Mimi

I got a call this morning from my mother that my 85-year old grandmother, Mimi, fell and broke her hip at 3 am this morning. Mimi was in terrible pain and was taken by ambulance to the hospital where she is awaiting surgery. I feel terribly about it as it's difficult to hear about people you love being in pain and there is nothing you can do help them. Prior to this, she was in good physical health. Her main issue, of course, is having Alzheimer's. Aunt Sherrie (who was in the middle of vacation down here) and Aunt Toni caught a plane this morning to be with her along with my mother and Aunt Lori. So at least she'll have her four girls there with her. According to my mother, she'll be in the hospital for about three days after the surgery and then hopefully she will be heading to Hancock Park (my mother's nursing home) to do rehab. Please keep her in your prayers as it goes without saying that the older you are, the tougher it is to recover from injuries and surgery.

On Sabbath, we had a nice church service and Sabbath School and then everyone came here for lunch. Ron and Elaine came over too since they have barely seen Aunt Sherrie and Uncle Kevin. We stuffed ourselves with food but saved room for Aunt Toni's orange angel cake. Yum, yum. It's right up there with brownie delight in my book.

Ron and Elaine came back for babysitting duty as Duncan and I were heading out for an evening on the town with Allen and Tangie to celebrate Valentine's Day. Let me first say that when it comes to Valentine's Day, my comments are usually along the line of "Valentine's Shmalintine's." I could really give fig newton about the holiday. It seems so much less meaningful when you receive flowers or whatever on the day that they're SUPPOSED to give you something. Nonetheless, I was happy to have an excuse for us to get out! Allen was nice enough to do all the planning and we headed down to the Sand Lake/Dr. Phillips area for Thai. He had made a reservation since, after all, it was Valentine's Day. They had never been to the restaurant and neither had we so we were excited to go somewhere new. We found the restaurant, gave them our name for the reservation, and then proceeded to have our meal. As we were eating, we noticed that the name of the restaurant was "Ayothaya" which was a little weird because Allen had made a reservation at a place called "Tang's." But since it was a different language and all, we though maybe it was a nickname or something (a little bit of a stretch, I know). At the end of the meal, Allen asked the waitress if there was another Thai restaurant around there and she said, "Yes, there is Tang's right over there." Oops!! Sure enough, we drove across the street and there was Tang's complete with white table clothes, candles, and waiters with ties on. Oh well! It made for a funny story.

After eating, we played a 30-minute round of mini-golf (who knew that was possible??) which the Grodacks won and then zipped over to Pointe Orlando for a movie. We saw "Taken" which I thought was very good, however unrealistic. But go figure. I hadn't been to the movies in months and months and then I go back to back Saturday nights. We got home at about midnight to get a full report on Calleigh's activities. Grandma and Grandpa had taken her to TCBY after supper to get a sorbet which she enjoyed although she also tried to take some of theirs as well. She went right to sleep for them which was a big relief. Even though we got back so late, we were already in bed by the time Aunt Toni and Uncle Terry got back from their movie "Slumdog Millionaire." They stayed over our house on Friday and Saturday night since Aunt Sherrie and Uncle Kevin were around.

On Sunday, pretty much all the relatives went to Sea World but we stuck around to do our usual Farmer's Market and First Watch and then take a much needed nap. This picture was taken while they were sitting listening to some of the music. Notice Calleigh's little hand resting on Duncan's leg...Duncan and I started doing a little work in the office/guestroom which will be transformed at some point into the baby's room. We have two giant bookshelves of books that we need to do something with. We were able to make a big pile for the Salvation Army and then the rest need to find a new home...somewhere. The room is painted a dark brown so our theme is going to be brown and pink since goodness knows, we (actually, that implies that I helped paint the first time which I did not) aren't about to paint again.


This morning Calleigh and I went to Leu Gardens for story time where we saw Lauren with Caroline and Trish with Grayson and also a few other ladies that we know from the breastfeeding luncheon. Lauren was telling me about how she had a tough week last week. Caroline had a stomach bug early in the week and then Lauren started not feeling well at all and ended up having to go the ER on Friday. It turns out she was dehydrated and had to get an IV. When you're pregnant, you need more fluids and sometimes it's easy to get distracted from drinking. Fortunately she's much better now. After the story time, we went outside to walk around and Calleigh and I took a stroll down the walkway to find some orange trees. We came across a big flowery pink bush that had a lot of it's flowers on the ground. I didn't want to pick anything but since these were already on the ground, I let Calleigh pick them up and hold them and she had soon ripped them to little pieces. We did save one and when we finally walked back to the group, Lauren says to me, "Those are poisonous, you know." Ahhh, no, I didn't know that. Apparently Grayson had eaten some of them a few visits back and had gotten really sick to her stomach. Thankfully, I don't think Calleigh actually put them in her mouth. If she had, I'm sure something would have happened by now. But we did do an immediate hand scrubbing after hearing that.

Shannon came over late this afternoon to do some laundry and visit. She was kind enough to fix Calleigh's baby stroller which had ripped quite significantly because Calleigh tries to sit in it even though it's for her dolls. I was going to help her with her taxes but she had to get home to see "The Bachelor." One show which I refuse to watch.