Thursday, May 24, 2012

For the last few days, Mom has been talking to my baby brother Chris about marrying his lovely girlfriend of 17 years.  She told him that nothing would make her happier than to see him marry Katie before she died. 

So, at about 10:00am the phone rang and it was Katie.  Chris purposed!!!!  And announced that the wedding would be in 2 days!!!  We were all crazy excited!!!  We all love Katie!  So Jill and I got right to work! 

Mom was ready to order a cake and see Kate try on wedding dresses!  We had the hardest time trying to get her to rest.  She didn't want to miss anything! 

We called and maked an apointment to try on wedding dresses and had a time of 6:30pm.  We couldn't get the bakery to make the cake with only two day notice.  So Jill and I made the cake as well as all the flowers.

By the time 6:30 came around, Mom was more than ready to see Katie try wedding dresses.  It was so neat to see mom's face just beaming as Kate tryed on her dress.  By the time she found her dress, (which really didn't take much time at all) Mom was more than ready to go home and go to bed.

Wed. May 23, 2012

Happy 20th Wedding Anniversary

Mom & Jeff!

Today was Mom and Jeff's 20th anniversary.  Another milestone met!  Mom is getting weaker each day it seems, but today she is happy and excited to celebrate their anniversary. 

Jeff surprised Mom this morning with 20 beautiful red roses.  What a great way to start off the day. 

Mom doesn't have much strength anymore.  She really wants to go to dinner with Jeff to her favorite local Italian restaurant, Biaggi's, so she rested most of the day. 

She wasn't doing well that day and we were worried she wouldn't have the strength to go out to dinner, so we cleared off the dining room table and got it read to have dinner brought in for them.

But when the time came, once again Mom was determined to go out to dinner.  We got her ready.  And lifted her into her wheelchair, and they went to dinner.

We planned to have all the kids over for cake when they returned from dinner, so while Mom and Jeff were at dinner, I went to pick up the cake. 

I called early that morning to order a cake in their wedding colors which was red, white and black, that was to say "Happy 20th Anniversary Jeff and Judy".  When I got there there was no cake for us.  So I had to have them write on one out of the display case.  This is what it said when I got it back...

It said "Happy 20th Anniversary Ann, Beth and Judy" !!!!!!  What?!!  After about an hour and 20 minutes, we were able to get a cake that said "Jeff and Judy" on it.  And we will get lots of mileage out of "Ann, Beth and Judy".  Everyone laughed at that one.

It was fun to watch as they once again fed each other cake.  Mom ate her cake and was ready for bed for the night.  Mom received a special anniversary gift that night that the rest of us wouldn't find out about until the next day! 

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Each day is a new adventure as we never can tell how Mom will feel from one day to the next.  So planning ahead for activities is not something we have been able to do very well as of late.

This morning, Mom slept until about 10:30a.m.  When she woke she felt pretty well and decided that she wanted to go with the kids to the zoo.  So, we packed up and went to the zoo.  It was a rather hot day and I wasn't sure how well Mom would do, but as always, she was determined to go.

It was a beautiful day, but very hot!  So we made sure that everyone stayed well hydrated and Mom and Jeff took breaks in the shade.

This picture was taken in the zoo at the pond that Mom and Jeff helped to build.  It was really neat to get there and find out that they were involved in the construction of the pond.  It is a nice pond if you are ever at the Glenn Oak Zoo in Peoria, you might want to check it out.

Mom enjoyed watching the grandchildren play and get excited about the animals.  It was another nice experience with Mom, and Jeff.