February 22, 2014

It was a fairly quiet week.  Ron is finally feeling some better but is still tired and sleeping a lot.

Leonard continues his Clinton vacation while his parents are vacationing in Florida.  He has been a good boy and loves the back yard at 810.

Friday night, we went to the postponed Sweetheart Banquet at church - prime dinner with friends.  It was a good time.

Saturday morning after coffee with Mom, Ron and I headed to Overland Park for a day of fun with the Todds.  Ron and Chad went to the annual Golf Show.  Amanda, Peyton, Garrison and Grammy did a little shopping, had lunch at Chipolte and had fun playing.  Peyton and I played Hello Kitty Bingo, and Garrison showed us how he could ride his tricycle and motor bike in the basement.  He was proud of learning.  Peyton also rode her bike and her scooter - nice open space for such events.

Around 5 p.m., we drove to the Midland Theatre for Chelsea Cover's wedding/reception.  Beautiful wedding with delicious food and drink.  We were home by 11 p.m. which wasn't too bad.  Big day for us old folks!

Sunday was church and lunch with Mom at 810.  We all took a 3 hour nap!

Quiet week ahead.  We are blessed.

Quite a Week II - February 15, 2014

Ron's health issues continued this week.  On Tuesday, very early - can you say 4:30 a.m. - we left Clinton for St. Luke's Hospital on the Plaza for his second (and we hope final) kidney stone surgery - outpatient.  Everything went very well, and we were headed home by 10 a.m.!  We stopped to get him a breakfast sandwich at McDonald's in Belton, and he even let me run into Sam's Club for a few minutes before heading on home - we arrived around 12:30 p.m.!  Woo Hoo!  The doctor was able to get the stone out without breaking it up, and he doesn't have to go back for a check up for 3 weeks.  He is very tired and exhausted, but no pain and went back to work on Thursday.

Amanda, Peyton and Garrison came to Clinton on Saturday for a visit - always a good thing for us!  They stopped at Grammaw's first, where we all played and had a good time.  Then we went to the bank to visit Grandpa, as he had to work on Saturday.  They enjoyed Grandpa showing them the vault and taking them on a tour of the bank.  They sat in his chair and played "banker" with his calculator, etc.  They hid in his closet in his office and had lots of giggles and suckers!  A fun time.

After getting home, we played downstairs - birthday party (resembled a tea party) - dress up - bean box - Peyton always likes to play downstairs with Grammaw!

After Grandpa got back home, we had lunch - meatballs, rice, glazed carrots, hot bread and delicious coconut cream pie that Grammaw made!  Yummo!  We played some more before they had to head back to Overland Park to check on Daddy.  The visits are never long enough.

Saturday afternoon, Ron and I went to Florence Goslin's 80th birthday party.  We enjoyed visiting and catching up with many old friends.

Hopefully next week will be a bit slower!  We are blessed.

Quite a Week - February 2014

No new pictures to share, however, it was a busy week.

Ron continued to feel flu symptoms, so I insisted he go to the doctor on Wednesday.  Come to find out, he didn't have the flu - he had a kidney stone which required hospitalization.  He was having a great deal of pain.  Surgery on Thursday to remove the stone was not successful.  A stint was put in, and he was dismissed from the hospital on Friday with an appointment to have a second surgery at St. Luke's on the Plaza on Tuesday, 2/11/2014.

Since he no longer had pain and was feeling some better, Mom came over to stay with him while I went to Overland Park Friday evening to spend the night with Amanda/family.  Amanda and Chad went to 801 Fish for an early Valentine's Day Dinner while I stayed with my favorite little people - we dined on McDonald's.  We had a great time playing, etc.

On Saturday, Amanda and I traveled to NKC to say our final good byes to Aunt Jean (Betty Jean Arthur).  Ron was unable to attend because of illness.  It was a nice service and nice to visit with family.

It was a week!

Magical Disney Vacation 2014

We spent January 25 - February 1, 2014 at Disney World in Orlando, Florida with Amanda, Chad, Peyton and Garrison for a Magical Disney Vacation!  We had a blast!

We flew out of KCI Saturday morning and arrived at our Polynesian Resort on the Disney Property on Saturday afternoon.  After getting settled, our first event was a Luau at our resort which had delicious food and a great show.  A fairly new thing at Disney is having bracelets which are electronically connected to everything - entry to room, entry to parks, dining plan, etc.  They were great.

Amanda spent a great deal of time organizing, scheduling and planning our vacation - thanks Amanda!  We attended several character meals, dining with Mickey, Minnie, Pooh, Cinderella - you name it!  We ate at Chef Mickey, Cinderella's Castle, at Animal Kingdom, at the new restaurant, Be Our Guest where Garrison really liked seeing The Beast!  Very delicious food at all the different restaurants, and the kids loved getting out their autograph books and getting their pictures taken with the characters.

Peyton had a beauty day at the Bippity Boppity Boutique where she was transformed into a princess.  She got to choose her dress and which princess she wanted to be.  She picked her hair style, nail polish, make up, face bling, etc.  The beautician fixed her hair and added the bling barrettes and tiara, then she sat for a photo shoot which she enjoyed.  I think her Mommy, Daddy and Grammy enjoyed it just as much as she did (Grandpa and Garrison were napping during this event).

Amanda and Chad did some scuba diving in the big aquarium at The Seas/Epcot.  Best part was that we took the kids to stand outside the glass aquarium where they could see their Mommy and Daddy, wave to them and give them High Fives on the glass.  It was fun!

Of course, we rode all kinds of rides.  The kids really liked The Tea Cups, but also liked the carousel, Peter Pan, Ariana's ride, the Safari, It's a Small World, Hollywood Studios - ahhhh the list goes on.  Amanda was so good about getting Fast Paths, so we did not wait in line very long at all - probably 30 minutes max for a couple of rides, but most were 5 minutes or less which was very nice.  We enjoyed the parades, the fireworks, the monorail, riding the boat to Magic Kingdom, etc. Disney knows how to show you a good time, and Amanda squeezed every bit of fun out of the experience for us with her planning!  Garrison really enjoyed riding the train around the park.

Amanda and Peyton spent a little time in the pool where the water was heated.  It was a bit cool to take advantage of too much pool time, but they had fun.  We had cool weather and rain a couple of days, but it didn't stop us!  We were having so much fun, we really didn't notice too much.

We spent time at The Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studioes, Animal Kingdom and Epcot.  Garrison loved saying Epcot.  The double stroller was a life safer, and the kids enjoyed riding on the shoulders of Mommy, Daddy and Grandpa.

It was a sad time as well, as Ron's Aunt Jean (Betty Jean Arthur) passed away on January 31 after a short illness.  Funeral will be February 8 in Kansas City.

Thanks to Mark Lyman Mintun for spending the week we were gone in Clinton with Mom.  She enjoyed him being there, and they had a good time taking care of Apollo and Lenny.  They raked leaves, went to Walmart and went to the cemetery and just enjoyed being together.

A wonderful week of memories - priceless.  We are blessed.