15 Sep 1984

Dear Diane,

This may be the last letter you get from us before we see you. I don't think I have any big news. It's a rainy Saturday morning here & Michael is on call. So we're just sitting around the house. The kids are watching cartoons. I fixed a late breakfast since I finally got to sleep late, sort of. It thundered and lightninged most of the night. It was hard to sleep. I got up a couple of times to check windows. Then when the kids got up, I got up to give them some Tang and start the cartoons. I still feel like I could sleep a couple more hours. I had a cold earlier this week, so maybe I'm still trying to catch up from that.

Yesterday was Toyland day. That's the day the Navy Exchange starts selling their 1st shipment of toys for Christmas. I got enough for the kids if I can keep myself from buying more later. Angelique is getting a Barbie Dream Pool & a Barbie Twirly Curls or something like that, a Hello Kitty jewelry box, & a few other odds 'n' ends. Steven is getting the Fisher Price Garage & FP shovel digger & a few things. I also got Steven's birthday presents. Nothing really exciting. Oh yeah, I did get a couple of the few stuffed Care Bears they had plus a Care a Lot play set, a couple of posable bears & a couple of miniatures. As I said, I did OK. We stood in line 30 minutes before it opened. It was so crowded. I'm sure all the Care Bear things were gone shortly after I got mine. They run out of things quickly. They'll get a few more shipments in before Xmas, but you can never be sure of what they will get or how many they'll get. Anyway, I should not have to shop for Xmas toys while we're in Arkansas. There are a few things I couldn't get them here that they want or need. Angelique doesn't think she can live without Sea Wees Tropical or something like that. I couldn't find that here. Maybe Laura can find her one for Xmas.

Angelique says she is fine. She would like to sleep in the same room as Laura. She's ready to come to your house.

Did I tell you we enjoyed the video tour of Mom & Dad's house? It looks good so far. I finally got a letter from them. She said she finally got her red brick. I guess they are getting excited about moving in. (I hope I miss that excitement.)

I'm including a slip of paper with our flight number and arrival time. Michael went to check on our tickets and this time they said we would fly straight from Rome to St. Louis without going through New York. That will be nice, but it's news to us. We'll only have an hour layover in St. Louis. I hope we get this straightened out before 6 October. I'll give you a call if we get stuck somewhere with mixed up flights. This office here is really confused & they have been known to botch things up before. Somehow, I'm a little leery to be relying on them so much. Maybe it will go O.K.

Does Bill have a disk drive? 1541? Michael would like to bring a program that will copy his diskettes. He'll tell you what all he has when he sees Bill and mail him copies of whatever Bill will want a copy of. Our kids are really enjoying our computer. We have several programs they enjoy. They are both getting more & more familiar with the keyboard & computer language. They love to play the games. Mom rarely gets a turn.



16 Sep
Sunday Night

Now I remember what I needed to tell you. When we get there Saturday at 7:30 PM, it will be 3:30 AM Naples time. We may not be very good company at all Saturday night. We will have to get up at 4:00 AM that Saturday morning so we will have been up almost 24 hours by the time we get to your house. We will try to sleep some on the plane. The kids usually can some, but Michael & I have never had much luck doing that. There always seems to be one kid awake. Maybe we should get up Sunday morning and go to Searcy to church so the kids can take a good nap Sunday afternoon before the McDonald's party. If we wait till Sunday after church to go to Searcy, I'm afraid there won't be enough time for a decent nap with all our jet lag. Anyway, that's just a suggestion. You might can figure out another plan. It might have been easier on us to put McDonald's birthday party off till later in the week so we'd all feel better & the Davidsons wouldn't have to work around their Sunday night church schedule. But we wouldn't dare have that party without Laura there, so we'd better plan for it on Sunday evening. I think Mother is going to make all the arrangements with McDonald's for me. Steven will be ecstatic over a birthday party at McDonald's.

I took the kids to see "The Fox & the Hound" this afternoon. When the bear came out, Steven shouted, "No! Don't chase him!" They both enjoyed it, but thought it was a little scarey.

I'll see you in a few weeks!

Love,

Jeannie



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