Before and After Pictures of Dad's Apartment

Here's dad, finally happy in his new little home. In fact, Renetta and Richard saw him this week and he still seems to happy. He has people coming in and out and checking on him. He has nurses making sure he is taking his medicine and he's bathing twice a week. Overall, he seems pleased to have "downsized." I decided to show some before and after pictures. Having his furniture and pictures on the walls really made it his home.

Here's a from his bedroom door looking into his living room and little kitchen area. It's very interesting that he wanted to have his lamp on that table and not another one we tried to put there!Here's the entrance to his apartment. That little nick nack shelf fit perfectly and the temple on one wall and Mom's toll paintings on the other make it a great first thing to see.

Here's the after and and before picture of his TV corner. LaDonna almost put all of the pictures up herself except for some big ones that the maintence man helped with.
He settled down and was so much happier after LaDonna put things on the wall for him. These are views of his living room. The door goes into his bedroom and this is the corner for his TV.














This is another corner of his living room where we put the couch. Mary did the cute quilt on the wall for him.

Dad's Moving Day

The four of us put in a lot of work the last week of January moving dad into his new apartment. All in all, the move went well. He lives on the same level just in a different area of the building so we could use some dollies to move his furniture. The ward was going to give us some help but someone got the day mixed up so we moved him ourselves and the big stuff was mostly there in a couple of hours, thanks to Rich. and Mick.




Richard and Renetta came up for moving day. In fact, Renetta had planned on just spending the night Sunday night to be with us early on Monday but ended up staying with us until Thursday to help! She was such an angel. We were so tired every day but several nights we would eat and laugh and would go back to the motel and use their jacuzzi and relax. Renetta described the experience as being a leader at girls camp. You don't eat or get a lot of sleep, you cry a lot and laugh and lot and sleep with your buddies! We definitely did all of that and had some girl bonding!
It was interesting that the three of us each just went to different areas to help. Renetta mainly packed up dad's old apartment. I went through a ton of paperwork and files and LaDonna moved dad into his new place and put up all of the pictures on the walls. He truly calmed down after he saw his furniture and familiar things on the wall.

We had one tough time with dad. He got confused the first night and went to each and then came back to the old apartment. I was working in there and he came in and stopped and asked, "What in the world is going on here?" He had forgotten he had been moved to a new place even though he sat in his new apartment all day while we moved things in. I mentioned that to him and offered to take him to his new apartment but he said he wanted to sit down and rest. Then he went into the old living room that only had boxes and things strung all over. He got mad. I gently took him to his new place but he fussed all the way that he didn't want to move.

TRIP TO OREGON - DAY 1 - Snowy Day

The last week of January, LaDonna and I traveled to Oregon to move my dad into an assisted living apartment so he could get better care. He turned 94 on January 21st and is doing pretty well but is slowing way down and his memory is not very good. We met up in Atlanta and flew to Portland together and were surprised by a little snow fall that met us at the airport! We rented a car and the first place we went was to the Skylyn Cemetery to visit mom's grave. What a peaceful site and the trees were gorgeous so i had to stop and take a few pictures. The trees almost looked like they had cotton on them!


The whole week was very cold and we also had snow and/or ice the next few days!

ICE ON THE POND

It's been unusually cold here in South Carolina for the past couple of weeks. This afternoon it got up to a balmy 40 degrees. However, I looked outside and noticed that the pond had a thin layer of ice sparkling in the sun and took this picture. That doesn't happen too often here in the warm South but it was beautiful, like crystals in the water!

Big Snow of 2009

This morning, we woke up to reports of school closings! This is the snow we received last night. In all fairness, some areas got up to 1" of snow and there was some icy spots around. . . This is very typical of what happens here in the South and it is very cold for the South, about 26 as I write this. When they start talking about snow here, I have one word of warning, DO NOT go to the store for anything as everyone in the South has a tradition that when the forecast is for a possible snowfall, that is the signal to go to the store and stock up on bread and milk. I made the mistake of going to a store once not knowing this and saw lines to the register going all of the way back to the end of the store! Unfortunately, USC Upstate where Michael teachers has classes as usual so he's getting ready to go.

My African Violet

I'm not one to have a lot of indoor plants as I have a hard time keeping them alive! About two years ago, I was given this African Violet plant that was blooming beautiful purple white flowers. After those flowers were gone, it did not bloom for almost two years. Then suddenly earlier this year, we had a bloom and now we have three! It sits in the kitchen on the counter corner with a little indirect light from the window and the fluorescent lights from the kitchen. What beauty to enjoy during the drab days of winter!

Hope for spring in subfreezing temps!

Late last summer I started some cold weather crops, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, etc. We had hoped to have something for Christmas but with the cool weather they just didn’t do much. In fact after Thanksgiving, they were still small and I figured maybe in the spring we’d have something.

We’ve had really cold weather this week. It was 12 here this morning and for South Carolina, that’s very, very cold. I peaked outside and happened to look down and wow, we maybe WILL have an early spring crop! I saw growing plants and tiny heads of broccoli. I’ll be shocked if they survive the cold but right now it’s looking good!

Book of Mormon goal

We did it! Last January Michael and I set a goal to read out loud the Book of Mormon cover to cover in 2008. We actually finished January 4, 2009 but we did it!!! We love the book of Mormon and have both read it many, many times but never out loud together (usually over breakfast). With all of the seminary years studying by myself, it was nice to share this together.

A day at the zoo

Maggie is helping me with this blog about our day at the Brevard Zoo! It was a fun day and cool in the shade as we watched a lot of animals. As we were coming into the zoo, we got to handle a snake!

We saw a lot of beautiful birds. Maggie's favorite was the Hyacinth Macaw that could almost talk to us.

Later we went into the bird area and got to feed the rainbow colored Lorikeet. There were a lot inside but a lot of children tried to feed them.

Matthew and Maggie were able to coax several to suck nectar out of our cups.

Grandma's favorite birds were the parakeet

and the scarlet Ibis.

We saw a lot of birds of prey and this showed the wing span of some of them compared to Maggie. In fact, they had a scale that showed how fast they could pick a carcass to the bone by how much you weighed. Some could do Maggie in about two hours! Ugh!!

We got to go on a train ride around the zoo

and we were the caboose!

Afterwards we rested and goofed off while we looked at monkeys and lemurs!

Maggie learned the difference between a crocodile and an alligator! Alligators have flatter jaws and crocodiles have bumpier skin and live in Australia. While alligators live with Maggie in Florida.

Our favorite part of the day was feeding a giraffe named Raffiki! He has a long tongue that reached out and curled his tongue around our crackers!

At the end of the day, we were tired but had a great time!

A camera of Michael's dreams

A strange thing happened this fall that helped Michael get the camera of his dreams! When we first got married, Michael said he dreamed of one day having a dark room and doing photography as a hobby. Of course, now with the digital age, no dark room is needed Even though we have a perfectly good working Nikon Cool Pix 4300 digital camera that we had bought about six years ago he has been drooling over the newer digital cameras for a long time.

In fact, I sent him a review from consumer report about the new Nikon D-90 DX 12.3 MP Digital SLR Camera and he was immediately sold but I couldn’t see putting out a lot of money for a new one.

Then fate took over! We went to Albertson, NC for Eleanor’s birthday the first part of November and I took the my camera and took several pictures. I was sure we had packed it up and brought it home but we could not find it anywhere. After 2-3 weeks of off and on searching, I gave in and we ordered the camera of Michael’s dreams as a big Christmas present (and doing our patriotic duty to help out the economy). We got a great lens to go with it and he was a happy camper.

The day finally came when the camera arrived. He took it out and read the manual and studied all of the parts and gadgets and was in camera heaven. Of course, the next day, I went to get out some notebooks of music we had taken to Albertson and there in the music bag (the only thing we never unpacked) was my camera!

Oh well, he’s happy and so am I. Maybe I will get to use the new camera on some occasions!