Day 6

The original plan was to head out to South Haven and Lake Michigan that morning with my cousin Shannon and her crew. But the weather didn’t seem too great and most everyone was still tuckered out from the night before and we didn’t get as early a head start as originally thought. We made plans to head to Grandma’s apartment. She had stuff she wanted to show us – and we hadn’t seen how she had the place fixed up since Ralph passed away last summer.

It looked so nice and organized and I’m really glad that we had a chance to go over there. Bryan was so nice to keep the boys occupied while Grandma gave me stacks of old pictures and we went through some of her jewelry collection. She really wants to make sure we all have something that was meaningful to her. It is amazing the amount of jewelry she has collected over the years – 70+ years. I love how she used old candy box trays as little compartments to organize earring and rings. She had labels in each compartment for certain pieces that she wanted to remember – like “from Ireland”. “My mother’s - age 18”. It really was a treasure to see how she knew where everything was from – it was like a visual journal of her life in a way. She remembered if she bought the piece on a trip, if it was a present, if it was passed down from her mother. Her sets of pearls – one longer, one shorter. One from Grandpa after he messed up one Christmas and bought her a coffee pot. The expensive pieces Ralph picked out for her because he really treasured her and wanted her to know it. A pin her first boyfriend gave her when she was 16. The earrings I wore on my wedding. The rings I remember seeing on her fingers and the necklaces I’ve seen her wear around her neck. It was awkward as she laid these trays of jewelry out in front of me, Mom and Aunt Kathy. Telling us to take some things, ask first before taking others, writing down what we might want “when she meets her demise” as she kept saying. We each left with a box of treasures from her collection and life.

All this jewelry sorting was making us hungry. We had a yummy lunch at The Coffee Bar. We did a little bit of shopping at the Goose – seems to be a tradition of our visits to Kalamazoo. I really did want to buy a new Vera Bradley purse but decided against spending some more money that day. Mom made out with some Brighton jewelry goods. The boys were pretty exhausted at this point but they were hanging in there….such troopers.

We headed back to the Sprague’s to chill for a bit before we were going to go eat pizza at Bilbo’s….we got a little too relaxed and decided to just stay there and bring the pizza to us. What a great plan! Sitting out on the back porch was splendid, the boys played, we ate and talked and laughed. Cyndi came over to join us too. Betsie and Chris arrived from Indy.

It was an excellent day - Mom has all the pictures on her camera...so I'll post those later. Check out the earlier trip posts - I have pictures and video from Chicago added on there.