Back in the Sac

Sorry, no pics...didn't even take any that I know of.  Anyway, we are back in the Sacramento area, pulling in at my Sister's backyard at 4 pm on Wednesday.  Saw my daughter and her Aunt and Cousin in Salt Lake City, parking one night at her Aunt Debbie's house along the street.  Tuesday night, after early dinner at Texas Roadhouse, we drove to the Rest Area 10 miles east of Wendover Nevada.  As a rest area, which can be noisy, we did real well.  The remaining 525 miles to my sisters was uneventful, very little wind, we made good time.

Seeing mom early this afternoon, after getting the Van cleaned and some groceries bought.  Sister said it is best to visit mom around 1 pm, so that is our plan.  Now that we are back in our Home away from Home, there will be less postings, but I will always monitor the comments just about every day. 

Finally Camping After a 1st Birthday & Mom in Hospital

We made it up to Truckee yesterday...here for four days (on our second day right now), and then headed to Golden Coach RV Resort in Cromberg, 15 miles outside of Quincy.  More on the camping later...first...

Addie had her first birthday in mid-July.  Mom, who had been fighting another UTI attended it and had a very good time.  Also there was Marcia, Michael & Anna (parents of baby), Shelley (my first wife and mother of my children), and my daughter Stephanie, who had a birthday just a couple days later.  I have many pictures of the day, but the parents are very 'shy' about letting close-up pictures out on the Internet due to hackers who use such photos to do nasty dirty things to them.  We all had a great time, and watching her eat her first watermelon, which was in place of a birthday cake (sugar is not yet one of the foods she has had yet...once you go down that path there is no end to it, says my son.)  She finally held it, took a bite, then made Michael take a bite of his...they have these games they play.  Looking at pictures of her dad at year one, Addie is a spitting image of him. 

The very next morning the Assisted Living Home could not get mom out of bed, or even very alert.  They called an ambulance which took her to Sutter Hospital.  Test after test, looking for signs of stroke, heart, cancer...it all came down to her having a UTI.  Click on this Google Search "UTI Delirium" and you can see how a UTI can make an elderly person very 'out-of-it', to say the least.  They put her on a IV drip for antibiotic and when the culture came back that it was a E. coli variety of a UTI.  A person's body contains  E. coli bacteria that normally live in the intestines of healthy people ... most types of E. coli are harmless.  When they get into the urinary tract, well that can hurt anyone, and can kill an elderly person.  Five or six days later and she went back to the group home.  Seems each UTI puts a dent into her memory, so her dementia is getting worse with each one, and with each month that passes by.  She is 93, pretty much the last of her generation.

So, here we are up at Granite Flat, one of our favorite campgrounds close to Sacramento.  Good Verizon for the aircard (only two bars, but we are seeing speeds in the 10-20 Mbps range, good enough for our needs.)  We liked it better when it was all 'first come first serve', but that changed a few years ago.  First about 2/3rds of the park was by reservation...now all of it is.  However, 'if' you come in on lets say a Monday, and find a spot which has no reservation until Friday, you can pay for two nights, then go online and pay for the later two nights...which is what we did.  $11 a night with the America the Beautiful Lifetime Senior Pass.  We are closer to the highway 89, but the noise never seems to bother us much, especially at night when there is very little traffic.

One of the things we wanted to do was to get away from the Valley heat.  It is 84 here near Truckee, it is 97 in Citrus Heights.  Our low tonight will be around 46, Citrus Heights will be around 65.  Since we have been out this year, the weather could not have been better for the month of June...then July came and Citrus Heights hit a high of 109 and 105 or over about 4 other times.  A few nights got down to the low to mid 70's, and we had to sleep with the A/C going all night.  One thing about RVing, the AC is very loud and it can be hard to get a good nights sleep with it circulating on and off all night.  

A few times in the past we spent a bit of our summer in Quincy at Pioneer Park.  They were full for the number of weeks we wanted to stay.  But Golden Coach RV Park, just 15 miles to the east in Cromberg, is about 800 feet higher than elevation than Quincy and 1,200 feet lower than Truckee.  So Cromberg will be a bit cooler than Quincy, a bit hotter than Truckee, but way cooler than the Sacramento Valley.  And they have a monthly price of $625, and she (the owner) prorated the rest of our stay through Labor Day at the same rate, just under $20 per night for our stay.  And it is full service, which means electricity, water, sewer, along with showers and pay to use laundry.  "IF" we need to run our A/C, it won't be needed at night because the lows will be around 50 degrees.  And as Verizon goes, the owner said they put a new tower right across the street from!  Verizon is great, AT&T is not...so we will be in Internet fast zone for sure!

Our original goal was to go up to Southwest Oregon to spend 6 weeks or so at Huntley Park.  The same day mom went into the hospital, a fire started just outside Agnes and this fire has grown to over 22,000 acres and is only 3% contained.  The fire is now 5 miles from Huntley Park, but we axed the idea of going there when it was 14 miles away and only 4,000 acres.  So plan "B" is what we are doing, and we feel we are going to like Golden Coach RV Park as we did Pioneer Park in Quincy.

Could not resist few more picture of Addie...she is opening up her first book delivery of her book subscription that her proud grandpa (me) and Marcia provided for her birthday, along with a kid friendly book case, one in which she can sit on as she gets older, for these and other books she will get.

Grandma Shelley and Great Grandma Dorothy.

Very proud Aunty Stephanie. (Addie is looking at a book that was already in her collection. The girl loves books, she is going to go a long way, such a smart child.)

And this girl here celebrated her third anniversary being adopted into our home on July 4th.  She loves to growl at all the people that she hears and sees passing by our campsite..but so far, no barking.  She is a good little girl for sure.

Merry Christmas 2022

 

How do you know it is Christmas in Florida???

When the Temps fall to or below freezing...   Yes, while most people in the nation is facing sub-freezing temperatures...we are shivering at 32 degrees...31 when we woke up.  Today's high, perhaps 44 degrees.  By Thursday, perhaps Friday, we will be sweltering again at or around 80 degrees.  Gosh, it is so tough living in Central Florida.

 

Had a picture of Mom sent to me...I blew up the portion of her so that you can see the big smile on her face.  Now what do you suppose would bring on that smile????

A visit from my son Michael (not in picture since he was taking it), who brought my daughter Stephanie (left), grand-baby Adeline and daughter-in-law Anna (foreground), and the kids mother Shelley (see next picture).  [Notice I did not point out where the baby is, I know my faithful readers know a baby when they see one!]

Yes, actually got permission to put this picture on the blog, along with this next one.

Michael did not tell mom about Shelley and Stephanie coming along, so it sort of confused her at first.  "I knew Stephanie right away," she told me..."But they had to tell me who Shelley and Anna were...once they said their names, I knew right away who they were."   Life gets that way when you approaching 93 years old.

No, this is not Adeline, this cute little guy is Marcia's Great Grandson Blandon, who was born just a few weeks before Adeline was born.  Isn't that a cute picture?  He lives in North Carolina...perhaps one day we will make it up there.

It was three years ago today, Christmas Eve, that we lost my little Skruffy Girl.  This is one of my favorite pictures of her, sitting between Mom and Dad in our First Motorhome back in 2012.  Lost dad on Thanksgiving three years ago, and then Skruffy less than a month later...it was a hard year, and did not get any better with the onslaught on COVID just a few months later with its draconian rules and regulations that followed.  Some say those laws saved lives...some say it put us in the position we are in today...you decide, I just don't want to hear about it.  Enough is enough! 

Enjoy your Christmas...we will, but with that faint tear in our eyes.  "Indy, come here baby, I need a big hug and lick on the face!"

Four Generations, All My Children, and Mom with Aunt Mary and 2 Cousins

 

Four Generations.  My mother, in the car, at age 92.  Me, in my mid-60's.  My son Michael in his mid-30's.  And our new 'Baby A'.  (Again, the parents do not want baby's name or close-ups of the baby out on the net.)

Here is the proud father bringing Baby A out to meet Great-Grandma and Grandpa (that's me)!

They are a lovely little family, and Baby A will be well taken care of by Anna and Michael.

We then headed over to a nearby park and met my daughter Stephanie (sitting), son Ryan, and his wife Kaelyn.  This was the first time mom had the opportunity to meet Kaelyn.  They were out in Sacramento over Christmas, but one of them (Ryan/Kaelyn) tested positive and had to isolate the entire time they were here.  We all stayed at a nice social distance for outside, which is good because mom tested positive yesterday...and thank goodness she is doing ok so far.  Covid is going through the Assisted Living Facility like the fires are going through the forests here.  We are lucky this is her first case, and that the current Covid is not nearly as dangerous as it was two years ago.

A little over a week ago two of my cousins, Stephanie and Yvonne, both daughters of mom's youngest brother Paul who died a couple of months ago, came through town.  We all met down at our cousin Debby's house, where Aunt Mary lives.  Now you have to remember, Mom and Mary came from of family of 11 children, all born from the same parents.  Mary is # 8, mom is # 9, and they are the last of the 11 children.  I knew their mother very well, but their father died in 1942.  They had one brother, Jimmy, who died in the war (WW2).  I knew each and every one of their other brothers and sisters.  Cousin Stephanie is who I adored her name so much that I convinced Shelley, the mother of my children, to name our daughter 'Stephanie'.  Cousin Stephanie is a year younger than I, and Yvonne is nearly four years younger than I am.  I have not seen Yvonne since sometime in the 1970's.  I last saw Stephanie in 1980 at a family reunion in Santa Cruz, where just about everyone of my Uncles and Aunts were in attendance, except Uncle Jimmy, of course.  Grandma was there too!  I can remember about a half dozen of these type of reunions in my lifetime...that was the last one I know about...Grandma only lived a couple more years.

Stephanie took these pictures of the get-together, and thankfully gave me permission to use them.  This sequence of five pictures above with Mary and Mom interacting is very precious.

Since Stephanie was taking the pictures, I did not get into one with her and I, but above left is one of Mary, Mom, Yvonne and I.  The picture to the right is my cousin Debby.  She is fortunate to live next door to her daughter Tara, along with Tara's husband and two girls.  Good support for help with Aunt Mary, and Debby also helps with Tara's children as needed.

This week is retirement week for sister Sandy.  After Friday, she is officially retired, and Friday is a personal day off, so Thursday is her actually last day of working.  Today they (her work) took her and about 30 other staff members she worked with over the years out to a nice Mexican Restaurant.  Since many have worked from home since 2020, they have not seen each other in person very many times the past two years.  She really enjoyed the honor they gave her...along with the gifts of coffee liqueur, sparkling wine (California's version of Champaign), some chocolates and some flowers.  Sandy has always been a hard worker, and I know they are going to be very sorry to see her go.

Speaking of going...we hope to hit the road by the end of next week to start our trip home.  Just hoping that I don't come down the Covid, because if I do, then Marcia is sure to also.  So far I feel fine, and have tested negative the past three days.

Wedding Day - Kaelyn & Ryan

 

Bride (Kaelyn) Groom (Ryan) Dance

So, how does one write about a wedding in "COVID" times...is 'this' part of the new normal? (A term I have come to HATE about the second time I heard it!)  You get married, just the two of you and a person authorized to marry you, and a year later, on the same day, you have a wedding to celebrate your one-year anniversary.  As I mentioned the reason for us being in Cleveland to people, they all said, "Yep, I went to one of those." -or- "We are going to one of those too..." 

Now, when you are Irish, the one-year anniversary wedding is really a THREE DAY event.  Kinda puts into perspective the term, "Party, Party, Party".  So above, as the Groom (my son Ryan) and his bride (my daughter-in-law Kaelyn) share their first dance together as husband and wife with everyone just before the dinner, after pictures (taken before the wedding), the wedding (about 25 minutes long, no cameras allowed during service except by hired photographer) followed by the reception hors d'oeuvres hour, and after the above dance it was toasting time, dinner time, and then dance time for all (which is when we cut out and called it a day).  At 11:00, those who were still hanging in there, were invited to the bar at the wedding hotel across the street for more party time.  On Friday we were all invited over to Kaelyn's parents house for a pre-wedding dinner followed by a pre-wedding party.  Today it continues with a after wedding pool party BBQ (skipping that, we have a long drive facing us starting tomorrow!)  Yep, it is the wedding of a lifetime...so happy they were finally able to get it done.  Enough said, on to the pictures...

My kids with spouses and their mother and her husband.

Kaelyn (bride) arrives for pictures

Kaelyn with her mother Julie

Kaelyn and Ryan with his mother Shelley and Bryan

We arrived at 2:45 for pictures which started promptly by 3, and were finished by 3:45.  Kaelyn is a meticulous planner, and this part of it worried her the most since the ceremony was at 4:30, and she wanted to 'hide' after the pictures so that guest did not see her until she came down the isle.

The event was held at the Union Club in downtown Cleveland Ohio.  This building was built in the first fives years of the 1900's, dedicated in December 1905.  It is absolutely beautiful inside, which I hope you can see through some of my pictures.  I can't wait to see the professional pictures once they are released.  Kaelyn made it clear that she did not want any pictures of her walking down the isle, or of the ceremony itself, except those by their photographer.  Very understandable...after all, who wants professional pictures of the bride walking down the isle and all the guest have their cell phones out taking pictures ruining the shot?  

Hors d'oeuvres hour held in 3 connected rooms

So many people, don't know any of them...

At the far table is Michael, Anna, Stephanie, Shelley and Brian

Stephanie, Shelley and Michael (sorry Anna, only got your hair)

The hors d'oeuvres hour included open bar, with servers passing through the crowds with coconut chicken, crab cakes, lobster cheese toast bites, and who knows what else.  The servers working the crowd were wonderful...friendly and attentive.

20 round tables and one long bride/groom/family table

That is Marcia at the far left.

20 tables, 8 settings per table plus bridal table

One of 'our' concerns was the ability for Marcia to move around without much interference with what was going on around us.  We had her mobility GoGo and her trusty cane.  I made sure that we were ahead of the crowd for each event, got her seated, and hid her GoGo nearby.  During the hors d'oeuvres hour she remained in the GoGo, and it was the only time we had to transverse through crowds.  All worked out well.  Arriving 10 minutes before the dinner bell had sounded, I got the above pictures which included the band warming up.  What a nice, warm banquet hall this was.

Another shot of Bride-Groom dance

Kaelyn's Parents, Julie and Chris

Kaelyn and Ryan enjoying their Toasting

Before dinner they had a quick dance, and toast-greeting from the bride's parents, followed by a toast by the Maid of Honor and the Best Man.  Getting shots with those windows and not wanting to use a flash which could interrupt the professional photographers (man and woman team) was difficult.

Dinner at the head table

Shot of Michael and Anna with Stephanie and Bride/Groom in background.

Our heart-filled thanks go out to Kaelyn's parents, Julie and Chris, for throwing such a wonderful wedding for Ryan and Kaelyn.  All went off without a hitch, everyone was warm and gracious, and we had a wonderful time.  It was filled with wonderful tears (Kaelyn is a very emotional woman...and her warm tears caused the Pastor, the Maid of Honor, the Best Man, her Husband Ryan, and many in attendance to cry tears of joy with her.)  Love abound, and it was an occasion to be remembered. 

Service of Gratitude for Dad and Other Body Donors UC Davis Medical School

Followers of the Blog know that on Thanksgiving Day last year, my 91 year old father passed away.  He and mom many years ago told us kids that they had signed papers to donate their bodies to UC Davis Medical School to assist in the teaching of new doctors.  When they moved to the Kansas City area in 1992, they changed the donation to a Kansas City area Medical School...then back to UC Davis when they moved back to the Sacramento area.  We did not know until his death that UC Davis holds an annual Service of Gratitude for the donors.  We have been hanging around here in the HOT, SMOKY Northern California Central Valley for this program.  About six weeks ago we learned that due to COVID, the service would be virtual...so it could be watched anywhere you have an Internet connection.  But we also knew that viewing this with family, especially with mom, was the best way to watch it, so we stuck out the smoke and heat and remained parked in Sandy and Arny's backyard.

The service was held on Facebook Live.  It lasted just over an hour, and we watched it in the comfort of Arny and Sandy's house, with my computer hooked up to their large flat screen TV.  Mom, Euleda (Arny's mom who is 97 years old), Arny, Sandy, Patti, Marcia and I watched the service, along with Bubba, Parker (Patti's dog) and little Indy who learned to sit still for about 10 minutes of it.  We did not have any program information, although now that it is over we could ask for a program.  This young man (above) was the MC for the event.  He is one of the students in the school, and he did a great job.  And YES, with COVID and with it being a medical school, they ALL wore masks except for the bugler who played TAPS.  The first few minutes of the broadcast included pictures of some of the donors, including dad's picture at the top of this post.

In recognition of the Veterans who were donors, and they said that there were many of them, they have a small color guard to present the flag.  They presented one flag to one of the students who is a Veteran who accepted it on behalf of all the families of Veterans.  Each family can ask for a flag of their own, and I think mom will be calling them up asking for one.  The Military Honors was a very moving part of the ceremony.

A few students of the school gave short talks about the importance of the Body Donor program, the impact that it has had on them, and the final speaker (last picture above) was the head of the Gross Anatomy Department.  (Note: Gross anatomy, also called topographical anatomy, is the study of anatomy at the macroscopic level. The term gross distinguishes it from other areas of anatomical study, including histology, which is the microscopic study of anatomy typically with a microscope.)  The last item on the program was the reading of the first names, alphabetically, of the donors.  WOW, who would have known that they had so many donors...somewhere between 150-160 people!  

Overall the program was very enjoyable, although it would have been better in person.  There were a few times the live service stalled for a few seconds.  When the final speaker spoke, it stalled and when it restarted about 10 seconds later, it skipped about a minute of his talk.  The good thing, the service is on Facebook and can be seen anytime by anyone who wants to.  A link to the UC Davis body donor program can be found here, along with a link to the Facebook post of the program.

Earlier in the week I met my oldest son Michael (who lives in Sacramento) and daughter Stephanie (who lives in Salt Lake City) over at mom's place.  Mom lives in an Assisted Living Facility, and cannot have visitors inside the facility.  Luckily for us, she has a outside apartment with a balcony, and we can sit/stand along the small roadway that circles the facility, and she can easily see us while safely up on her balcony.  My sisters do her laundry for her, and that gets handed down to us, and either returned over the rail or given to staff at the front desk.  Due to COVID, I had not seen Michael since we arrived, and Stephanie came for a visit to her brother and sister-in-law's house a little over a week ago. 

We are grateful that the Assisted Living Facility allowed her out for this special occasion today, although now she is suppose to quarantine in her apartment until her test for COVID comes back.  

After the service we had a lunch of BBQ Tri-Tip steak, Mashed Cauliflower, Corn on the Cob, Marshmallow Salad, and Deviled Eggs.  The good thing, we had LOTS of leftovers, so when Marcia and I head out on Wednesday, we will have plenty of travel food to go along with us.  We will be taking a northern route to Florida, and will take a month or so to get there.  More on that trip as I start publishing on a regular basis again once our travels start.