A Quick Note

My computer has been sick so I will post this without any pictures. I guess I could come up with a catchy title like "Pictureless Thursday" or something of the sort.

Things are going well here. My mom continues to improve and is now allowed to sit up for twenty five minutes today. It is actually long enough to eat a meal on her own. YEAH! Food does go down much better than when one is lying flat.

Last Saturday was our grandson's high school graduation. I will post a picture of it when I can load the pictures back onto the computer. He heads off to college at Ave Maria University in Florida in August.

I will be off of the computer for about two weeks as we are leaving Saturday morning to drive back to Iowa to visit with relatives. Our #3 son, his wife and their ten children will accompany us this time. All are excited. Our journey will include the Grand Canyon, Mt. Rushmore, the Black Hills, Bryce Canyon, Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. It should be a great trip and I will post pictures when I return.

Meanwhile, I hope all will enjoy themselves while I am away and I will have a lot of catch up to do when I return.

Thursday's Catch All

First of all, I want to thank everyone once more for all of the thoughts and prayers that you have offered for my mom. They are appreciated beyond anything that you can imagine. You guys are all great!!!!!

It has been a long few weeks for her and we still have a way to go for her. The surgery went very well on May 1st. The doctor did not need to remove the muscle from the back of the thigh for the repair so the recovery will be somewhat easier for her. She had to remain absolutely flat for two weeks and was then allowed to sit up for five minutes on May 16th. We joked that she may get altitude sickness, but she was a champ. It was a painful process initially as anyone can imagine after having not bent your body for that long. Today she was able to sit up for ten minutes. It will gradually increase over the next sixty days when she will be able to resume her normal activities. Who had any idea that this could go on for so long? She will be a happy camper to be released from the hospital after a stay that long.

So far May has been a very busy month for us. The month is normally busy as we have five birthdays, Mother's Day and our #1 son and our anniversaries. There is much to celebrate. Since two of our sons have their birthdays around Mother's Day we have, over the years, celebrated birthdays instead of Mother's Day. This year, however, the "guys" treated all the "moms" to a wonderful BBQ dinner. The food was delicious and they did all the cleanup as well. We did celebrate one of the grandchildren's birthday that day so we had a cake and all the cousins got to celebrate with him.

This past weekend we were in Boca Raton, Florida for a business convention. Despite the fact that my husband had business meetings, we were able to enjoy our time away and the peace and quiet that came with it. The first few days were gorgeous and then we got THE rain. Oh my....did it rain!!!! Of course we loved the change and enjoyed watching the lightening from our room on the 22nd floor. It was spectacular. It was a novelty for us Southern Californian folks. It never ceases to amaze me that we can depart over the Pacific Ocean and land over the Atlantic several hours later. Our forefathers would have never imagined such an event.

View of the entrance to the hotel from our room.

View of the Intercostal waterway and the Atlantic Ocean.

One of the highlights of the convention was hearing Steve Forbes speak. I had no idea that the man had such a great sense of humor and we thoroughly enjoyed his speech.






I have to also share a photo of one of the desserts that we were served. The cup was actually made out of chocolate and was rimmed in an edible gold dust. The cup was filled with a mocha mousse and was delicious.











This was a sign that cracked me up. I guess that I am not giving my tortoises enough privacy in the back yard. They do not seem to be suffering from the light as our mom layed eight eggs last week. I best not let them know that others are treated differently.












One addiction that I managed to get myself into while away was Soduko. I have always loved numbers and logic games, but this game is amazing. I am sure that most of you have probably been involved with it for years. It is one VERY addicting game. One thing for sure is that it makes a five plus hour plane trip pass quickly. All I can say is that a monster has been created. How am I ever going to find time for it in my life? I wish I could add more hours to my day.






The majority of my sewing has been hand work done at the hospital lately, but I have managed to get some piecing of my wonky cabin quilt done. I still need to add the outer border, but this was a great project for using my gazillion scraps. I need to make about two hundred more of these to make a dent in the stash.







The grandchildren got out of school today for the summer. It's hard to imagine that our eldest grandson will be heading off to college this fall. It will be a short summer for him as he has to be in Florida in August for the start of soccer season at school. I still do not know where the school year went.





As is tradition, our son, Grandpa and the boys left this afternoon for a fishing trip to celebrate school being finished. So far the fishing has been great for them. That means they will be bringing trout home for dinner. Yum!






Since we left the hotel at 4 a.m. and it is now past 1 a.m. E.S.T. I believe that I will close this off and find my bed before I ramble on with more nonsense.





I hope that all will have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend and that everyone will take a moment to remember all those who gave so much to give us our freedoms.