We arrived home yesterday afternoon . We did have a great time at Sue 's for Christmas , but met with a bad mishap on the way up . We were almost half way there when Dick started for the convenience store to fill up my drink jug . He didn 't see the curb so fell right on his face in front of the store . I had decided to get out too and stretch my legs , so I didn 't see him actually fall , but I saw him sprawled out on his stomach and ran over to him as fast as I could . A nice man was trying to help him up and he asked him if he was hurt . Dick replied , " I don 't know . " That 's when I knew it could be bad . I helped him back to the car and tried to clean up his wound . He had an egg sized abrasion on his forehead that was way swollen . It was bleeding a bit , so I got the antibiotic ointment out and spread it around and he seemed to feel that he could drive . The truth was that he didn 't trust me to drive his car . I have only driven it a few times and really don 't feel comfortable driving it , but I was willing to give it a try . I had called Dave to tell him what happened and he told me to watch Dick carefully and if he seemed at all sleepy or I thought he couldn 't make it to call him and he would come and get us . I kept folding Kleenex into a small square and had him blot his wound when it would start to drip blood and fluid . He was compaining about his neck and shoulders and his hands were hurting too because he fell on them too . All of his weight went on his arms and face . We did manage to make it to Sue 's and when she saw him she took him to the E . R . They were there for about three hours . They took a CTscan and found that nothing was broken . The doctor told him that all the blood in his swollen forehead would go down to his face the next day and to be prepared for black eyes . Honestly , I wish I knew where the picture of Dick , that he took himself about the third day , is so that I could post it , but as you know , I never can find any pictures on this computer . I know it is here , because he e - mailed it to our kids . Of course he isPosted by See , I told you that my hairdo hadn 't changed at all . I am still the same old me , with my hair pretty regular . I had Dick take this picture a couple of days ago , and I really don 't like it , but there is nothing I can do about my dark red circles around my eyes . That is just me , and I have gotten pretty used to it by now as they started doing that when I was about 60 and that is a good 24 years ago . It is a family trait , I 'm afraid . This is going to be pretty short tonight . I have been going a bit crazy trying to get ready to leave early Thursday morning , and I do mean early . We will probably get away from here between 5 : 00 and 6 : 00 a . m . If Dick should happen to wake up earlier than that , we will leave then . We have been known to leave around 4 : 30 ! If we do leave that early we will stop for a long lunch or breakfast as I don 't want to arrive at Sue 's before 1 : 00 p . m . I am so ready to be done with all this baking and be out of here . Tomorrow I have to make the dough for the six Danish tea rings that Dick will be making and then all I have to do is bake four loaves of oatmeal bread and two pumpkin pies ! ! When I get there , I will immediately put the oatmeal bread in the freezer and the pumpkin pies in the garage refrigerator where they will stay until eaten . I don 't think we will wait until Christmas to eat the pies though . I also have to tell you that I won 't be reading or writing in anyone 's blog until next Tuesday as when we get home we will be working like crazy to get the house ready for our New York New Year 's Eve Party . On Tuesday night it will all be over and I can relax . I talked to Sue earlier , and she still sounds awful . I am so sorry that she won 't be feeling well before we all start to descend upon her . It is hard enough to host 19 people plus yourselves when you feel normal , but getting sick leaves one weak at best , and I am going to try to help her all I can . So until next Tuesday , a Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night ! I had hoped to have pictures of my Christmas decorated living room to show you . I really do love the way it looks , but we have been so darned busy this last week that I didn 't get Dick to take pictures . We were also gone Sunday and Sunday night and things have just been too hectic . I am hoping I will have them to show you next week . I am still working on the baking for all of our children . I only have to send two boxes out this year as we went to our oldest , Nancy 's this last weekend and took hers with us . We are having Christmas with Sue and Nikki so won 't have to mail theirs . Nancy 's son , Chris , is getting married and all of his fiance 's attendants gave her the most incredible wedding shower I have ever been to . The brides mother lives in a complex that has an extremely comfortable club house and that is where they had it . It was decorated so beautifully and I just can 't believe all the wonderful presents she got . There were about 50 young women there and I must say , it was very successful . They served the food on the nicest square white plastic plates that I have ever seen . They looked so much like china . I just had to ask where they got them and was told it was at a place called " Party Place . " Afterward , they just threw them all away , which made for a very easy cleanup but a very frustrated Grandma . I would have loved to go dumpster digging and gotten them all out to take home and wash . They were just so much nicer than eating on paper plates , no matter how substantial the paper plates are . This old Grandma just can 't stand to waste anything ( my generation , I think ) and I kept thinking how nice they would be for our NYNY party . We have about 28 people over every New Years Eve to what we call our New York New Years Eve party . This is about out 9th year and the same ones come each year . The invitation is for life or until someone moves away , which hasn 't happened yet . We barely have room in our living room for a sit down dinner . This year we are going to have to take our coffee table out so we can set up anothePosted by After viewing a bunch of pictures that I could find to post here , I discovered that they were all VERY old , which leads me to believe that sweet hubby hasn 't been loading them from our camera and cell phone onto the computer , or else they are in a new place that I can 't find . I truly do need to have him help me , so I should probably post on a different night than Tuesday because he has to go to a long church meeting . He goes over there around 6 : 00 p . m and doesn 't get home until after 10 : 00 p . m . You might ask me what kind of a meeting takes almost four hours , but let me tell you , I don 't think it is all meeting . Our Bishopric is made up of five terrific people , including our ward clerk ( Dick ) and the Executive Secretary . They visit for quite a time and probably go into an actual meeting around 8 : 00 p . m . Oh well , I am so very happy that he enjoys being around these super neat people as much as he does . They also have a lot of people coming into the office as that is when the young people get together too for MIA . Yes , I think I will change my evening . I just thought it would be such a nice way to spend time to do this while he is gone , but until I can make heads and tails of this computer , I 'd best have him handy to help me . Having said that , I 'll go on to tell you about my week . It has been busy busy busy . I like it that way as I do think I feel better , the more I move around . I have been baking almost every day , but today we made Carmel Corn , a double batch , I might add . I do like to pack some along with the other goodies that we make sure our five children get . I have some new cookie and bar recipe 's I am going to try next week . Yesterday we baked 12 Danish tea rings . Dick is a master at doing these . All I do is make the dough and he takes over . This year he is also going to do some Krispies , round Fruit Danish and some Bear Claws , so we 'll have a little more variety . I am so thrilled that our oldest grandson , Matt , will be coming over on Dec . 10 to learn how to make the Danish ! ! I think it is so great that he waPosted by This is our Sullivan . He will be two years old on Feb 20 . We call him our miracle baby because we weren 't even sure he would make it long enough to be born . He has " triad syndrome " which is a very rare problem . Only one in 40 , 000 babies have it . Most die in utero or are born dead . If they manage to come out alive , it is not at all certain whether they will ever be able to sit up or walk . This is because they have no stomach muscles . It was discovered that his bladder had twice as much fluid in it than it should have had and they had to go into the bladder and draw lots of fluid out while he was still in utero . He has been watched by a very interested and involved group of doctors in Salt Lake City , where his parents , Kristin and Craig Mills live . The " triad " comes from the three things that are involved , the bladder , uterers , and the kidneys . He has had an operation to properly connect the uterers . This little kid not only sits up and walks , but he runs . He is such a smart little kid too . He may have a tummy tuck when he gets a bit older to pull in his tummy and give his organs a little more support and he also may have to have a kidney transplant at some later date , but right now , this kid is doing well . I won 't go into a lot more detail , in fact it is far too complicated for me to totally understand , but all I can say is that this is one special little boy and both Dick and I are totally besotted with him . This picture is one of the recent ones we have . I keep begging for pics and videos to be sent to me and thankfully Kristin sends quite a few . I can hardly wait until Christmas when we will get to see him again . Whenever I get a chance , I will drive to see him if he is anywhere within driving range of our place . He does get to come and visit his Grandma ( my third daughter , Nikki ) who lives two and a half to three hours from here and whenever he does , you can be sure we will appear on the scene to see him , even if just for the day . I just had to post this one picture ( with the help of Dick , who had to leave for Posted by Tima , you are definitely going to get a great cookie recipe on my blog this week ! Since that seems to be almost all I have done over the past week is make cookies , that is what I am blogging about . I love to bake . That is not a surprise to any of you , I know . The thing is , I 'm not so crazy about having to do all the clean up , but unfortunately , that just comes with the territory , so I don 't complain about it too much . I have a pretty good routine that works for me as I usually do about seven of the large ( 12 by 17 inch ) cookie sheets . I tear off strips of non stick Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil and line the sheets with it . ( That way I don 't have to grease the pans ) . We have a working table in our kitchen and I get Dick on one side of it and I on the other and we spoon the batter by tablespoons full onto the baking sheets , five one way and three the other so that we have fifteen cookies per sheet . I bake the cookies according to directions two sheets at a time . One sheet on the lower level rack the other on the rack above it , which I keep on the third level from the bottom . My oven has five levels that I can place my racks on . The baking time is so much less for the batch when you do two at a time . After all the cookies are baked and cooled on racks ( I leave them in the cookie sheets until they are cooled ) I stack them on my table and when they are totally cold , I put put them in the freezer in containers that have tight fitting lids or tops . ( I use lots of plastic containers ) Now for the cleanup . I take the foil liners and clean them off one at a time with a paper towel . If you put the foil close to the sink , the crumbs will fall into the sink and the little bit that sticks to the foil will come right off with a little bit of pressure as you guide the paper towel toward the sink . I then take a clean dish cloth and rinse it in water and get it as dry as I can , and wipe off the cookie sheets . ( Very little comes off , really ) . I then stack the cookie sheets on the counter top and place the cleaned foil sheets in a staPosted by First of all I have to say , I 'm totally well from my fall and feeling energetic and ready to start baking for the holidays . I have to give another big thanks to Jill ( Grandma Honey ) for being interested enough as to why they wouldn 't wrap my ribs , to look up the answer on the internet . In 1990 they did a research on wrapping and found out that it did absolutely no good and could even do harm . Also , they recommended that patients with rib problems do deep breathing . I had been avoiding this as it really did hurt . I started right away and within four days I could totally breathe deeply without pain . Each day I improved so much so that now I am back to normal , my normal at any rate . I just wish I could do something so simple to make me lose my back pain and make my legs stop hurting . Oh well , I have learned to live with these problems . Dick turned on our large freezer Sunday evening and I am ready to go . If I don 't start in November , I won 't have enough cookies to fill the Christmas boxes . I hate to start thinking about Christmas before Thanksgiving , but as long as I am feeling well enough , I 'm going to start tomorrow . I made one batch of peanut butter cookies ( Dick 's favorite ) but I tried a new recipe ( you know me , I love to try new ones ) but I am not too crazy about them so am going to go back to the old originals . Everyone seems to love them best anyway , and they always turn out for me . We are also going to get started soon on Dick 's Danish pastry . That is a huge job , but fortunately for me , all I do is make the Danish dough and he does all the rest . Dick used to work for a baker and paid for his college education doing that . He used to make 80 pies a day , along with a lot of other things . It was always in his blood anyway as his dad was a baker and his grandfather was a baker . They both had their own bakeries and when his dad was in the Navy , he baked huge cakes for V . I . P . s . We have pictures of some of them and I wish now that I knew how to put them on this blog , but Dick doesn 't even have those on the computer . Posted by This past week has been a pretty slow one , I 'm afraid , and for a person like me , who seems to be busy and on the go , it has been one of practicing patience . I 'm afraid I have never been one to be patient and I do so admire those who are . When the doctor told me I would be very sore for a few weeks , he wasn 't just kidding and I am wondering just what he meant by a few weeks . It has just been seventeen days since my fall , and it feels like seventeen weeks . Actually , I have been a few places , such as doctors offices , lab , and last night we went to some good friends of ours . They live in a gated community . We had dinner and enjoyed watching their video of their Alaskan cruise . How beautiful that scenery was . They had some great shots of the glaciers and the big chunks that fell into the ocean , complete with the sound . They really had such a good time and their son surprised them by hosting the other two children , their spouses and their grandchildren for this remarkable trip . This was such a great anniversary present to them . It was so fun to see the surprise on their faces when ALL of their family showed up , not just to see them off but to go with them . We also watched Dancing with the Stars so we didn 't get home until after ten . I had to take my big pillow with me , which I partially sit on and wrap the rest of it around my ribs . I don 't know why the doctors don 't wrap the ribs tightly anymore . They used to do that and I am sure it would make me more comfortable . It was a good thing that we did go over there , otherwise Dick would have been going to the door for trick or treaters every few minutes . We only have a couple of kids in our neighborhood and where all these kids come from , I have no idea unless they bus them in . They come in great big groups , sometimes ten or so and it is constant for a couple of hours . We have well over 100 each year . It is fun to see the little ones in their costumes , but we have a lot of teenagers , who I think are a little old for that . I have been doing a lot of reading . It 's a good thinPosted by We got home from Dallas last Saturday evening and let me tell you , the best thing about that whole day was getting to sleep in my own bed . I swear , every time I get on an airplane I am convinced that the seats are smaller , with less room in the front and to the side than ever . The last time I flew it was to Dallas , and the way I feel now , I don 't think I 'll ever fly there again . ( Sorry Nancy ) . I have been inundated with phone calls and every one asks , " Did you have a good time ? " My answer . . . . . . . " No . " Of course they want to know why so I start out telling them that the first three and a half days were great , even though we didn 't get to visit with my niece , Nancy , very much . She was so busy . The phone rang off the hook . It was either about her estate or the wedding . She is finally getting everything sorted out as far as her estate is concerned , but it 's never really over , I think . I have told Dick that I am going to be very mad at him if he dies before me , even though our " estate " is very small . I will have to say that the wedding was wonderful . David , the groom , had never been married and he was 41 years old and Nancy 's " baby " . His wife , Karyn , is such a lovely girl and we feel he really has a wonderful life ahead of him . The wedding was held in the Dallas Art Museum which is in downtown Dallas and it is a beautiful , very large place . We had to walk from one end of the building to the other , and I was beginning to feel sorry that I hadn 't brought my wheelchair , but thankfully , they had one to loan me , so Dick got his exercise that night pushing me around , first to the wedding itself , which was beautiful . Then the reception was at the other end and was held in a super large place with a big stage for the band . The ceiling was very high and our nephew , Fred , got some pretty neat shots by going half way up the stairway to take some pictures . Of course , every time he turned around , he was taking photos with his really nice professional camera . The catered dinner was amazing and the wedding cake consisted of multiple smPosted by Here I am in Dallas and it has been pretty hectic every minute until now . I have a couple of hours before I have to start getting ready for the wedding . The rehearsal dinner was last night and it was really nice . The only thing is that I have been freezing ever since I got here . Actually the day and night temperatures were pretty close to what they are in Palm Desert so I thought I would have no problem and I took the kind of clothes I would wear at home . It isn 't the outside temperature that is the problem , it is the air conditioning . People here have it freezing . They set their temperatures at 74 degrees , which to me is cold cold cold ! In the desert most people have learned to set their temp . at 80 because it is so expensive and the summer season is very long . When the outside temp is 110 and you walk into a house set at 80 , it feels really cool . At any rate , I only brought one sweater . Thank goodness it is my warmest one , but I end up having to wear it over everything . I know I will have to wear it at the wedding too . Oh well , enough complaining . Dallas is a very interesting busy city . We have enjoyed riding around with my niece , Nancy , who has been a wonderful host , just having lost her husband a few weeks ago . She is still recovering from all the trauma with that . ( getting her financial situation in place , having to deal almost daily with attorneys , insurance , probate judges etc . ) Her husband was the senior partner in a very successful insurance business and the other two partners are having to buy her out . I do feel sorry for her and am amazed that she has managed so well all alone . She hates living alone in this big ( almost 6 , 000 square feet mansion ) and I don 't blame her . It is a beautiful place , but just too large for one person . We will be here for one more week , so I will likely be posting once more before we leave . I haven 't been on Nancy 's computer before . It is a Mac and so different than ours . I don 't know how to navigate it at all so I am just not very comfortable using it , but we can 't use our lapPosted by Today we had a very nice Relief Society Birthday Luncheon for all of the people who were born in October . We have these once a month on the on the first Tuesday of the month . It is pot luck and of course I always eat too much at these luncheons , but they are so much fun . Dick always gets to go too because he is one of the two Priesthood holders that have to be in the building whenever we have anything going on with the women . After the luncheon we had to do a bit of shopping so I naturally wore myself out this afternoon . I have such a time walking and it is such a lot of trouble to get the wheel chair out each time we go to a store . We went to only two looking for 7 inch long thin spatulas so that I can have them to give as presents along with a crepe pan and my recipe for Swedish Pancakes . That is what I give all the members of my family for wedding presents . Since we will be attending the wedding of our grand nepheu while we are in Dallas , I wanted to be sure I had the spatula to go with the pan I have , to give to them . I don 't know why these particular spatulas are so very hard to find anymore . You used to be able to find them in all of the grocery stores . Now you have to go to specialty stores like Kitchen Kitchen or Williams Sonoma . Dick had already checked out Kitchen Kitchen so today we went to the Alley and to Williams Sonoma . No real luck at either so we are going to have to keep looking . We leave a week from today and I am already getting nervous about what to take because I like to pack light whenever we go away and we will be gone for ten days so I just know I will wish I had packed a certain something when I get there and it will be at home . It always happens to me whenever I go away . I can never seem to get my packing right . Here are the pictures I promised of my house . I haven 't found one of the outside yet , but will post the interior ones : This is what you see of the living room from the entry way . The celings are very high and unfortunately do not show up too well in this pic . Yoou will see my favoPosted by I 've mentioned how interesting I thought it was when at the beginning of spring we could see the snow on the mountains in the background and the palm trees in the foreground . Now that I can finally move pictures to my blog , I wanted to show you this shot from the street in front of our house . Sorry our neighbors hadn 't taken their garbage in , but it does give you an idea of our view . The mountains are very high and our temperatures down below are perfect . We have a tram that can take you up to the snow . I went on it shortly after it was built and I hated it , so haven 't gone back since . And to tell you the truth , I have no plans to visit the snow up there because I hate being in snow . Lots of people like to go up there though , both in the summer and the winter . This is where we spend about 45 minutes each afternoon , doing our aerobic exercises so that we can keep fit . This only shows part of the pool . I 'm afraid our pictures are not easy to access because they are not filed properly . Since I don 't know how to do that , it will be some time before I can show you a bigger picture of the back yard and the pool area . I plan to show you our home and yard when I can find the rest of the pictures . If I can 't , I will just have to get Dick to take them again . We took a lot of pictures of every room in the house last year to have for insurance purposes so I know they are somewhere . I just didn 't have time to look for them right now . I want to do this because I know how much I have enjoyed seeing pictures of so many of your homes and yards and have always wished I could do the same , so it shouldn 't be too much longer . This has been a very busy week for me . It seems like every day I have had something major scheduled . Today we did a huge grocery shopping at Winco , which is a large supermarket that we like to go to about once a month because for the most part , their prices are somewhat less than Von 's , Ralph 's , or Albertson 's , which are our three major supermarkets . It is getting to be so depressing to go grocery shopping as evDarlene I couldn 't even post a comment on my own blog . I just couldn 't figure it out . That 's how lame I am . I just had to do it this way because I made a stupid mistake on my blog . I made Bryce a year older than he really is . He is just three years old , which makes him even more remarkable ! Sorrry Heather . Incidentally , I would have posted more pictures ( yes , I did it myself , with Dick looking over my shoulder and giving me directions which I again wrote down . ) but he only took two ! He hates to take pictures so I guess I am lucky to have that many . I don 't even try any more . I was never meant to be a photographer . Grandma spent an awful lot of time with Bryce listening to the gosh awful music that is connected to his numerous T . V . games . Unfortunately , Grandma doesn 't think this is a good passtime for kids , although I will have to say I marveled at his dexterity and knowledge about finding his way around all this technology . Would that I could know as much about it as my adorable four year old Bryce ! Finally we got everyone together enough so that we could go out to dinner . We were starved about this time because Dick and I are used to eating at 5 : 00p . m . We went to California Pizza Kitchen , which isn 't a place that I love going , but at this point I would have gone anywhere and everyone else was fine about going there . I can tell you right now , the best thing on the menu was the children 's menu , but somehow I didn 't think I could pass for an 84 year old child . I was sitting on the other side of Carli and she told me that she would order two desserts so that I could have a heated brownie with chocolate sauce , whipped cream and a cherry ! I was delighted and guess what ? I not only ate my own special $ 1 : 00 dessert , which by the way happened to be VERY large , as were all the other $ 1 : 00 desserts on the childrens menu . I hate to admit it , but I ate the balance of not only Carli 's original dessert , but the rest of Jeremiah 's . Yes , little piggy that I am , I ate all that was left of theirs but also had a pretty big taste of Bryce 's key lime pie , which Sue let him order from the big peoples menu . I will hasten to add that Dick had to eat most of my tortilla soup , so I was really ready for the desserts and I admit that I left the restuarant plenty full . The lineup of the people in the picture left to right is : Carli , Todd ( my medical school student ) , Jeremiah , Bryce and Matt . Today is the 14th anniversary of the day that Dick and I were sealed in the Temple . We have another couple who celebrate the anniversary of their wedding and we always celebrate together . It is time for us to leave so will have to call this my post for tonight . It won 't be long now until I will get to see Sue . I know all of you are very much aware of the fact that she is my second daughter , - - - - you know , the one with the talent to write interesting books , stories and all those countless poems . I can just imagine how Sue feels reading this opening sentence . How she hates me to brag about her , but I ask you , how can I not brag about her extraordinary abilities ? I 'd better stop right now , or I know what I can expect when I see her , which will be either tomorrow or Thursday . I 'll know before the night is over . It is especially exciting because I had no idea that I would be seeing her soon . She just decided at the last moment to come , and I am so glad she wasn 't about to ignore a special invitation to come and stay with Heather while Matt is away on business . Lucky for us all that Heather thought it would be a good idea for her to come . I had a very interesting day today . I went to the dental specialist and he gave me a brand new way of making a new bridge to go on the three implants I have left . He will put a titanium ring that will fit over the implants which will give them support and stability . Then he will make a new denture supported implant that will snap on to the ring and hopefully it will be a lot better than what I now have . I hate to spend the money because of my age , but I am going to take the chance anyway because I think it will be so much better . For one thing , the teeth will be porcelain instead of plastic , which is what these are , so the whole thing will be much slimmer . This thing I have now is so fat that it hides a lot of my taste buds and I don 't get the full flavor of the food I eat . I hope I am making a good decision . I am so darned mad at myself because I can 't remember a darned thing about how to transfer pictures onto my blog from my online album . I seem to be so stupid . It was as if Dick didn 't spend a lot of time trying to teach me either . I think I tried to write directions down but I can 't find the directions . I am a hopeless case . I will try agaPosted by Yesterday we went to San Diego to re - connect with a friend that I worked with 28 years ago in Orlando Florida . We went there in 1983 / 84 when Dick went through mid - life crisis when he was in his 40 's . His so called " best friend " that he went to college with decided to take advantage of getting the right to build British hovercraft , which is a pleasure boat seating two people , that rides on top of the water . He talked Dick into going into business with him and they truly started from scratch . They had to find a big plant where they could manufacture these boats , and all the things that go with starting a new business kept the two of them busy for quite a while . Unfortunately Dick only had a 10 % interest so he didn 't have a whole lot to say . The whole mess was a bad decision that I may blog about later , but it is a long story . I just wanted to explain why we were in Florida to begin with . We were there 11 months and during this time I was the sole bread winner . We bought a home thinking we would be there for a long time . Dick didn 't take any salary , so it was up to me . We also had a daughter in college that we had to send money to each month . I got a job working for a CPA company and Ivette Rivera was the girl I met in that office . She was from Puerto Rico . We really hit it off even though she was lots younger than I , having recently graduated from college with a degree in Accounting . I was 54 so there was at least 20 or 22 years difference in our ages . That didn 't seem to matter though as we really got along well . I got an Email from her recently telling me she was going to be in San Diego this week , starting on Sunday . She was here for a conference that her company sent her to . She is a CPA now and tomorrow she gets her certificate for financial planning . Since she has been living in Puerto Rico for the last 20 years , needless to say we haven 't been able to see each other although she has invited us to come and see her for many of the last few years . That is why we were so eager to see her in San Diego . The conventiPosted by I 'm a bit late in posting this week . I had a pretty hard day yesterday . It seemed like there was just so much running around to do , things to shop for etc . We didn 't get home until late late afternoon and I only had a short time to recover before we had to be off to celebrate one of our good friends 90th birthday ! ! His wife hosted it and believe me it was super nice . We had a beautiful prime rib dinner with all the fixings at a very nice restaurant . Needless to say , we had a great portion of it left over so had the same dinner tonight , compliments of Dick and his warming up skills . I was so happy to get to bed last night and I told Dick not to wake me this morning unless I was still in bed at noon . He agreed , but wouldn 't you know , I woke up about 7 : 00a . m . and couldn 't go back to sleep . It has been a pretty busy week for me and he has had to wake me up each morning ( which I hate , since it is so much nicer if I can wake up on my own . ) Oh well , I got up and told him not to expect me to do one darned thing today so he promised to pamper me . I was reading some blogs when he brought me my dinner and I am a very slow eater so it took me quite long to eat . He left for his meeting over an hour ago , and I just finished my dinner not too long ago . I was going to do my blog immediately after , but went in the kitchen to take my dishes and what a mess I encountered . I just couldn 't leave it for him to clean up , so had to do it before starting this . Now what to blog about ? Not too much of interest happens to me lately , so I 'm sure I can 't say anything that interesting . I guess I will tell you a few of my plans for tomorrow . First of all , I am going to my periodontist 's office to cancel my bone scan . I think I told you about him sending me to a maxillofacial specialist . He arranged for me to have this bone scan at my periodontists office next week so have an appointment . I know he wants to start from scratch and do a permanent bridge . It sounds lovely , but I know that my bone is just not viable to hold any more implants . My periodontist , who did them all in the first place , told me it couldn 't be done and I believe him . Even if it were possible to do it , I am just not willing to take the chance , plus all the pain I would likely have to go through . Added to that would be so much more expense after already putting so many thousands of dollars in this mouth . It would likely cost me another $ 20 , 000 to $ 25 , 000 more as he certainly wouldn 't give me the discounts the other guys did , so forget it . I just don 't want to tap our savings any more for this 84 year old mouth . I feel good about this decision . I am also going shopping for some more pillows for my den . It is looking pretty darned good , but need to get the maroonish color in the small rug onto the daybed . Then I will take some pictures of it and have Dick post it for me . ( If I don 't learn how to do it myself by then , which I am hoping I will . ) At least I don 't have to go shopping for a white A - line skirt anymore because Sue sent my one from a place she found online . I have only been looking for one for about three years . I 'll have to stop moaning and groaning about things I want and can 't find , or she will buy them for me . She is a great daughter , but I hate for her to spend so much money on me . I know , a lot of you will think I 'm crazy , but that 's just the way I am . Darn ! This is getting too long again . Sorry , will try to do better next time . My good thoughts go out to all of you . . . . . . . . . . It was 116 degrees today ! I thought it seemed a little bit warmer when we went in the pool to do our 40 minute exercise routine . I sure don 't mind it , but hey , we are in the house the rest of the time . Isn 't air conditioning wonderful ? Sue would have hated it for sure . She can 't stand it here when it is only 80 degrees . When she does come here , we turn down the air conditioner to about 74 and she is still too hot . But whenever go up there , I freeze . We will be going north to Sue 's for Christmas . Every other holiday we go up there for either Thanksgiving or Christmas . The other times , we go to Huntington Beach to our daughter , Nancy 's . I guess we will keep doing this as long as I am able . One year I was sick at Christmas and we had to stay at home and it was awful having to spend it without family . I never want to do that again ! I am geting so tan ! I have never been this tan before in my whole life . I look like a foreigner or something . I will have to post a picture of me before I lose it . However , I do think I will stay this way for awhile longer . Our weather doesn 't start to cool off until October . We will be going in the pool every day for exercise until it is too cool for me . I don 't dare get chilled as then I get asthma . I promised myself that I would make my posts lots shorter . I can 't believe how long they have been . I tend to ramble a bit . Our week has been pretty uneventful . . . . . . just trying to rest up from out Tahoe trip . I 'm catching up on all my reading , back to my kindle . I 'll soon have to have Sue transfer some more books over to mine as I 'm about to run out . I prefer reading books than magazines , so the ones I have just pile up . I 'm almost to the bottom of them too . I should be reading my scriptures more also . Once I start a book , I want to finish it quickly . Maybe that 's not a good thing . I will say though , that I won 't let myself start until after dinner at night . There I go rambling again . I 'm going to say goodnight . . . . . . . . . . . I 'll be off to bed earlier tonight . For some reason , I am really sleepy . Take care all . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . My love We did have a wonderful time in Tahoe . The lake is indescribably beautiful . I am going to have Dick try to put some pictures of it and some of the shots he took after the wedding and during the party that was held the night before the wedding on when he gets home . Stacy ( the bride ) knows everyone in Lake Tahoe so it was very difficult for her to choose whom she would invite for the actual ceremony . She had to leave an awful lot of her friends out , so she invited them to a big party the night before . It was also a very nice celebration and the food for both the party and the wedding was incredible . They were both buffet style and I ate way too much , I 'm afraid . They had prime rib Friday evening , with all kinds of salads and side dishes . Saturday evening was unbelievable . I have never in all my life of going to weddings and other parties had such food . . . . . . . . and there was so much of it . They served all you could eat of filet mignon , rack of lamb , lobster tails , some kind of a chicken thing and fresh sea bass , that was out of this world , and all kinds of fruit and salad . The cake was so delicious too . One of my nephews ate five lobster tails and he also had eaten a lot of hors d ' oeuvres beforehand . The amazing thing was that it was all so fresh and good that it didn 't even seem like a buffet . But enough about food . We were so glad that we went on Thursday because it gave us such a lot of time to get acquainted with Stacy 's family . We had a pretty good trip up Highway 395 . It is just a two lane highway for a good part of the way and we were so afraid that we would have traffic problems . So much of it was through mountains and unless there were frequent passing lanes , it could be awful if you got behind a slow moving vehicle and there were plenty of R . V . 's and trucks pulling boats behind because , after all , it is a great place to spend a vacation . There are so many water sports and quite a few lakes too . We were very lucky as we were able to make very good time and we got there at exactly 3 : 00 p . m . which was our targWe had planned to stay four days and come home on Monday but Dick was really having trouble with his blood pressure . It seemed to go up and his head was really hurting him . Sue , our daughter , had the same problem , so we decided we had better get him off the mountain , so we left Sunday about noon and got home about 9 hours later . It was really good to be able to sleep in our own bed Sunday night . We are pretty well rested now . The funny thing is that I took my huge bottle of biofreeze with me so that I could use it on all of my painful parts and it was amazing but I didn 't have to use it at all . I didn 't have any pain ! ! ! I just couldn 't understand it ! As soon as we got home though , all the pain came back . Can anyone explain how this could possibly have happened ? I didn 't even have much trouble with my breathing , which so many thought I would . We were about 6500 altitude . I did get a little more tired when I did anything , like making the bed , or anything that required a little bit of energy . I noticed then that I wan 't breathing quite as well and I tired very quickly , but as for pain , it was super neat not having any . I 'm about ready to stop now , even though I don 't have my pictures yet . Dick will have to post them later when he gets home from his meeting . Love to all It was a very interesting weekend we had . We were both so happy that we got to go to our grandson Todd 's White Coat Ceremony . What a lovely program it was . All the speakers were so good . Since I had Dick put this article that was in our paper on the blog for me , I should probably write about it first , even though it is kind of going backwards . We did stay overnight and came home on Saturday . We left Irvine about 2 : 30 because we wanted to get home before the late afternoon traffic . We have to go through a valley about a half hour from Irvine called Moreno Valley before we can get home . There are some montains on each side of the two lane highway and lots of curves which I hate traveling through at night . As we were leaving the town of Moreno Valley we could see smoke and it looked to be quite close and not very close to the freeway . We never thought too much about it because we thought we would pass it within minutes , but as we traveled , the fire didn 't seem to get much closer . We were going pretty slowly and then finally stopped on the freeway . Since it was only two lanes , we were pretty well trapped and we stayed that way for quite a while . It was pretty interesting though because there were helicopters which looked like they were close to the fire and all of a sudden we heard fire engines . At that time our side of the freeway was the only side blocked . The traffic on the other side was still moving so we thought it shouldn 't be long before they would let our side through . The fire engines couldn 't get through and they had fire fighters out there trying to get both lanes to try to double park as close as they could get to the side of the mountain . It took some doing but we finally got over close enough so the engines could barely make it through . We couldn 't actually see the fire from where we were , only billows of smoke that seemed to be going straight up . That was becaue we were around the curve from the flames . Some time after the fire engines got through we noticed that the other side of the freeway was closI will have to back track now to the White Coat Ceremony . It was really touching to see all of the med students go up to get their white coats and I was so thrilled when Todd got his . He was the last to get his . Obviously they didn 't do it alphabetically . After they got their coats , they all had to recite in unison an oath , which in itself was very interesting . I was so suprised that they gave all of the students an I pad which will have all four years of their books and lectures on it and they will even be able to do all their notes on it , so won 't have to keep track of copious notes . It will all be right there for them in that one little pad . How things have changed . This is just the second year that they have been doing this at Irvine Medical School . After the main ceremoney we all went out onto the patio area where they had a very nice place with tables and chairs and lots of good things to eat . All the families were there taking pictures of their students and we did get a few . I am so sorry that Dick had to leave for his church meetings because he would have posted some of those pictures for you to see . I wish I could keep this open until he returns , but I am so afraid that if I try it , this whole thing might go away . Maybe I will get him to do it as a separate post . Unfortunately if he does that , this whole thing is going to be even more disconnected so maybe I should wait until we get back from the wedding before we do that . I think I will wait . I was glad that we stayed overnight though because that way , we were able to join Sue and Dave at Todd 's condo that he is renting to help get it set up . The furniture had been delivered , but Todd hadn 't had time to do more than just get all of his things put in the condo , so we had quite a busy time , actually . I put together some shelves for his shoes , Dick put together three lamps and helped Dave hang pictures , posters and other things that went on his walls . Sue was busy setting up his kitchen and washing tons of dishes that had been stored . It was a busy time foLove you all , Tuesday evening again and I am all alone with my thoughts . I have had a very busy week and expect to be busy for the next couple of weeks . As Dick said , we have triple Friday celebrations . Last Friday we celebrated Dick 's 75th birthday . We went to a buffet and of course I ate too much , but it was wonderful , maybe the best salad bar I have ever had . Next Friday we will be in Irvine , celebrating Todd 's White Coat Ceremony . We are still so very grateful that he was accepted into Irvine Medical School . He will do very well there , I am sure . I am going to try very hard to stay on this planet until he graduates and gets his M . D . The following Friday we will be in Lake Tahoe for the big wedding . Friday we will be celebrating our 39th year anniversary . I am sure we will enjoy it immensely as we plan to go to Harvey 's fish buffet for dinner . We used to go all the time whenever we were on our way to Nampa Idaho to visit my oldest sister . She died several years ago , so haven 't been back since . It is a great place to go and we hope that a lot of our family will be able to join us , unless our son and his bride have something else planned for the night before their wedding . It will be kinda fun having their anniversary the day after ours . After those three Fridays , I will probably come home and crash for at least a week . Some of you may remember what a terrible time I had last year trying to get a bridge for my lower teeth . I wanted it to be like my upper teeth , a permanent bridge that was supported by implants . My wonderful periodontist planned to put a ten teeth bridge in , supported by five implants . He did the implants and it takes quite a while before they are properly snug in the bone , so while we waited , one of the implants got infected and he had to take it out . He put in another one right next to it , and it too got infected , so he had to pull it out ( ugh , such horrible pain connected to both of them ) that only left me with four implants , which he felt were not enough to support the ten permanent teeth bridge . Instead , hPosted by