This is my parent’s wedding photo we posted one year ago on this date. Ironically, six years ago today, we booked the hotel with our cruise ending in Boston, with the intent of visiting my father’s gravesite and seeing family. For details of that date, please click here.

Was it almost 2½ years ago that I drove a car? Yes, it was. I drove in Las Vegas in July 2017 when visiting my sister Susan nearly every day, driving for an hour each way to her then home in North Las Vegas. 

Not the best driver on the planet, I never drove again after we left the US, living in countries with left-handed manual transmissions on the opposite side of the road that we’re used to.

On November 1st, she moved a half-hour closer to an assisted living facility, a long overdue and necessary situation for my dear sister’s bedridden condition of chronic pain, inflammation, and a myriad of other inflammatory-based chronic conditions. Genetic makeup, our fate.

When we arrive in Las Vegas on Thanksgiving Day, on November 28th, at about 6:00 pm, we’ll go out to dinner with son Richard to celebrate being together once again and the Thanksgiving holiday at a local Henderson/Green Valley Ranch restaurant, only minutes from his home.

The next day, we’ll visit the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles to apply for our renewal driver’s licenses to get one more necessary task out of the way during this USA visit. The next day, I’ll drive to visit my sister Susan at her new place.

But, today, I finally drove when Camille loaned us her extra SUV they’re trying to sell since she’d recently purchased a newer model. To me, the older model is amiable and modern and has everything I need. 

When we have to return the rental car on November 22nd, Camille suggested we keep using the extra SUV to save money on another rental for our remaining six days. We accepted the generous offer and will do so. 

In the interim, we have two cars which will come in handy over the next five days, as we each attend more separate activities with our respective families. With only 11 days until we depart for Las Vegas, we’ll continue on the whirlwind of activity.

As it turned out, Karen and Rich insisted we join them for chicken dinner tonight at their home. We certainly appreciate the opportunity to have a home-cooked meal after eating out, often twice a day. Plus, we love spending time with the two of them.

This morning Tom joined Tammy, Tracy, and Vincent to do the “Escape Room,” an interactive game through a maze of rooms where participants have to figure out a series of clues and challenges to get through the rooms. Sounds fun. They had a good time.

On his way to the event at the Mall of America, he dropped me off at Camille and Greg’s home since I’d planned to take the kids to the Cinema Grill in New Hope, a suburb of Minneapolis, not too far from their home. The movie theatre has special seating for ordering and eating meals and a decent bar menu. 

The kids ordered their meals, primarily burgers, and fries while I had a salad, and we began watching the adorable movie, Abominable, an adorable animated kids movie. They loved the movie, and not surprisingly, as a movie buff, I enjoyed it too.

The food service was slow and somewhat of a distraction while trying to order and eat but the four of us (me, Maisie, Miles, and Madighan) had a good time nonetheless, relishing our time together.

After the movie, we headed back to their home, and I dropped off the kids, stopping inside to see how Camille was feeling after Thursday’s chemo. She was rallying and feeling considerably better than she had when we stopped in last night on our way out with Tammy and Tracy. Busy. Very busy.

Last night’s constant coughing kept me from sleeping, plus taking Prednisone tends to keep me awake all night, so I had only about three hours of sleep, awakening myself every hour for a coughing jag. The codeine cough medicine didn’t work as well as Nyquil which I’ll return to tonight. 

Right now, sleep will be the best remedy for me to turn the corner on this respiratory distress. No luck yet after two doses of antibiotics and Prednisone. Usually, by day three, results will kick in. Hopefully, this happens tomorrow.

That’s it for today, folks. We’ll be back with the continuation of our hectic schedule. Please hang in there with us.

Have a happy Sunday wherever you may be.

Photo from one year ago today, November 17, 2018:

Big Daddies, sharing pellets and the zebras. For more photos, please click here.

From left to right beginning at Jacoby, Tom’s grand-nephew; Vincent, our grandson; Kathy, Tom’s niece, daughter of brother Jerome to her left; then Patty, Tom’s sister at the right end of the table, then Tammy, Tom’s daughter: Tracy, Tammy’s partner; Colleen, Tom’s sister and her husband, Gene. Tom and I were seated and the end of the table and not seen in the photo.

I don’t think we’ve been so busy each day since we began our travels seven years ago. The days are flying by, but we’re experiencing plenty of quality time with our families.

Yesterday afternoon, after posting, we headed to Billy’s Bar in Anoka, Minnesota, where we met up with three of Tom’s sisters, Mary, Patty, and Colleen, and her husband Gene and grandson Jacoby. There was a total of seven of us. 

Happy hour begins at 3:30 PM each Friday at Billy’s, but the family’s weekly visits routine is to arrive early at 3:00 pm to ensure a good place to sit at a large enough table. We complied and arrived at 3:00 pm along with the others.

Frugal as a group, we all waited until the happy hour and sipped on tap water until we finally ordered our drinks. I was the only wine drinker at the table, while the remainder of the group had various types of beer while Jacoby drank soda.

As always, the conversation among any gatherings of Tom’s family members is filled with teasing, laughter, and mostly light entertaining conversation…no politics, religion, or sex but with an occasional smattering of teasing on those particular topics as well. Delightful, to say the least.

We all ordered our dinners inWe all ordered our dinners in a short period, which proved to be quite a good bar menu with tasty freshly prepared meals. As usual, I ordered an equivalent of a grilled chicken chop salad with avocados and vegetables and was content. 

Tom was thrilled to order an authentic Rueben sandwich he hadn’t had in a long while. Those ordered outside the US are not quite the same. We all enjoyed our meals and light banter. By 6:30 pm, we were out the door to follow Mary to see hers and her husband Eugene’s new townhouse (he was gone hunting, typical this time of year in MN). 

They’d recently sold the family home of many years and downsized to the townhouse, which was quite lovely in a handy location of Andover, with easy access to other family members, shopping, and restaurants, all important to retired seniors.

We stayed at Mary’s for an hour or more and later brought Patty back to her home in Blaine, a nearby town, saying goodnight and heading back to Karen’s and Rich’s home.

As has been the case over several evenings since we arrived in Minnesota, we changed into comfy clothes and joined Karen and Rich upstairs for lively chatter. Karen and I have been extremely close for many years, and the conversation among the four of us often becomes introspective and vulnerable. 

The variances in the types of conversations with our family and friends generate an opportunity to explore many avenues of topics all in their way, stimulating and fascinating. Keeping in mind, Tom and I have spent the past seven years together almost exclusively, and conversing with those we love is extra special on many levels.

This morning at 10:00 am, we arrived at Perkins for breakfast with Tammy, Tracy, Vincent, and another 10 of Tom’s family members for a group of 13. Once again, we had a great time, chatting and carrying on. 

I finally had a chance to talk to grandson Vincent, who will be 14 next month, who is now a head taller than quite an intelligent young man and me. Our conversation centered around his schooling and technology, one of my favorite conversations with the grandkids these days who have quite a handle on modern devices and apps. It’s fun to see, although they often have their heads buried in their devices.

After we left from breakfast around noon, we headed back to Eden Prairie to stop at the Medexpress Clinic, only a few minutes from Karen’s house. Since they offered an additional ten days of service at no charge for the same condition, I felt I could use another nebulizer treatment. 

After 24 hours on the cortisone, via an injection and dose of tablets, there hasn’t been any improvement in my pulse oxygenation (pulse ox). The tests still showed I wasn’t able to breathe deeply. I’ve still been coughing and having breathing problems. I met with a different doctor today, and he suggested when I hadn’t improved overnight, to begin a five-day course of Z-Pack (antibiotics). 

I hesitated about taking antibiotics but he made a good case…with my recent open-heart surgery, it as too risky to ignore any possible bacteria which for quite sometime after heart surgery can be very dangerous, i.e. getting dental work or having other procedures and illnesses such as viruses, colds, and flu. 

I may not have pneumonia now but with the severity of my respiratory condition, including asthma symptoms, proceeding with caution was the best course of action.

We drove across the street to Walgreens to fill the prescription for the Z-Pack, a bottle of cough medicine with codeine, and another bottle of Benedryl, a single pill to be taken at bedtime with the cough medicine. This way, I won’t cough and sneeze all night and perhaps get some sleep—no more Nyquil for me.

Right now, as I write this, it’s almost 5:30 pm on Saturday. We’re meeting up with Tammy, Tracy, and Vincent at Park Tavern Restaurant and Bowling alley at 9:00 pm for Cosmic bowling. Tom and I will go early and have dinner, stopping at Greg and Camille’s home for a few minutes on the way to say hi and see how she’s doing after yesterday’s chemo.

It will be another late night, most likely not returning to Karen’s until well after midnight. Tomorrow is yet another busy, action-packed day. Nothing we’re doing is strenuous for me, and the doctor said I could continue to enjoy the festivities but focus on getting better sleep at night. (Tonight, I won’t be bowling instead, watching the others bowl).

We’ll be back with more tomorrow. Please continue to stay with us for only 12 days until we head to warmer sunny Las Vegas, where we’ll spend 11 days visiting with more family, renewing our driver’s licenses, and applying for new four-year passports, as mentioned earlier post. It will be another busy period in our USA visit, just as expected.

Be well. Be happy, and please stop back to say hello.

Photo from one year ago today, November 16, 2019:

Our resident monitor lizard came out of his hovel for a drink from the cement pond. For more photos, please click here.