Visitors

Nora stayed an extra day in Salt Lake just to come visit us at Huntsman on Monday. We wore matching sweaters! The infusions went well, except for the triple poke to find a vein. I think my veins are getting tired of it! They used to be really good!

Ed was happy to see my blood report, as it still looks great! He explained some of the high points to Nora! In fact it is so good, that I didn't need labs before my second infusion on Tuesday! That saves at least an hour on the infusion time, so we were happy about that. Next infusion is in January! Hooray!

We had another visitor at 4:30 a.m. this morning. Ed installed Arlo security cameras around the outside of the house. There is also a motion detector that turns on the lights. It was fun watching this deer look up at the light and then continue looking for something to eat in our back yard!  Coda would have liked to give him a piece of her mind! Later he pooped by the sidewalk and walked away!

Safe Trip Home

It took us about 8 1/2 hours to drive home on Sunday, which wasn't too bad considering it had snowed on
Saturday and some of the mountain roads weren't completely cleared of snow! Coda had a great time at Crystal's house, but was also happy to go home!

The worst part of the trip was the Vail valley, which had snow in both lanes! The rest of it was either clear or had only one bad lane! Utah was completely dry, but we're hoping for some snow tomorrow!

Last Day in Colorado!

After our morning walk we settled down and went through our new Whistling Prairie music with Crystal! We have such a short time to be together at Christmas, that it's nice to get a head start on our Christmas music!

We tried out Walmart's new tower for picking up online orders today. It was not a complete success as it took a long time to locate our package. I suppose they are overwhelmed with Christmas shoppers!

In the evening we had a pizza and Pandemic party with Aunt Verlene! Both were a success! What's to hate about Marco's pizza? And we really like Pandemic, because it's us against the game! It made it less painful to loose 2 out of 3 games, as we were all losers together.

It was a fun way to hunker down on a cold and windy day! We're hoping the weather forecast is accurate, because we're driving home in the morning, and it should calm down and stop snowing!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a fun morning cooking our Thanksgiving meal at Crystal's house, It was fun using all her new appliances!

We did the turkey in the roasting oven, and it turned out just right!

Verlene brought her friend, Carmen over, as well as pies and salad! I lost my voice to a cold, so it was nice to have Carmen to help liven up the conversation!

It was so fun celebrating Thanksgiving together for the first time in Crystal's beautiful new home. Even Coda loved it!

After dinner we had fun perusing the black Friday ads in a real newspaper. We haven't subscribed to a print paper in about 8 years!

We also had fun trying out angles with my selfie stick! Fortunately, Carmen was a good sport about it all!

We have a lot to be grateful for, and it was fun taking a day off to reflect on our blessings!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Ed and I celebrated 37 years of wedded bliss today! We started out with a long walk up to the Plains Conservation Center. Notice the matching sweat shirts from our contractor!

On the way home we stopped at the Maverik station and bought one Cinnabon, which we shared three ways! We're trying not to eat too much till the big day!

We did a little shopping in the morning, then came home and brined our turkey for tomorrow!

We still had more time left, so we helped Crystal decorate for Christmas. Ed was in charge of his specialty--garland!

Crystal decorated the tree!

My job was making bows for the garland. It took me the same amount of time just to make 17 bows!

In the evening we celebrated by going out to dinner with Verlene and Crystal at the Lazy Dog Restaurant in Aurora. It had some great down-home cooking and great atmosphere. If we could have heard each othr talking over the din, it would have been perfect. Verlene enjoyed telling the story about our wedding cake, and how it got mashed in transit. We pointed out she had a similar accident with the chocolate tort on the way to Crystal's house tonight. November 21st must be a bad luck day for pastries!

Driving to Denver

We drove to Denver yesterday, just in time to celebrate Taco Tuesday with Crystal. After a delicious dinner at Platea Latin restaurant in Southlands Shopping area, we enjoyed macarons for dessert at Crystal's house!

We entertained ourselves on the drive by listening to podcasts, Whistling Prairie CDs, and by watching for Nora, who passed us going the other way on her way to Utah! She is spending time with her son in Salt Lake, so we tried to wave at each other as we passed just outside Grand Junction! Hopefully, she'll be in Utah long enough to visit with us when we get home!

This may or may not be Nora's car!

Christmas Decorating

We had Clementine and Mabel over this weekend, and we had a lot of fun showing them our Christmas decorations. They were awed by them!

We saved the ornaments for one of the trees so that they could help us put them on! It was fun seeing them look at each ornament and say what it was! Their enthusiasm made decorating more fun than ever!

Ed put together an old Disney train set for them to play with. It would have been even more fun if the battery-operated engine had worked!

We were happy to finish decorating our trees because we're going to Colorado for Thanksgiving, and it's nice not to have to have to decorate when we get home!

Hartman Visit

Carla and Tom, our good friends from Colorado, dropped in to see us on Friday. It had been a long time since we had seen them, but it was just like yesterday. We picked up talking where we left off last time we were together! It's so nice living in Utah, the center of the LDS universe. As long as people have children living here, they will keep coming out, and occasionally fit us in! It was fun catching up on them and hearing how Carla is enjoying retirement. It was also fun sharing our health problems! Especially since we're all feeling good now!

CT scan

We were up at Huntsman at the crack of dawn this morning to begin prep for my CT scan. We're hoping it shows my spleen is back to its normal size. I had to drink 30 ounces of "Berry Smoothie" flavored Barium for contrast. Each bottle was marked with what time I had to finish each section.

While it wasn't completely horrible, each gulp made me want to retch! Compared to drinking the cocktail, the CT was a cinch! We were back home by 9:30, after which I took a well-deserved nap!

The Scarlet Pimpernel

Monday we finally made it to the new, much bally-hooed Hale Center Theater in Sandy! We went with Barbara and Kent to see the Scarlett Pimpernel, which was a fun and entertaining musical.

The theater was in the round, with seats on all sides We were so impressed with the gorgeous carousel in the center of the stage. But that was the tip of the ice-berg! It rose like the top tier of a wedding cake in the first scene as a bigger and more beautiful layer rose from the floor! The sets were so incredible!Some were lowered from the ceiling, and others rose from the basement.The costuming was equally extravagant. We loved it all! To top it off, the singing, dancing and acting were all unbelievably good!

We went out to dinner afterwards at Pulp Lifestyle Kitchen. Despite being billed as health food, it turned out to be surprisingly delicious! We may have also stopped off for a donut on the way home to counterbalance our dinner!

Seedling Replant Day

Saturday we helped with the replacement of seedlings in Lambert Park. Some of them did fantastic despite the hot, dry summer. We had a lot of help watering them. The sagebrush and alder leaf mountain mahogany both did especially well.

An Eagle scout from Lehi mustered a bunch of his friends to help with the planting, headed up by the Utah Department of Natural Resources. They did the heavy work of digging holes and mulching.

Ed and I got the easy job--marking which plants were dead and needed replacing! Out of the 1100 seedlings planted in April only about 200 had died! That was an almost 80 percent survival rate! Thanks to all you who helped water them this summer!

Book Club and Art Show

The Alpine Book club went to an art show last night. One of our members, Mary Ann Free Smith, had pictures on display, so we had to go see them. She does beautiful flowers! It made me want to commission something for the Alpine Nature Center!

We also went to dinner at La Jolla Groves and reviewed the poetry book Wild Iris by Louise Gluck. I enjoyed the dinner and discussion, although I didn't read the book. I couldn't get myself to spend the $16 on poetry! I try to like it, but I just don't get modern poetry. Deep thoughts and no rhyming words! If you like poetry, however, this seems like a good book!

Road to Ruin

Ed and I walked 3 miles every day this week! We felt great, and the only problem was starting our walk when it was 26 degrees out. It warmed up nicely, however, when the sun broke over the mountain.

Here we are with Coda, contemplating whether or not we should take the Road to Ruin! (We did!)

Other than constantly itching from the Bendamustine treatment 3 weeks ago, I am feeling very energetic. My next infusion is after Thanksgiving. Hopefully, the itching will clear up by then!

The Magi(c) of Whistling Prairie

It's a wrap! Ed finished mixing the songs for our family's newest Christmas CD this week! They're going to press next week, but for those of you in the mood for holiday music now, the mp3 files are downloadable at the link below!

http://www.whistlingprairie.com/the-magic-of-whistling-prairie/

If you like this one, there are 13 others just like it on the website at Whistlingprairie.com!

We had just as much fun posing for the picture as recording the album. Only in Alpine, Utah, could you have a friend who owns camels!



You can also click here to download the songs, but the titles and song information is only available at whistlingprairie.com!

Be sure to click on the name column before you download to make sure that number 1 is Here we Go a Wassailing. It appears to sort in reverse order on cell phones unless you manually reverse the order.

Friday Ferris Fun

We were happy the Ferris wheel at Scheels was back in commission yesterday! We made a special trip to the store just to ride it! Mabel loved it after she realized it was safe!

Clementine was sad she couldn't ride, as she was not 36 inches tall! After she realized where they were going she changed her mind and was content to stay with Grandma on terra firma!

We had fun playing chase and hide-and-go seek in the evening, then put the kids to bed and had Pinyon Rats practice. It's been fun doing Christmas music again!

Band Practice and Walking

I am so happy that I feel good enough to have a life again! We have had band practice the past 4 Thursdays, and are getting ready for a gig in December. We've had a hard time getting everyone out to band each week, but had 5 of us on Thursday. It felt good to be able to go through all the songs. We're repeating a few from last year!

I've also felt good enough to walk again, and we walked three out of five days this week. It helps that my blood work has been stable enough for me to just go up to the hospital once this week for labs. The drive up to Huntsman takes a good chunk out of our day!

Halloween Fun

Mabel got to wear her beloved pirate costume a lot this month. Monday it was for the Monte L. Bean Museum Halloween Party!

Clementine was rocking her monkey suit, which tended to be a little hot for indoor fun! We enjoyed seeing the Nuttall grandparents there, as well!

Clementine loved her paper mask, and wore it for the rest of the evening! She's a real monkey, having learned how to climb out of her crib this week! Brittany had to convert it to a toddler bed for her own safety!

It took a while for Mabel to finish her mask, as she insisted on cutting it with scissors herself. But having never seen a pair of scissors before, she was somewhat hampered in her efforts! Thank heavens Marti was the patient one to help her on that score!

Afterwards, John gave us a giant beet, fresh from their garden! Yum for me, but not so much for Ed!
We had a big beet salad for dinner Tuesday night!