This is a picture of a Craft show from a few years ago. My sister, Elsie, the one in Blue, crochets hundreds and hundreds of finger puppets and sells them at Craft shows. This is a nice picture showing Diane holding a plant she bought, Debbie, Donna and me in the pink sweater.

If you don't have Diane's care pages about her upcoming surgery. I just got a new one this afternoon. She was scheduled to have surgery on the 4th of May but it is now scheduled for the 14th. She has to have another Ultra-sound and a more intensive MRI as there is some question as to how large the tumor is. The kind of surgery she has will be determined according to the size. How frustrating for Diane to have to go through more tests. At least I will be back from Alaska before she has her surgery.

I talked to Richard today. He seems to be doing well. He should be able to be back to work in about three weeks. He says he has to sleep on his back as it hurts to much too much to turn over.

Now I will tell you about the adventure that Donna and I have planned for July---------

On Friday, April 24th I had been pretty depressed because I had been fretting about Richard's and Diane's upcoming surgeries. I was telling Debbie how upset I was that day. After I talked to Debbie I decided to keep my mind busy and look up some things on the Internet. After work Debbie was going to meet up with Kent and they were going to look at tile for the backsplash over the sink. Debbie took me with her to cheer me up. On the way to Seattle, Debbie said"You need to think about the next place you want to go. How about South Dakota?" I just started laughing and said I can't believe you said South Dakota. I don't remember now why I was looking it up particulary but I told her I had been on line for almost half an hour reading about the Laura Ingalls Museum in DeSmet, South Dakota. Debbie mentioned South Dakota because she thought I would like to see Mt. Rushmore. Anyway, Debbie says it must be where I am supposed to go since we were both thinking about South Dakota that afternoon.

Donna and I are going because Donna has the summer off from teaching. Now I think she is more excited than me. It turns out there are so many things to see there. There are Laura Ingalls Wilder museums in both DeSmet and Walnut Grove, Minnesota. There are a number of places we want to see. We had so many on our list, we were not sure we would have time to go to Mount Rushmore but Donna juggled things around and we now have that on our list. Even Kent said if we didn't go to Mount Rushmore it would be like visiting Seattle and not seeing the space needle. It is still so interesting that Debbie and I were thinking about South Dakota on the same afternoon. Yes, Debbie, Mount Rushmore will stay on our list.

Donna and I will be leaving on our trip on July 21st and returning on July 28th. But first my Alaska trip which is almost here.

Then I started looking up Modale, Iowa where my mother was born and raised to see how far that would be. I still had the picture of Modale on the computer and Donna calls again and said Laif thought it would be nice if you could go where your mom was born. So that is now on our agenda. We will be flying into Minneapolis and renting a car one way. Donna has reserved one that we can drop off in Omaha. She found one that is not charging an arm and a leg. It is usually way more expensive one way. At the end of the trip, we will be flying back from Omaha. Modale is about 25 minutes from Omaha so that will be near the end of our trip.

Modale currently has a population of about 300 people. It is just a farming area. My mother said Modale was a water stop for the train. My mother was the night telephone operator when she was in high school. The night operator had a bed to sleep in and only got up if someone rang into the switchboard. Most nights there weren't any calls. It will be interesting to know that I am walking the ground my mother walked on.

Just another picture from our cruise.

All the worrying I have been doing about Richard, I am glad to say that everything turned out fine. Debbie took me to the hospital last night so that we could see him. He was pretty out of it last night. This morning he called me and he sounded very chipper. He said he can walk better than he has been able to for months. He said Frank would probably be taking him home. He was being discharged at 11am. It is still so hard for me to understand how he can have an operation like that one day and come home the next. I have not been in the hospital since my last two boys were in grade school. That has been a few years ago, since Darrell is 49 an Dan is 48 now. I have been lucky to have such good health so far.

Now I can turn my worry button on again for Diane. All we can do is pray for her and trust in the fine surgeons that will be doing her operation. (But, of course, I will worry. All mothers do. That is our job)

It was time for my haircut between perms today. I wanted it done before I go to Ketchikan. I just hate bothering with my hair. I have not been going to Beth at Merrill Gardens. I feel a little guilty about that but I like the way Sara at Impressions does my hair. It is a lot closer for me too. I wouldn't want to put too much extra mileage on my car, would I?

After today there will only be three days left before I go to ketchikan. A few years ago I would never thought about going so many places. I have to admit I do enjoy it. Basically, I am a homebody person and always enjoy being in my little comfort zone.

On my next post I will tell you a little about the crazy thing Donna and I are going to do in July.

The picture has nothing to do with anything in particular. I just liked it and the yellow sunflowers look cheerful. I know I haven't done anything on my blog for about 4 days. Richard is having his surgery today and Diane is having her MRI. I have not heard from either of them so instead of sitting here fretting, I decided working on my blog would cheer me up.

Since I will be going to Ketchikan Saturday, I started thinking about trips. For a lot of years a trip to the Mall was my big excursion. After my 80th birthday, Debbie took me on a surprise trip to Salt Lake. She only gave me a few minutes. She is packing my bag while I am protesting. Debbie had already arranged for Richard to take care of Clayton. Once I got going, I really enjoyed myself. Debbie is such a take charge person and makes decisions so easily. She always has a loving attitude while doing these things.

After Clayton died, the next trip was to Victoria with Donna and Laif. We also spent part of the weekend with Debbie, Kent, Erik and Boddle. That was the Memorial Day weekend and the weather was just wonderful. So that cheered me up some. It will be a year May 16th that Clayton died. I am glad that he was a part of my life.

Then in September of 2008, Debbie and I went to Washington DC. What an interesting city. We also took some tours to see some of the places we wanted to see. We did a lot of walking. Debbie always kept me going some way. You cannot see everything you would want to see in a short visit. I think it was 8 days we were there. Also in September, we all flew to Utah for Sophie's blessing. Again the weather was wonderful. That is when I went on the Zip Line.

Of course, everyone remembers the snowy winter we had. Anyway, that did not slow Debbie's planning down. She booked a flight to Las Vegas for Kent, her and me in January. Again the weekend we went was absolutely perfect. We did not wear coats for the three days we were there. Mike, Jennie and Sophie drove to Las Vegas to spend the weekend with us. It was great.

Then our Mexican cruise from the 29th of March until the 5th of April. Glad we went then. It sounds like it is not a good idea to go to Mexico right now.

Now Donna and I are planning a trip in July. I will give more details on that in another blog.

When I look at that list, I cannot believe I have been gadding around so much. I guess I just as well while I still can. I am happy that I am in good health right now and can still enjoy life.

I am most thankful for wonderful children and all my extended family.

I put Richard's picture on this morning. Richard has a very serious disc problem in his neck. He is going to be having surgery on the 27th. The doctor can't really fix it. All he can do is stabilize it so it hopefully won't get worse. Unfortunately he will still have a lot of pain. Please keep him in your prayers.

Diane will be seeing her surgeon tomorrow for her breast cancer. She will know about what is going on tomorrow. Please keep her in your prayers too.

This month is flying by. It seems all of the months go so quickly. Just 8 more days and I will be going to Ketchikan to visit David and Debby and family. I have only been to Ketchikan one other time. That was in May of 1995 when Clayton and I were first married. Years ago I did a lot of counted cross-stitch work. I only have one left now. It has Alaska in large letters in the middle and on the top and bottom it shows an image representing the different cities in Alaska.
When I bought the kit, the clerk said this particular kit was only sold in Alaska.

I haven't done any counted cross-stitch for awhile. I may see something I like when I am there. I have kind of lost my passion for crocheting lately. I have a lot of yarn and a pattern to make an afghan I thought I will like but haven't started it yet.

Picture of Kent and Erik setting up our exercise room. No matter the weather, I can exercise. I love this picture of Sophie. I love all the baby pictures in our family.

Donna and me in Victoria last May. How the time flies by.

I know I wrote about this before but I want to remind everyone that you can listen to Donna on the radio station in Sequim every Tuesday from 5 to 9 pm. It is easy just go to http://ksqmfm.org/ on your computer. She is the DJ during that time. Donna makes announcements between the songs. She does it so well.

I hope everyone has been enjoying our lovely sunshine. I just love the sun. Living with Debbie, Kent and Erik, I feel like I am on a non-stop vacation. I have such a nice room and when the weather is nice, I can just go out to deck from my room and lay in my lounge chair and soak up the sun. I try to get my exercise in at least 5 days a week. Working out on the exercise equipment has really helped my legs. At least I can exercise no matter what the weather is.

I just love to go into Debbie's new kitchen. I am trying to do dishes again for her and wipe things up. The stainless steel is so beautiful. All the fingerprints show but wiping up the fingerprints should be good exercise for my arms, right.

Donna and Debbie working out Easter Egg plans for the little ones.

Working on Easter Dinner.

Michael holding Noah, his wife Rachel and Debbie around the new Island.

Guys hanging out. From left to right, Ann's husband, Mark, Kyle, Scott and Steven. Steven and his family came up for the weekend too.

Steven's family and Laif. I think the last time Steven and Janet and their children were here was for our Christmas Eve Party. Our Christmas Eve party was not on Christmas Eve. We had it early because not everyone could come on Christmas Eve. We had it the weekend before. It was a memorable night because that was the night of our December 2008 blizzard.

I never used to take many pictures but now that I have a blog, I want to take pictures all the time. I can hardly wait to take some pictures when I go to Ketchikan in a couple of weeks. I posted twice today so be sure to look below. I have a really cute picture of Sophie.

This is Jennie's baby, Sophie. Jennie and Sophie came last Thursday for a visit. They left this morning. Sophie was 9 months old on Sunday.

Grandma and Sophie spending some grandma-baby time together.

Uncle Erik looks like a proud Uncle holding his neice, Sophie

Erik and Jennie spending some brother-sister time together.

This was Saturday , April 18th. Debbie planned a late Easter so the little ones could have an Easter Egg hunt here. On the actual Easter Sunday, it had poured rain most of the day. It rained very hard at times. So Saturday worked out great because the kitchen was far enough along that Debbie was able to cook a little dinner. Who cares about water in the sink? Everything else was working. Kent did start working on the sink later and now we have a working sink too. I might add a beautiful stainless steel one.

Debbie finally has her new kitchen. She has been wanting it for a long time.

The granite tops came out just beautiful. The workmen had to cut the long one over the sink three times before it turned out right. But aren't they beautiful?

The new Island is gorgeous. The ends still need the wood paneling on.

Debbie was busy early Saturday morning turning her new kitchen into a working kitchen. Some of the family is coming over this afternoon. The pictures above are the ones I took right after everything was cleaned off the counter tops. Jennie and Sophie have been visiting for the weekend. Jennie has been helping her mom with decorating ideas. Jennie and Sophie will be going back home tomorrow. It has been so fun to have them here.

Debbie is in Detroit and will be coming home today. Thank goodness. We really miss her. I have been taking pictures while she was in Detroit. Here is a picture of her new stove and microwave convection oven above the stove. The range is dual-fuel. There are gas burners on top and it has two ovens, which are electric. So now, Debbie has three ovens counting the convection oven.

Kent and Debbie are having granite counter tops put in. The workers were here most of the day yesterday but as you can see from this picture, there are two shades of granite. The dark granite is a little heavier and thicker and has a nice shine to it. The lighter shade is everywhere except the long kitchen sink area. The workers are going to be coming back Friday. Debbie will be back tonight and Jennie and Sophie will be here. I am sure between Debbie and Kent they will get it fixed right. It is too beautiful a kitchen to not have everything look nice.

This is the new Island. It looks very nice but does have the lighter shade granite.

This is the long granite sink area. This area is the thicker, shinier granite and looks so nice.


I can hardly believe how the time is flying by. I am going to Ketchikan, AK the first week of May to spend the week with David, my oldest son. I will see more grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I will take some pictures.

Noah's Birthday cake with 3 candles.

Noah was really having fun

Hazel woke up and joined the party.

I am glad I got the opportunity to go to Noah's third birthday party. There were a lot of people to join in the celebration. Laif was in one corner of the room holding Hazel and I was in the other corner holding Avery.

The little ones were having such a good time. It is so fun to watch them interact. I will have to look on Michael and Rachel's blog. The pictures Rachel has on her blog are always so good.

I am so fortunate to be here to see children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and extended family.

We did a tour of the city in a taxi (which was just a regular 4 door car). We had a good driver this time. On the tour is where I took the picture of the Iguana and the picture of the beach below. I took a picture of the Iguana with my own camera but you have to pay for taking the picture. He only charged $1.00. The driver took us on a long tour so we could get good views. There are so many hills in the different ports we went to . You can look a long way and see a lot. Our driver's name was mario. He was very nicely dressed and spoke and understood English very well. He said he went to school to learn English. He was married and has two boys and his wife was expecting again. His parents own a grocery store. He has lived in Puerto Vallarta all his life. Puerto Vallarta is the nicest looking city of the three we went to. Our driver says it is the cleanest city. The climate is great. Mario says it stays between 70 and 80 degrees all year around. I know Donna liked it. She would like to spend a week there sometime.
Puerto Vallarta has a population of 177,830 as of the 2005 census. Like the other two cities there is so much building going on.

Beautiful beach in Puerto Vallarta.

Another picture from the same beach. Lots of people on boats or swimming.

Our cruise ship docked early in Puerto Vallarta. This is what I saw when I opened our curtains. It looked like we were just right up next to the land. You cannot tell from this picture but near the fence at the end of the walk, there were Mexican Military guards with rifles. It startled me when I first saw it. Most of the time there were 4 soldiers near the ship. Apparently they are there to protect us because of the drug wars and other problems.

On another subject--Debbie went to Detroit and will not be back until Thursday. Also Jennie and Sophie will be coming Thursday and spending the weekend. The granite tops are going to be installed in the kitchen Wednesday so I will take some pictures to put on my blog. We will not be able to touch the granite tops until Saturday. Little by little everything is getting done. Not sure when we will have a sink in the kitchen.

Our cruise ship in the distance on the left. The other one is a Princess cruise ship.

Two pictures of Maztlan.

All these pictures were taken while we went on a tour. We were up on the high hills looking down at the city. Our taxi driver did not speak a lot of English. I thought the taxi drivers in Washington DC were bad but they were way better than this driver we had. I was sure we were going to get into an accident.

Just some trivia--Mazatlan in the 2005 census had a population of 403,888. I am sure it is higher now. 50,000 visitors a year come to Mazatlan.

In the 1930's, Cabo San Lucas had a population of 400 people. In the 2005 census, there were 56,811 people. The city is still growing. Condos are everywhere and more condos are being built.

Diane on the beach in Mazatlan. I was taking the pictures from a lounge chair
Another view of the beach.

The hotel above the beach. Diane and I were down on the beach while Donna and laif got the sales presentation for condos.

Mazatlan or any of the other tourist cities in Mexico would be wonderful to live in during our winter months. I would love being a snow bird. Places right here in the US would be great to spend the winter in, like Arizona.

Most of the time our weather is pretty good. I would like a little more sunshine. I really have nothing to complain about. I have such a nice place to live that I can put up with a little bad weather.

A cafe we ate lunch at in Mazatlan

Picture of Laif above and Diane and Donna below in Mazatlan

The pictures where Donna, Diane and Laif are seated is at a very nice hotel. I don't remember the name of it but we got a free tour that ended at this hotel where they give you a sales pitch to buy into Time shares. Donna and Laif went to the sales presentation and Diane and I layed down on the beach below. It was a very nice beach but people kept coming by to try to sell you all kinds of stuff. I kept telling everyone that came along that I didn't have any money, that my daughter had the money. Diane had gone for a walk on the beach and I guess they were still watching me because when Diane came back they swooped in on her. I think she did buy one thing. (I really did have money, but I didn't want to tell them when I was sitting on the beach alone)

I worried a little about the cafe we went into. I wonder if they have health food inspectors? The front door was wide open to the outside, which let in a few bugs. It looked fairly clean. I didn't drink water. I ordered pop, which came in cans. We ended up getting hamburgers and fries. Diane ordered this onion flower which turned out to be enormous. None of us ate everything.

It is incredible the number of condos that are being built in Cabo san Lucas, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta. Especially Puerto Vallarta. Puerto Vallarta is really the nicest place. I just love the warm climate but I am sure if you actually lived there you would find out the downside of things. Going on a cruise ship, we only see the better parts of Mexico.

Cabo San Lucas (taken from my cabin)

Land's End (taken from my cabin)

The Tenders docked almost under my cabin deck so I took this picture. When I took the picture I had no idea I would actually get on one.

Our cruise was from Sunday, March 29th through Saturday, April 4th. We debarked on Sunday morning, April 5th.

I forgot to mention on the first day there were drawings for jewlery, massages, facials, etc. I won a free facial. The facial was very nice and took about 40 minutes. After the facial, of course, they want you to buy all their fancy creams, etc. The kit was $250., which I did not buy.

On Tuesday, March 31st, we docked at Cabo San Lucas. To go ashore from the ship you have to take a tender. I was not going to get on a tender. Those little boats scare me. Anyway, while most of the people went ashore, I am happily lying in a deck chair enjoying the sun. Late in the afternoon Diane comes up and says she needs me to get on the tender and go to Cabo San Lucas with her because she bought some jewelry and the owner of the shop messed up her credit card. I can really whine when I don't like doing scary things. Under protest I did get on the tender. The owner of the jewelry store was waiting in Cabo San Lucas to take us to his shop. He said "I see you brought mommy to buy jewelry too". So it turned out that not only did I have to get on the dreaded tender but I got talked into buying jewelry too. It took a long time to do all that and there was only one tender left to go back to the ship on. I told the owner if we miss the tender he better have a friend with a boat.

We did make the tender with about 10 minutes to spare. Actually, the experience on the tender was not as bad as I had imagined. My problem is that I am afraid of the water.

Everything turned out OK. Diane got the jewelry she wanted and I got some nice pieces. I never buy expensive jewelry for myself. It seems like I have been doing a lot of things I don't normally do.

I did not keep a diary like I did last time as it turned out to be too difficult. I will be able to recall most of the things that happened by the pictures. I took a lot of pictures but I certainly won't be able to use all of them. The top picture is our cabin. It was really quite roomy. We had a room with a deck. It is a little more expensive that way but well worth it. There are two chairs and a little table on the deck. The lower picture is what we saw for two days--just ocean. On the second day there was an ice show. "Ice Under the Big Top". Just excellent ice skaters and performers. We were not allowed to take pictures of it.

The ocean seems to go on forever. I need to backup in my story. Our cruise ship did not leave until about 5pm on Sunday but we were able to board about noon so we could have lunch. We were not able to go to our cabins for a couple of more hours. Anyway, we flew to LA on Saturday evening. Debbie (who did not go on the cruise), Diane, Donna and I all went to the Northwest Women's show Saturday morning and it was a lot of walking for me. We did not get into LA until after ten. By that time I was really tired. I told Diane if I die in the night, just ship my body home. She said she would just prop me up in a deck chair and tell everyone I slept a lot. By morning I found I was still alive and somewhat rested. Once we got through customs and got on the ship I started to enjoy myself. I sometimes forget how old I am until I get really tired. I slept really good on the ship. The beds are only single beds but they are very comfortable. One thing about a cruise is you have nice room service and you don't have to worry about what to fix to eat. The downside of cruises is way too much food.

There are a lot of activities on the ship. Diane went to a lot of the trivia contests they had. She really enjoys that. My favorite activity was lying in the sun in a deck chair and reading. Yes, I read a book from Thrift Books.

Diane got on the Internet for a while so we could see what was going on with everyone's blogs. I felt bad about the kitty. I got to see Debbie and Kent's hardwood floor. Now that I am home I can see it for real. It is very beautiful. Her appliances look great. Eventually they will have a real beautiful working kitchen.

I will write some more tomorrow.