Weekends are for Visiting

Over this last weekend, Melanie and I drove to Nebraska to visit with our Dad.  What fun it was to sit and talk with him and give him a hard time about everything, as well as him giving us a hard time. 

On Sunday, before we left to return to Minnesota, we took Dad to the park to watch a parade.  He really enjoyed himself and kept telling Mary, Melanie and I to run out in the street to pick up the candy that was thrown.  He had several people on floats go buy and holler his name, asking how he was doing today.  He even received a new "princess" toothbrush from his dentist and some beads from a "cute" woman.  Of course, when we returned him to the nursing home, we had to confess to the nurses that we had fed him lots of sugar and they would probably have to deal with his high blood sugar later.  But he was so excited and really seemed to enjoy his trip to see the parade.

As we were driving home we saw a sign that said that on the right hand side of the road was the highest elevation point in Iowa.  We decided it would be a fun thing to do to stop and check it out.  It's called Hawkeye Point and sits at 1670 feet.  There are several signs with places identified, their elevation, and how many miles away they are.  It was quite interesting to see what places they had identified.  It was a fun stop to say that we "goofy" girls had been there.  And yes, it is in the middle of a corn field.  Our parting comment was that the corn was definitely going to be knee high by the fourth as it was already more than that.

Okay, Okay, Okay

Monday night, I was out an about and called Michelle to find out if I could drop off a couple of things for them (of course, my ulterior motive was to hug on my grandson, Casen).  When I arrived Michelle was attempting to do something online and Casen was fussing so I took him and snuggled with him as he drooled down the front of my shirt.  Oh how I love to hold and snuggle my grandkids.  Oh, by the way blame Michelle for no pictures to post.  They took some but never sent them to me.

Tuesday, Margaret stopped by the house with the boys to use my computer to create a movie and was still at the house when I arrived home from work.  Again, my bonus!!  I got to shush Lucius, who was fussing in the car seat while Margaret was trying to finish saving her project.  Oliver, wanted to go down to the play room but there wasn't time so instead we just smelled my lavender plant and tried to get into things.  BUT the best part is when Margaret said it was time to go he said he wanted to stay at Mormor's house for the night.  :  (  It was so hard to tell him "not tonight, buddy" Mormor has to go to work in the morning.  But it does a grandma's heart good to hear him say he likes to be at my house.

Tuesday was Gary's and my anniversary.  Wow, it's hard to believe that it's been 36 years already.  It hardly seems that long.  We have been through many ups and even more downs but always with God on our side we have come out on top.   We decided to have dinner at Boca Chica's in West St Paul.  With Gary in a full back brace he doesn't tend to eat much but me, on the other hand, ate entirely toooooo much.  But such fun to go out together and chat.  We had a chance to do a little driving around, checking out the school where I will be working next year.  What a great anniversary.  I love being married to Gary and can't wait to see what the next few years will bring.


I think that brings us up to date for now. 

Cleaning the Deck with Eko

This weekend we have Eme & Jon's dog Eko over while they are visiting friends in Chicago.  I went out on the deck to clean off all of the little tree leaf buds so that Eko, when he laid down, didn't bring them all into the house.  Here was Eko's reaction to the hose being turned on.  This is after he had already played in the water for about 5 minutes but I couldn't believe how he stuck his snout right into the spray of the water.  It is too funny,

Alpine Slide Weekend with the Youth Group

Okay, every year we take a group from our youth group (this year there were 39 of us) to Taylors Falls and the Alpine Slide/Go Cart/Water Park.  Last year it was cold and most of the day was spent playing cribbage and riding the alpine slide and go carts.  During that time I had the urge to call Gary only to discover that he had fallen and I needed to return to the camper to take him to the emergency room.  Sure enough, he had broken his leg. 

That was last year.  This year I get a call from Eme when we were getting ice cream (which is the last thing we do before heading back to the church) to say that Jon had taken Gary to the emergency room in Grand Rapids with severe back pain after a storm came up on the lake they were fishing on (you can read Gary's story below).  Not really knowing how bad it was and being one of the drivers for the group, I couldn't just leave to be with him.  What an incredibly frightening, helpless feeling.

My first statement to Chuck was that I didn't think I would be going on the Alpine Slide Adventure in the future.  Who is to know what might happen next year?

Thankful to God that it isn't worse than it was.

Fishing Trip with a Slam Dunk

So this is what happened. We were fishing on Winnibigoshish( a very large lake) with dozens of other fishers (most in 14-20 foot boats). The wind started to increase steadily and we decided to head back while it was still safe to go... The wind got a lot worse rapidly and all started across to go back to safe harbor. Suddenly we were all trapped in 4-6 foot swells in small craft. Looking at other boats we could see what was happening to us. the boat would crest the top of the swell with 2/3- 3/4 of the boat out of the water. Then it would drop into the swell and slam the front of the boat down 6-8 feet and immediately repeat. There was about 20 feet between crests so smaller craft had an extra second to right themselves before the next climb. At least one 20 foot boat had swamped and needed to be towed in under bad conditions. At one of the many slams I felt my back crackle like a huge chiropractic adjustment that I surely didn't need, and my muscles (which were tight from bracing against the constant slamming) screamed in pain and I slid from from my sitting on the floor. on a flotation cushion, to a laying down position. Many times I blacked out for extended moments and we had to press on or risk swamping our boat and me dying. Everyone out there was petrified... It was bad. We put in at a beach on the lee shore to find if my injury warranted medical attention at the beach. I was able to climb up to the front chair ( which took about 15 minutes).. and I told them if we idle back to the landing we could see if I could make it to the car. We did that and took the boat home and then went to the hospital. 

The x-rays showed no broken bones, or compressions, and soft tissue damage would not show up in x-rays so I was given muscle relaxers, pain meds. and a chest compression wrap to possibly help muscles to not over strain to help me heal. My son-in-law Jon drove us back to the cities while I drifted in and out of the drowsiness the meds brought on. I am home and trying to recover as fast as possible, with a lot of pain and can't bend over... 

Praise God it could well have been a lot worse.