Pool party

It was Annette's 54th birthday today.  She is Nick's mother, who is my daughter's mother-in-law.  Annette and her husband Steve have a beautiful home in Westville, IN, just inside the LaPorte county line.  Annette invited me to join her for her birthday, and I gladly accepted.  I got to spend some fun time with the grandsons and met other members of Erin's extended family.

The party began at noon.  I left Carol's house at 9:30am to have time to walk around in Michigan City, a former harbor town on Lake Michigan that borders the Indiana/Michigan line.  My father's parents came to Michigan City in 1910 from Lithuania to escape raiding Cossacks.  They intended to return to Lithuania, but then World War I came, then World War II came, and their country was swallowed by the Russians and Soviets.

I always enjoyed visiting Michigan City to see my grandfather.  He lived with his oldest son Alex and Alex's wife Dorothy, but he never spoke good English.  What English he did speak, he learned from working in the steel mill and from commercials on TV.  My grandmother died in 1953, my grandfather in 1974.

Michigan City's new immigrants are Mexican.  The Lithuanian boarding houses are now remodeled vacation homes.  The city has seen a revitalization of its shoreline and its historic district.  The harbor is now a private yacht club.  Its zoo, which started as a sanctuary for injured wildlife, is now remodeled and is a paying zoo off the lake, with walking trails that lead to the lake.  The lighthouse is still there, now with a pedestrian walk, but dogs are not allowed on the beach. It's not the old Michigan City of the 1960s and 70s that I knew.  It's a better city now.

 
I got to Annette and Steve's house shortly after noon.  Everyone was already there from the family:  Annette's parents, her sister Tammy, and Steve's mom arrived with her little dog an hour later.  Then Erin's best friend from high school, Colette, and her three children, arrived.  Colette's three children are the same ages as Erin's three boys, so all six kids played in and around the pool with each other, taking turns petting Zeke who at times was overwhelmed with all the people.

I got into the pool, too, but Zeke whimpered and whined whenever I got into the pool.  When a storm front came through at 3:30 and cooled the air by 20 degrees, I got out of the pool and changed into dry clothes and never got back into the water.