Christmas With Mom and Dad

The first Saturday of this month my side of the family got together to celebrate Christmas. There were 27 of us total. Four generations. Everyone was there (except a nephew who was taking the SAT test), sisters, brother, in-laws, nieces, nephews all the way down to my parents' six great-grandchildren.

This was a Christmas celebration that I both looked forward to and dreaded. This was the first Christmas since my mom's stroke. One thought that went through all of our minds after Mom's stroke, I think, was that Christmas will never be the same. Mom always made Christmas special. Always. From the traditional foods (Spritz, Potato Bologna, Fruit Cake, Pecan Dreams, Swedish Brown Beans, Swedish Rye Bread, Mashed Potatoes, etc...), to decorating every single room in their house, to the mantel with 29 stockings, to the schedule for the evening: everyone assigned jobs to help get the meal on the table, eating a wonderful, abundant meal, washing the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen (this added much to the drama of waiting, but we did it this way all my growing up years), then finally getting to open presents.

My dad was able to reserve some nice rooms in the home where my mom is living right now. We did our best to carry on with some of the traditions, namely the Christmas stockings. We were able to hang them all up across the bar in one of the rooms. They were quite the sight:

My oldest niece is a cosmetologist. She and her mom (my sister) picked out a pretty Christmas sweater for Mom and put some make-up on Mom and fixed her hair very nicely. I thought she looked so very pretty. Here is Mom and Dad together:

 I love that Mom is able to give a full smile and not the half-smile she gave three months ago.


We all enjoyed lunch and dinner together. 

I brought some Swedish Potato Bologna for Mom. She has made it for Christmas every year for as long as I can remember. One of our local grocery stores makes it and sells it through the holidays.

 It's so good to see Mom feeding herself. She manages a lot with her left hand and is able to eat mostly regular food. Dad helps her with each meal.

This little one (one of my niece's twins) was being kind of fussy, so Hubby took her and sat down at the piano and starting playing. She sat there for the longest time listening. It was sweet.

My wonderful, dear, sweet husband prepared his own gift for his mother-in-law. He spent a month looking through his piano music picking out hymns to play for my mom.  Mom has occasionally hummed along to a familiar song and he wanted to gift her with well-loved hymns to trigger that part of her brain.

We gathered in one room and sang together.

As we were singing some Christmas songs, I watched Mom. At one point I saw her mouthing the words to O Come All Ye Faithful!!! Mom doesn't say any words. She readily shakes her head "no" and with some effort can nod her head "yes", so to see her forming words was just amazing! I was so taken up in the moment, that I didn't get a picture or video. Nevertheless, I will never forget that moment! Never.

O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye, to Bethlehem.
Come and behold Him, born the King of angels

I am so very thankful that my mom is one of those Faithful.

Merry Christmas, Mom and Dad. I love you both!

The One About Thanksgiving

Backing up to our Thanksgiving weekend...

Our kids invited us to come to their house in Kansas City for the long weekend. We eagerly accepted. (All four kids are currently living in the same house, so it makes visiting pretty easy!)

Our daughter, Megan, and daughter-in-law, Amanda, put together a very yummy Thanksgiving dinner.

Charley (Megan and Zach's dog) got in on the celebration with a Pupcake to celebrate his third birthday.

Charley also enjoyed watching the dog-show on television. Grin.

The week before Thanksgiving, I hunted around on Pinterest (yay Pinterest!) to find an idea for a craft we could all do together. I found some directions for a folded fabric star. In my head I thought, "Fabric? I can do that!" This craft didn't cost me anything! I cut and pressed the fabric strips at home and packed everything up to take along with us. I wasn't sure everyone would want to participate, but we all sat down around the table and dug in. It turns out that the directions weren't very complete, but between all of us, we figured it out (and had some good laughs along the way).

I really loved how they turned out. I gave the red/white candy cane one to my mom to hang in her room. I've since made several more stars in different fabrics to give to people over Christmas.


The day after Thanksgiving did not find any of us out shopping. None of us really like messing with the crowds of people. (Although, the hotel Hubby and I stayed in was next to the Country Club Plaza shopping area and there was a big turning on the Christmas light celebration there that weekend and that made the hotel very crowded with people, so we didn't avoid the crowds, totally!)  We did, however make a little road trip over to Lawrence to go to an arts and crafts show going on there. Several of Hubby's relatives were selling their creations and we wanted to see them and their goods.

A Pinterest Housewarming

Tonight we visited my brother-in-law and sister-in-law in their new home. I hunted around on Pinterest for ideas and I put together a little housewarming gift-bag for them.(Here's the link to the post.)

On the card I wrote:

Bread so you'll never go hungry. 

Candles so you'll always have light through the darkest times. 

Honey so you'll always enjoy the sweetness of life. 

Olive Oil so you will be blessed with health and well-being. 

Salt so there will always be flavor and spice in your life. 

Wine (or Orangina since we aren't wine drinkers) so you will always have joy and never go thirsty.

If I was at home I would have scrounged around for a basket to put this all in, but instead bought a cute gift bag and some tissue paper. We had a lovely evening and had the honor of being their first dinner guests!

The Tie Family Picture

Here's the promised photo of my family in our Uncle Russ Ties.

Can I just state the obvious thing here? I love this group of people so very much. I miss those kids whenever I'm not with them. It was so good to see them that day.

Whew!

We are home from a pretty whirlwind weekend.

Friday night we saw Bill Cosby in Ames, Iowa. I have always wanted to see him in person and I was not disappointed! That guy is so funny and has clean humor.

My mom and dad were supposed to be the ones who were sitting in our seats, but since Mom's stroke, they were not able to go. Through out the whole show I kept thinking, "Oh, Dad would have thought that was funny! Mom would have laughed so hard at that!" 

It was bittersweet to be there. I am thankful for Dad sharing his tickets with us.

When the show was over at 9:30, we zoomed out to the car (well, as fast as one can zoom with thousands of other people heading the same direction), hopped in and started driving to Kansas City. We arrived at the hotel at 1am.

After a not long enough night's sleep, we were up and dressing to attend the memorial service of my husband's uncle in Lawrence, Kansas. It was a very good service remembering Uncle Russ. It was sweet to see so many family members. A cousin of Hubby's flew from North Carolina, another from Mexico and many drove in. I even got to meet a second cousin that I had only heard about over the years. And as a mom, I was happy to see my kids. They all came to the service and it was so good to see them and hug them.

Then, just to add to the craziness of the weekend, we drove back to Des Moines, Iowa Saturday night arriving at the hotel there at 11:30pm. So not near as late as Friday night, but still.

I think sometimes we forget that we aren't 25 years old any more...

Sunday morning, Hubby was up and at 'em and ready to run 13.1 miles. He ran a half-marathon! He did a great job. He got a better time than he was aiming for, so he was happy. I got up with him so I could collect his jacket and long pants before the race started.

So. Whew! I'm worn out for sure!

My oh-so-exciting picture was taken on the interstate.

I suppose I've seen these trucks with this sign many, many times, but it struck me as kinda funny. I mean, I have never considered following one of these trucks for very long, let alone into a "work area." Are there really some who have followed the truck into the work area and thus the need for the sign?

I don't know. Maybe it was just funny because I was in the car far too long.

Picture Overload

Early in the summer I told Hubby I was tired of quilting (gasp!) and would spend my time organizing our digital photos into albums.

After I made two more quilts 

(What can I say? I guess I'm not all that tired of quilting...and I have another one planned out in my head) 

Anyway...

I finally got around to working on the photo albums. 

Since digital cameras joined our house, we have to have another way to have our photos organized. Up to this point in our 29 year marriage, Hubby has done a great job of getting the photos labeled and into albums. 

We have used Shutterfly for making albums of each of our kids' wedding and a couple of other times and have always been happy with the results.

I have one album finished (waiting for Hubby to look it over before I order it) and am working on the second album. I decided to put six months worth of photos in each book. One complete, only five more to go. Sigh.

 

Exhausted

Hubby and I came back home last night. I wanted to sleep in my own bed, but I seem to be too exhausted to actually sleep, if that is even possible.

Update on my Mom:

Mom had a stroke that affected the left side of her brain and therefore has paralyzed the right side of her body and taken her speech away. She recognizes friends and family,and we get greeted with a lopsided smile. She lights up and puckers up for a kiss when my dad comes near. Those two truly love each other. I took this picture Saturday evening  before Mom was moved out of the ICU.

Such love. Sixty-plus years worth of love. Such an amazing privilege to have this marriage as an example. 

Mom is really struggling with so many things, I can't list them and besides it freaks me out a little to do so.

Over the weekend we all spent time with Mom alternated with all hanging out in the waiting room, either crying or calling or texting family and friends with updates or telling stories or talking about what insects are on our acceptable list or the tolerable list. (Gotta cope somehow, right?) Both of my sisters and brothers-in-law were there along with my brother and sister-in-law. One of my nieces came and my son and daughter-in-law. I think it was so good for us all to be together.

My son said that they came fifty percent for Grandpa and Grandma and fifty percent for me. They were such a gift to me. My son gives the best hugs and his sense of humor and way of noticing odd things was much needed. My daughter-in-law is a doctor and was so very sweet to answer our bazillion questions and draw pictures of the brain and the heart and explain how everything works.

A few of us sang Amazing Grace to Mom. We all cried on the verse that says:

When we've been here ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun.
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we've first begun.

My dad is wiped out. I haven't seen him cry too many times in my life. Over the weekend he broke down many, many times. So very hard to see.

My daughter is going to see her grandma tomorrow. I will drive back to Iowa to be with her and see my dad and my mom again. I think that waiting until tomorrow to see my daughter is too long, but I guess I have to wait. I am so anxious to see her.

Last summer I made a quilt for my mom. I took it from their house on Sunday and gave it to Mom and told her that a quilt is love and she can have it there at the hospital and know that I love her. She pulled at the quilt and looked me in the eye and tried to say something. I heard some noises, but no words.

Here's a picture I took of Mom last summer with the quilt:

I know this post may not make very much sense.  I am really hurting and it's hard to put coherent thoughts together.

Over the weekend the words to the hymn Jesus I am Resting, Resting kept going through my mind. Especially this verse:

Simply trusting Thee, Lord Jesus,
I behold Thee as Thou art,
And Thy love, so pure, so changeless,
Satisfies my heart,
Satisfies its deepest longings,
Meets, supplies its every need,
Compasseth me round with blessings,
Thine is love indeed.
Jesus I am resting, resting
In the joy of what Thou art.
I am finding out the greatness
Of Thy loving heart.

I cannot even count the number of times I have called out Jesus' name in my prayers and in my agony.

It Was Simply Wonderful

All of last week I kept myself crazy busy cleaning the house. I haven't decided yet if the fact that I spent so many days on it means that the house was terribly dirty or maybe I'm just a lot slower at what I do. (I'll go with being slower.) I have made myself a modified version of a cleaning schedule I found on this site that I found through Pinterest. I don't always do all it on a weekly basis because with just two of us, things just don't get dirty as quickly. That and I'm not a persnickety housekeeper. But since we have been gone a lot this summer, it's been neglected more than normal.

(This is probably more than anyone wants to know about me. Just trying to think of more things to write about and frankly, I like reading blogs when people write about just their normal everyday lives.)

(So there you have it.)

Aside from my motivation coming just from the house being dirty, I was also motivated because we were expecting COMPANY FOR THE WHOLE WEEKEND!!!!

(All caps are necessary because we NEVER get company here. Our last overnight guests were last Christmas and then only other people that have been here this year were a friend who stopped by for an hour and a niece who stopped by for an hour.)

(I cannot express how much I hate that no one wants to come visit us here although I can't really blame them because this town isn't much to look at. Not much at all.)

Anyway....

My mom and dad came for a weekend visit! I am thankful my mom was feeling well enough to make the trip, although she isn't back to 100% after her few days in the hospital a couple of weeks ago.

We had a simply wonderful time.

I loved planning a menu and thinking about the things my parents like. The blueberry muffins I made for Sunday morning were a hit as was the pork loin I grilled for Saturday night. I can't even tell you how I enjoyed cooking for company. The fact that Hubby cleaned up after every meal and fixed the breakfasts (except the muffins) was a bonus!

Friday night we watched a movie. Parental Guidance. My new favorite movie! We all had seen it before, but some movies I can just watch over and over. Saturday afternoon we made a excursion to the local soft-serve ice cream place. Saturday night Hubby and Dad played a game together. Dad beat Hubby three times! (Hubby is really good at games and 99% of the time he wins.) Sunday morning Mom was too tired to make a trip to church, so we had our own church service in our living room. Mom said it was the first time she had gone to church in her pajamas! grin.  We sang a couple of hymns with Hubby playing the piano. (Loved hearing my dad's bass voice.) We listened to a sermon on-line from our son's church. (After we figured out how to play it so it was loud enough for everyone to hear. I connected my phone to our Bose radio/CD player.) We spent some time prayng together. (Sweet.) Lunch on Sunday was at our favorite restaurant in town.

Right after lunch my mom and dad headed back to Iowa. My dad had found out Saturday morning that his lifetime friend (as in since they were babies) had passed away. His friend had asked my dad to do the funeral service, so Mom and Dad went to meet with the family. The funeral is tomorrow and it will be a really tough one for my dad. I'm planning on attending.

Late Sunday evening our niece stopped by for a quick visit. She's in the area visiting friends before her college classes start next week. We had such a fun chat with her and felt so very honored she took the time to stop to see us. She's a sweetie, for sure!

Monday morning I woke up and realized the house was empty. I cried.

My mom taught me so much about cooking, keeping a house and being a good hostess. I love to have her visit so I can show her what she taught me.

Recently...

This here blog has been pretty quiet lately. If I was actually home sometime, I might find the time to write.

There is no complaining coming from this blogger, though. I rather enjoy having my weekends full. But full weekends translate into a busy few days at home filled with laundry and other neglected house work and no blogging.

So.

What have we been up to?

In the last month or so, we've made a massive road trip, helped my in-laws move out some of their furniture, ran a half marathon, sat in road construction at 11:30 AT NIGHT, and helped our son and daughter-in-law with their new, 100 year old house.

Before any readers out there get the impression that I ran a half marathon... I did NOT. Hubby is the runner in this family. While he was running those 13.1 miles (and getting severe leg cramps, sadly), I was sleeping soundly. (Those races are early in the morning...and we all know I am not much of  morning person.)  But I did feel guilty that I was just sleeping and he was struggling with cramps in his calf muscles and feet.

After that half marathon race we went on a little road trip to take care of some family business (vagueness here on purpose...not everything that happens in my life is blabbed about on this here blog). Our drive back home started out quite late in the day and that is why we were sitting on the interstate for 20 minutes after 11pm as some sort of road construction was going on. Makes for a couple of grumpy travelers. We attempted to stop at my sister's house to sleep, but due to a power outage because of storms that had gone through earlier, we decided to not go in their dark house (they were gone) and decided to keep driving home. We arrived home at 3am. (!!)

Let's just establish right now that I am way too old to be out that late. Admittedly, I have been awake that late before, thanks to my (not) friend insomnia, but there is a difference between laying in bed and trying to sleep and riding in a car until 3am and trying not to sleep. It took me 3 days to recover.

This weekend we have been helping our son and daughter-in-law with all sorts of things around their house. A couple of weeks ago they moved into their first house in Kansas City. It's a bit over 100 years old and needs a little TLC. Yesterday I sat on my butt for way too long (my back is yelling at me today) and wiped down baseboards and door frames. Hubby has been a work-horse with painting, cleaning up the yard, washer and dryer hook-up, etc, etc, etc. Our daughter and son-in-law helped yesterday as well.

This is a brother/sister team working on putting a piece of IKEA furniture together.

(I just gotta say that I loved listening to them work together on this. Made my heart thankful and proud.)

Hubby and I are hanging around a couple of days to celebrate our 29th anniversary. We are upgrading to a fancy-schmancy hotel and enjoying ourselves. Tonight we are taking our kids out for a fancy dinner. I'm looking forward to that!

Okay. Done with my catch-up post.

The Day The Doorbell Rang Three Times And It Wasn't Even the Mailman Or The UPS Guy Or The FedEx Guy --or-- A Weekend Recap On A Wednesday

A Wednesday Weekend Recap? Works for me.

My in-laws are down-sizing significantly.  They are selling their house and moving into an apartment. Last Saturday we helped them with some of the moving process. They are generously giving away a lot of their belongings. Our daughter is blessed to receive their beautiful piano. She is a fantastic piano player. I am so grateful to my in-laws for gifting her with that. I can't wait to visit her house and hear her play.

Our son met us at his grandparents' house and filled up the back of a pickup with all kinds of furniture (including an end table my mother-in-law's grandfather made) and tools. My father-in-law loves his tools. He has made so many things around their house from handles on the door frame into the house from the garage (to grab a hold of to help climb the stairs), to a turntable on their table, to bookshelves, to modifications to almost everything, to a gorgeous clock. So there are a LOT of tools. He spent a considerable amount of time explaining everything to his grandson.

We came home with our back end of our SUV full of odd and assorted things.We are thankful for their willingness to give away so many things and grateful to be able to help in their downsizing process.

Just look at this clock my FIL made! It has yet to find a spot on a wall in this house. (We're working on it.) It seems a little surreal to hear it chiming in this house.

After we were finished at my in-law's, we drove an hour to the town where my parents live. They were flying home from their two weeks in North Carolina.  Since we would drive right through their town, we arranged with them a few days earlier to have supper with them after they got home.

As we waited for their flight to arrive, we wandered around town and the mall and hung out at Panera (of course). At the mall I ran into my childhood friend's mother. So fun to chat with her.

When my parents finally got home (delay in Chicago), we greeted them at their house (we know how to get in...) with a lasagna dinner all laid out. And no, I didn't cook it, unless reheating the garlic bread in the oven and warming up the lasagna in the microwave and dumping salad into bowls counts. (We picked up dinner at our favorite restaurant in town.) It was a super yummy supper and fun to spend a little time with my mom and dad.

We drove back home Saturday night and unloaded the car and crashed.

Sunday was a momentous day. As seen in the title of this post, I call it:

The Day The Doorbell Rang Three Times 

And It Wasn't Even the Mailman 

Or The UPS Guy 

Or The FedEx Guy

The first two times the doorbell rang, it was our neighbors giving us a piece of mail belonging to us and giving us some extra fish they had.

While both of those gestures were very kind, the third doorbell was the best. It was our niece! She was driving by on the nearby interstate her way home and stopped by for a quick visit and a bite to eat. So fun to have her here! Hubby helped me throw together a pasta chicken salad and some strawberry shortcake. He makes an awesome sous chef!

So we had an eventful and history making weekend! (The doorbell has never been rung that many times in one day.)

Giant Road Trip of 2013 -- Part Three (**Revised**)

**Somehow this posted with just pictures 
and not all the content I wrote. 

Grr...... 

Let's see if I can recreate what I wrote.**

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When the end of a vacation approaches I tend to have mixed feelings. Part of me is looking forward to getting home and sleeping in my own bed, the other part hates the thought of getting home and facing a mountain of laundry and Hubby back at work and I don't get to see my friends and family any more.

But then there's this blog where I get to drag out my posts about the trip and re-live the whole thing.

You're welcome

We left the beach house on Friday morning. I was glad all the Little Ones were awake so I could give them all kisses good-bye.

We took a different route on our trip back home so we could squeeze in a few more visits.

Our stop on Friday was to visit my cousins who live in Eastern Tennessee. (Loudon.) I hadn't been there to see them for 34 years (I've seen them at family events over the years). Hubby never had been to that part of Tennessee.

My aunt and uncle farmed there on an old farm.  My uncle passed away 24 years ago. (My aunt remarried a few years ago at age 82 (!) and lives in Florida.) My cousins live in this house.

The house was built in 1845. There are a couple of chunks out of the bricks around the front porch that happened during a Civil War battle.

My relatives have lived here since 1957. But just think that before they lived there, there had been over 100 years of history there already! Mind boggling.

The views from the house are breathtaking. (It was beginning to get dark and had been raining, so the pictures are a little dull.)

A very, very long time ago, this building was slave quarters.

A cherished photo of my sweet cousins and me. These two have an older sister who is the oldest cousin on my dad's side of the family. I am the youngest. I am so blessed to be related to these two Southern Ladies.

We enjoyed a few hours of talking, looking at a few pictures, and laughing.  We shared memories, family stories and had fun talking about our grandparents.



(As we were planning our vacation, this stop was all Hubby's idea. He gets a Gold Star for that!)

The next day we stopped in Nashville for a long lunch with some friends. We know them from the previous Minnesota town we lived in. It was good to spend time with them at catch up on each others lives. We miss our friends.

We were delayed getting into Nashville because of slow traffic. (You know -- one of those traffic jams that when it finally breaks up, there is no obvious reason for the slow down.) So, because of that delay, we were just a smidge too late for a stop later in the day at The National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky. (I was wanting to look around in the gift shop some.) It closed at 5pm and we got there at 5:05pm. Phooey. I was sad.

Saturday night was in St. Louis, then Sunday morning, we drove through northeast Missouri on up into Iowa. Sunday afternoon was a quick stop at my in-law's house. They are getting ready to sell their house and move into an apartment. (More on that later.) We picked up a few things, had a nice visit, then finished our last leg home.

It was a wonderful vacation. I was worried I would be stressed with having to get up early to get on the road so many mornings, but I really wasn't. (Maybe it helped that we were seeing friends or family at the end of most days?) We passed the time in the car listening to a couple of audio books. One book I really liked (a John Grishan novel) the other not so much (about WW2 battles). We also took notice of the license plates on the cars around us and wrote down all the different states. We found 43 states and The District of Columbia and 2 Canadian provinces. (Remember doing that as a kid?)

Ten days. 3,301 miles. Thirteen States. Five hotels. Good memories.

Giant Road Trip of 2013 -- Part Two

For Part One of our Giant Road Trip of 2013 click here.

Before we left the Raleigh area, we strategically spent the night near a mall I wanted to shop at on Monday morning. You know me, living in a small town, I take advantage of shopping whenever I can!

We needed to pick up a gift for a sweet little girl (my niece's little girl) who was turning three in a few days. We picked her up some LEGOS. She smiled when she opened it and said "thank you!" very sweetly. 

Hubby captured a great series of pictures of the new three year old trying to blow out her birthday candle. I made a little collage of the series. You can see the flame flickering and her little cousin trying to help.

I just love her face in the last picture when she realized there was victory! 

The next several days we hung out at the beach with the majority of my family in this house::

With views on the outside like this:

And views on the inside like this:

It was very difficult to get a good picture of these three great-nieces of mine when we were playing together. They were wiggly and being tickled by their great-uncle and therefore -- blurry photos! :)

There were three babies in addition to these three. After we left somehow they managed to get all Six of The Littles on a couch for a photo:

(The two babies on either side of the girl in the purple shirt are twins.) (Photo credit: my niece. She graciously let me "borrow" this photo and the next.)

While I think the photo of The Six Littles is adorable, this photo is hilarious:

 (My niece calls this one, The Paparazzi.) (It looks like a twin is getting her diaper changed on the left there.) (The quilt on the floor is one of two I made for my sister.)

We had really good food while we were at the beach house: grilled tuna steaks, roasted broccoli, a shrimp boil., went out for shrimp burgers and my brother made these amazing wings on the 4th of July:

One more post to warp up our trip.....

Babies

I've been busy watching,  holding and playing with babies and toddlers.  Such fun!

The Last Day

One last day at sea.

I don't know about the rest of my family, but when I woke up that last day of the cruise, I felt quite sad. Sad to have to go home to the cold. Sad to not have my bathroom cleaned for me a couple of times a day. Sad to have to cook my own food. Sad to say goodbye to the good times with my family.

I decided I didn't want to be in the sun at all. Hubby and I had breakfast with my mom and dad, then found places around the ship to read. We even tried to win a five carat sapphire. Grin. (We didn't win, of course. I never win anything.) We saw the movie Argo in the big theater on the ship.  (Missed the first fifteen minutes because of the aforementioned effort to win jewelry.) We both enjoyed the movie. We were college students when those events (American hostages in Iran) unfolded. We remembered bits and pieces of it, but mostly we were oblivious college students.

At our last dinner together, the wait staff honored my mom and dad's anniversary with a yummy piece of cake. (Mom and Dad passed it around for us all to get a taste.)

I just loved the smiles on my parents' face all week long!

Allan, our waiter, posing for a picture.

The fancy dessert for that night was Baked Alaska. The waitstaff made a big production of bringing the Baked Alaskas into the dining room. (I didn't get a decent photo of that so I won't subject you to the blurriness.) (Your welcome.)

Hubby joked about getting the half a cake that was left over and Allan, the waiter, jokingly put the serving plate in front of him. We had a good laugh.

After dinner we all went to the show in the big theater. The entertainer was an impressionist and was quite funny.

Most of us spent the rest of the evening getting our bags repacked. The cruise people collected the luggage from the hallway overnight so we didn't have to drag them off the ship. We claimed them in a warehouse after we disembarked. We were given colored-coded tags to put on the luggage. The luggage is then arranged in the warehouse according to color. Makes it pretty simple to find the luggage!

Once off the ship and through customs, we waited for a shuttle to take us to the airport. It was sunny and pretty warm (hello Florida). I was dressed in jeans (because I knew what I was flying back to) and wanted to wait in the shade. Hubby stood in the sun and motioned for me when the shuttle came.

Once off the shuttle came the usual: find the right line at the airport, get your boarding pass, pay a stupid amount for luggage (Hello -- who would travel with no luggage? I find that fee ridiculous), hold you breath as they weigh your luggage (we sneaked by with only two or three pounds to spare), figure out where the security check point is, stand in line, undress (well almost) to go through the metal detector, be annoyed with TSA, find your gate, then wait.

(Good grief! No wonder flying stresses me out!)

I sat down to drink some (stupidly expensive) water and call my son and Hubby went to get us some pizza. As I was talking, I saw my brother-in-law walk by! He and my sister were flying back to central Illinois. We sat and talked with them until it was time for us to board.

Once at the proper altitude, I plugged into my iPod and listened to one of my favorites: Christy Nockles. Hubby was laughing at me because I was lip-syncing to beat the band. ;) (At least I wasn't singing out loud!)

I had the shade on my window down most of the flight but opened it as I felt the plane descending into Minneapolis. Hubby and I looked out and groaned. We saw snow everywhere. What a let down!

We had a fabulous week and have both stated that we think my parents' were genius to come up with this idea of all of us helping them celebrate their 60 years of marriage by inviting all of us to go on a cruise with them.

THANKS MOM AND DAD!