasant. It probably won't last long. August is suppose to be the worst month. Friday I'll go to Rome to see the opera "Carmen." Sunday afternoon I went to a 6-hour seminar on the opera so I'll know what's going on. Saturday a man in suppose to come put screens on our windows. That will be nice. I am so tired of flies! It's been too hot for the mosquitoes lately. I'm so tired I can't even think well. How is Uncle Glen? I haven't gotten around to writing him yet. Y'all have been having some heat, too, haven't you? Is it worse than it was in 1980? Is Daddy having any trouble out of his tractor drivers? Ann, our neighbor, has been bringing us over some Italian tomatoes from her garden. They taste a little different and are shaped more oblong than round. They are called pomodori. I'll have to see if they make better spaghetti sauce. I'd better get to bed. Please find out soon who the professors are at Florence from Harding for me. Love, Jeannie P.S. Have you got your passports yet?!? |
