Happy 89th Birthday Grandma!

Today is my grandma's 89th birthday! Normally we'd be celebrating and all getting together tonight for it but the circumstances are different this year. Thursday evening grandpa wasn't feeling well and was loosing feeling in his left hand and foot. Mom called 911 and the ambulance came and took him to the hospital in Lyons. The got oxygen on him and a heart monitor and started running tests. They have found out that he has pneumonia and also his carotid artery on the right side of his neck are blocked. This blockage is what caused the loss of feeling in his left side. Grandpa has been in the hospital ever since and will remain there for awhile. Grandma has Alzheimer's and doesn't really know what's going on and can't stay by herself. Friday, Saturday and Sunday the girls and I stayed with her quite a bit. It was nice to get to spend time with her but we realize we can't keep doing this and grandpa can't take care of her anymore. Thursday we'll have to put her in a nursing home. We have talked about it just didn't know when we should do it and grandpa kept saying that he could do it a little while longer. Grandpa will be 92 in September and he's done a good job so far but we're afraid for his health dealing with her too. We've been fortunate to have them stay at home together this long. We all know that sometimes this has to happen. We just pray that they both handle it well.

My mom is an amazing woman handling all this on her own. Her half sister lives in Vegas and fell a couple months ago and broke her hip so she isn't able to help out. Mom stays pretty strong. She goes and sees grandpa, comes home to take care of grandma when someone else can't come out and stay with her and prepares to go back to work Wednesday. I pray for my mother too that she can handle the stress and everything.

Spending time with grandma brought back so many memories of how she used to be and the things we used to do when we stayed at their house. I got out old toys, books and puzzles that we used to play with for the girls to play with. It was fun to sit down and play with them again!

Cheyenne was such a sweetheart with Grandma. One time I was visiting with mom on the back porch and Cheyenne came in and said "Mema, I helped Grandma to the bathroom. I held her hand so she wouldn't fall." My 3 year old understands more than I think. She knows to just say yes or no to Grandma and not ask questions when she doesn't know what she's talking about. Both girls were a big help in keeping Grandma entertained over the weekend. Although Grandma didn't get the naps she usually gets when it's only her and Grandpa.

The girls and I with Grandma on Sunday!

On August 14th Grandma and Grandpa also celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary! What a blessing to have been married for 61 years!

We all had dinner at mom and dad's to celebrate their anniversary!

The girls with Grandma and Grandpa!

Happy Birthday Grandma! I know she won't understand that today is her birthday but hopefully we can make it a special day for her.

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Cheryl has been talking so much clearer and more lately. She has recently learned to count to 10 (with a little help) as well. She got a little distracted by an owie but still did good! My baby is growing up! :(

Weekend Getaway

Saturday morning we got up and headed to Kansas City for a mini family vacation. We've stayed at the Great Wolf Lodge before and thought about doing it again but didn't really want to spend $400 on one day! We'd heard about the CoCo Key Water Resort and checked it out online but they didn't have any rooms. The water park is open to anyone, not just guests so we thought we would do that. When we got there, we asked about rooms and they had some available. It was a little bit higher than reserving online but a lot cheaper than Great Wolf! Cheryl loved the water! After everytime she went down the slide, she said "Gain"! Cheyenne on the other hand was a little timid. There was one small slide she liked and she liked floating on the lazy river but that was about it. Scott and I took a couple turns going down the big tube slide. It was fun!

The girls slept on the way to KC.

After our early afternoon swim we went to our room, on the 11th floor, and got ready to go do some shopping. We wanted to go to Cabela's so we headed to the Legends. We found a few things at Legends then headed to Target. Cabela's was our last stop before supper. The girls loved the animals! It's better than the zoo! We bought a electric smoker while we were there. Scott's friend has one and said the meat he cooked in it was the best he ever had! He's actually using ours for supper tonight so I can't wait to get home to try it! Then it was supper at Lone Star and back to the hotel for some more swimming. I don't have any pictures of the water park because I didn't want my camera to get wet or stolen.

The girls loved looking out he window of our 11th floor room!

It was across from Kauffman Stadium and the Royals were playing Saturday night. I even think they won!

Us before leaving the hotel.

Sunday morning we got up and headed to out to meet a friend of Scott's in Manhattan. We got there a little early and saw signs for the zoo so we decided to check it out. It wasn't that great but the girls liked seeing the animals. This is where Cabela's was better than the zoo! It was a lot of walking and not too many animals.

Chey liked the Monkey!

OttersThey did have a tiger. He was sleeping and he was at a dead end in the trail. We had to walk back up to some stairs and pull the stroller up them. It was about 95 degrees when we were there so we were soaked with sweat before we got out of there.

We were going to go to Junction City to eat at Cracker Barrel but there was a 45 minute wait so we decided to see if we could get a table at Brookville Hotel in Abilene. We got one and had a delicious fried chicken, mashed potatoes, cream corn, cole slaw, biscuit and ice cream homestyle dinner. We told our friends good-bye and headed to Salina to get a few things from Walmart and Sam's. We had to have meat for our new smoker! We got home about 6 pm and unloaded and were all wore out! It was really nice to get away for awhile though. I really enjoyed the time with my family. I'm thankful Scott and I finally had a weekend off together that we could share with the girls.

Back To It

Ok. I've got to get back to blogging! I miss it! I put statuses on facebook that say what's going on in my life but I want to post pictures. It would take me too long right now to tell you everything that's been going on so I'll save that for another day. I just thought I'd post how curly Cheryl's hair got this morning when we went for a jog and it was foggy and wet out.

My pretty girl saying "cheese" and mommy forgot to raise the flash!

Curly hair!

Well, that's it for now. I have to get back to work. We don't have internet at home so I'll post when I can. But I can say..."I'm Back!"