We have been busy, busy, busy! Rather than write an individual detailed post for each day I'm going to cover highlights with a few pictures thrown in for the past 10 days.
Wednesday, we enjoyed our last morning in Lamar with Matt and family, and Jarred and Emerson before they loaded up the van with their luggage and child paraphernalia and headed to Wichita, shortly after lunch. It was a tight fit with four car seats, luggage, play saucer/jumper for Sam, and three adults. We will be taking the rest of their stuff with us when we head that way on Friday. Dean and I still have a lot to do in the next several days so we spent most of the afternoon and evening resting.
Thursday Dean had an appointment with his urologist in Springfield for a followup from his prostate surgery. He received a great report. We were thankful to hear his PSA was "0" again.
After leaving the doctor's office we stopped at Zio's, an Italian restaurant just down the road from the Cox Medical Complex. The food was okay, but I think we remain a fan of Olive Garden, as far as Italian chain restaurants go. We are fortunate to have a wonderful locally owned Italian restaurant, Josie's, near us in Scammon, KS, and it reminds me we need to visit there before we head south later this year.
Back at Brett's later in the day, we decided to have dinner in Lamar with Brett at Cap's Cabin. They have a great menu, including catfish (Brett), cod (me) and shrimp (Dean) along with several other great options. We have been here with Brett before and we were happy to have the chance to return.
Friday we packed up and headed to Wichita where we will have our Christmas gift exchange with Dean's boys and their families on Saturday. We stopped in Oswego on the way and picked up our granddaughter Haleigh (Misti's daughter). We were very happy she wanted to go with us.
By the time we arrived and got set up, we rested a bit and then headed to Logan's Roadhouse for dinner.
By the time we returned from dinner, it wasn't long before we were ready to turn in. Tomorrow will be a busy day.
Saturday morning we all gathered at Heath's house (Dean's oldest son). What a crew (18 of us)! Brett made homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast and I purchased a fruit plate. We spent the morning visiting while the kids enjoyed playing with their cousins. We ordered pizzas for lunch and finished those up shortly before we left to attend Roman's (Heath's youngest son) basketball game at the nearby YMCA.
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| Roman, #35, on the left |
His team won and we enjoyed watching him play, along with a little "floss" dancing and skipping down the court.
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| Notice Tucker (red shirt) with the Nerf "dart" - there was a lot of this "throwing" going on! |
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| "Darts" laying on the floor - I think Heath's boys must have hundreds of these from all the Nerf guns they've received over the years. They use large cardboard boxes as forts to play with them downstairs. |
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| Josh, Sam, Matt & Megan |
Back at Heath's we headed downstairs to their family room where gifts were exchanged between the kids. Names were drawn several weeks ago. I think everyone was quite happy with their gifts. With four grown boys, and five younger ones - the Nerf gun wars were on - and a few of the girls might have been involved as well! Actually, once everyone came downstairs, the Nerf guns were put away - but the little "nerf" ammunition was tossed back and forth with LOTS of laughter and fun. It was a great day with this bunch and it was a treat to see all of Dean's boys and their families together. Matt and Megan's last visit was two years ago at Christmas.
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| Papa Dean, Brett, Abram and Tucker in a fun game of pool - 3 generations here. |
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| Tucker as Batman. |
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| Brett, Tucker & Dacy |
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| Emerson, Jarred and Andrea |
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| Sam, Emerson and Abram |
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| Papa Dean and Grandson Joshua Dean |
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| Sarah, Matt, Josh, Megan and Sam Poor Josh didn't want his picture taken. Sarah and Sam aren't sure what is going on! Sorry Matt is blurry - too much moving around! Lol! |
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| 10 of our 13 grandchildren. Tucker, Roman, Emerson, Dacy, Abram, Sam, Haleigh, Sarah, Gideon and Josh. Not present were Logan, Kamron & Jaxson. |
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| Casey, Roman, Abram, Gideon & Heath. |
Sunday morning we hitched up Bentley and headed back to Oswego.
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| Haleigh on the way home |
As usual, we had to make a pit stop and chose the Beaumont Rest Stop for the first one. While it was COLD and WINDY this morning, we had not encountered any rain or snow. However, the road appeared to either have snow or a very heavy frost right at the top of the rise where the rest stop is located. Once we drove into the rest stop parking we noticed the trees had a layer of ice on them. It was the only place we saw this - it was very strange!
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| Love the Flint Hills |
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| Notice the ice or heavy frost on the road here. |
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| Another beautiful view of the Flint Hills |
Monday morning I met my son Marc at Jaxson's school (Service Valley Charter School - part of the Oswego School District) where I picked up granddaughter Kamron for a shopping trip to Joplin. She's out of school all week for the Thanksgiving Holiday. I haven't had a chance to spend any one on one time with her since July so I was happy to have her to myself for the day. We had a great time - most of it at Hobby Lobby - Kamron's favorite store. She could spend hours in there and we did spend close to two! Unfortunately, we had to leave early as she has a basketball game tonight in Parsons and needs to be home before 3:00. We stopped in Oswego to pick up Papa (Dean), and Aunt Misti decided to join us too. We dropped Kamron off, made a long walk through Walmart picking up just a couple of things we needed (killing time), and then had dinner at Chinese Chef, before making our way to the Parsons Catholic School Gym. Kamron's team won against Edna.
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| Kamron #11 |
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| She was in the process of throwing the ball to her teammate in this picture. |
Marc and Jaxson joined us right as the game was getting started, and Jennifer stopped by after she finished her day at UPS. It was a fun evening. Within the last few days we have had the opportunity to spend time with all of our children and grandchildren (except for Logan - who is still at Navy Basic Training). But we will see him very soon.
Tuesday Dean and I had to be in Joplin at 8am for our 6 month checkup with our primary care doctor. Dean has been fighting a cold off and on ever since August. It gets better and then gets a little worse, so Dr. Broce gave him an antibiotic and some nasal spray. We hope between the two, that will clear it up. Otherwise we are both doing well and just need to return again in 6 months. While my blood pressure was up - it has been normal (I take it regularly; and it was perfect at my annual well woman exam last week), we assumed it must have been from the food we've had over the last several days - higher sodium levels than normal.
Dean thought he would need bloodwork so he fasted this morning - only to find out he didn't need to after all. We stopped at The Waffle House for a quick breakfast, and Walmart to get his prescriptions, before heading back to Oswego.
Misti and Haleigh are leaving Wednesday morning for Chicago to spend the day with Logan on Thanksgiving. He can be "adopted" by family or local groups. Haleigh discovered her drivers license expired on her 17th birthday a few weeks ago, and she needs it to get on base. Not sure they would accept an expired license, I ran her to Parsons after school to get it renewed.
Wednesday we made a quick trip to Tahlequah, OK to the Cherokee Hospital there.
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| It was a beautiful day for a drive! |
My lung doctor orders Pulmonary Function Tests and a CT scan of my lungs twice a year - and it's time to do it again. These are followup tests from my diagnosis of sarcodosis back in April 2017. While I feel great, the lung doctor told me I will need to be monitored for three years. My PFT test was scheduled for 10:00. I just love the young lady, Dana, who administers the PFT test. She knows we travel and told me she was looking forward to hearing about where we went since I saw her earlier this year. We had a great visit. My CT scan was not scheduled until noon. Since it was only a little after 10:30 when I finished with Dana, we went to Radiology to see if they might have time to get me in rather than waiting until my 12:00 appointment. Fortunately they got me right in and I was done by 11:00. We made a quick stop to fill out paperwork to have copies of the two reports sent to my doctor before leaving the hospital.
Recently we ate at the Cherokee Restaurant (at our October SKP rally). It was so good, we decided to eat lunch there today. We were disappointed. It was okay, but nothing like the last meal we had there. You just never know. Misti texted about 6:00pm to let us know she made it to their hotel. Other than the traffic through Chicago, she said it wasn't a bad trip. We were glad to know the trip went well for them.
Thursday we had Thanksgiving dinner at my sister and brother-in-law's, Crystal and Lonie's. Lonie made the entire meal - including five different pies. He is an excellent cook and his pies are the best. He has perfected the crust. It is so light and flaky. For our lunch, he made homemade chicken and noodles, turkey (some of the best ever - always so moist), two kinds of dressing (bread and cornbread), gravy, deviled eggs, cranberry salad, homemade rolls and green beans. He made five pies, chocolate, coconut cream, pumpkin, cherry and peach. Oh my, we were so full. It was the first time in twenty-five years I haven't fixed Thanksgiving dinner for our family. I missed the kids/grandkids being here but I didn't miss fixing the meal. (Someday I'll be anxious to do it again) I really appreciate Lonie and Crystal for inviting us and letting us join their family. In addition to Dean and I, their son Rye and his family, my sister Cindy and her husband, and Lonie's mom attended. We all helped clean up and then visited for an hour or so before Dean and I headed back to Bentley. We napped awhile and later in the evening my best friend from school, Cheryel, stopped by to visit for an hour or so. It was fun to catch up with her. She moved to the Corpus Christi area earlier this year so I haven't seen her for quite some time. We hope to stop in to see her as we leave Texas the end of February, before meeting up with our friends in Louisiana around the first of March.
Friday, Cindy called to see if I wanted to do something this morning. We decided to make a quick trip to Parsons. We visited a few shops and the new Dollar Tree before heading home. We are going to their house later this evening to eat dinner and play cards. I did some cleaning and work before we left for their house at 5:00. Cindy made hamburger stew, which was delicious. I bought a platter of cookies at Walmart earlier today. We enjoyed those while we played cards. Cindy and I skunked the guys the first two games, then they beat us the next two rounds. The playoff game to declare the winner was won by none other than "THE GIRLS". We had a great time and shared many laughs throughout the evening.
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| Sunset as we were leaving for Cindy & Elmer's this evening. |
While Dean and I still have quite a few plans in the next few weeks I don't think (at least, I hope) it won't be quite as hectic as the past couple of weeks have been. I'm ready to get back to posting to the blog on a daily basis.
I'm thankful for each of you that follow along and I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
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