Thanksgiving

We had a nice group for dinner yesterday, including Tom and Tina's children Melissa and John as well as their families. John and Heather's kids have really grown up since we last saw them!

And Melissa and Steve now have two children, including Hannah, who was just born on Monday!

Hannah was a bundle of joy in her Thanksgiving shirt!

Little Ethan got to sit at the end of the table! We had a great feast, and really enjoyed being with the Arizona Bushes for Thanksgiving!

Beautiful Tucson

We were treated to a spectacular sunset as we arrived in Tucson Wednesday evening. We don't get as much of this in Utah, with the Mountains somewhat blocking our view!

Tina had dinner waiting for us. And Grizzly, their cat lorded over us from his perch atop the refrigerator.

The next morning, Ed enjoyed showing his brother his new car, the Genesis G70. Although Tom can't get in the car because of his wheel chair, he's always appreciative.

We had time to go over to Tom and Tina's new house before the cooking started. They are downsizing to a neighborhood only 2 miles away.

They are having some remodeling and painting done at the new house, so it will be a while before they move in. We'll spend a little time today helping them move some boxes. I'm glad it's them and not us. Moving is a lot of work!

Terry Fator at the Mirage

Ed and I started our road trip yesterday, stopping off at the Creamery in Beaver. This was the first time we've been to their fancy new facility, replacing a dumpy old building where we (as well as occasional tour buses) have been stopping for years. The ice cream was great!

We arrived in Las Vegas in the late afternoon, and were impressed with our nice room with the volcano view!

Since I happen to be immuno-compromised, I went to the Terry Fator show in disguise!

It has been 10 years since we saw Terry Fator win America's Got Talent. He's come a long way, with his own fancy theater at the Mirage!

He did not disappoint. He had lots of new puppets and voices. He's a great singer and impressionist as well as a ventriloquist! His show was also very funny. We wished we could see his new Christmas show next week, as well!

We're hitting the road again this morning on our way to Tucson!

Pre-Thanksgiving Dinner

We had a warm-up for Thanksgiving yesterday. Because Crystal was here we invited the whole family for dinner. With a sister, Barbara in town, as well as a brother, Jon we ended up with 20 people!

We had two tables--one for grandparents, grandchildren and Jon and Sara, whose oldest child is only 15.

The second table was cousins and spouses. They enjoyed being kid free for an hour!

Mabel loved it all because she got to sit between me and Calvin!

We had some great food and packed on a few pounds. We're going to do it all again on Thursday when Ed and I will join his brother's family in Tucson. The doc gave us a week off. My WBC today was down a little to 9.37 and platelets were steady at a low 12. My absolute neutrophils were o.3, which means I'm susceptible to illness. I'll be washing my hands a lot between stuffing my face!

Crystal and Dickens

Crystal flew out for a few days and brought presents for everyone. Coda loved her new Christmas socks.

On Saturday we went with Brittany and the girls to a Dickens Christmas Market. Scrooge was there along with his scary tall ghosts.

There were lots of vendors and food stalls. Father Christmas was even there. 

I got a smooch from Ed on the kissing bridge!

To top it all off, they had free carriage rides!

After the fun we even had time to ourselves while Mabel and Clementine watched the Grinch. We used our time wisely to do the NY Times crossword puzzle together!

Alpine Sage is back!

So, we took several months off this summer for my cancer treatments, but Alpine Sage is together again, preparing for a gig at Spring Gardens in Lindon on December 19th at 6:30 p.m. Please come if you're in the area! We had just wound up practicing on Wednesday and after taking a selfie we enjoyed a pie break, compliments of Shelly! Another great benefit of being a member of Alpine Sage!

Christmas is coming, and we're ready!

We went to the University of Utah hospital Tuesday to find it all decked out in Christmas decorations. My infectious disease doctor was very pleased that I had not had CMV virus in a long time and told us to keep taking Letermovir until I get into the transplant program. That seems like it will never happen, as we've been waiting for it since April. My WBC was 11.62 yesterday, which is not bad, but still has 88% variant lymphocytes (the bad lymphocytes). I need to eliminate the bad lymphocytes to be in remission and qualify for a transplant. I feel great, though and intend to take my meds and enjoy the holidays. Wouldn't January or February be great months for a transplant?

We were in such a holiday spirit, that we had Mabel and Clementine decorate the living room tree for us in the afternoon. They loved it, and so did we. We put on some Christmas music and had a wonderful time together.

We also had a great snack time featuring hot chocolate and pringles!

In the evening the Dickens came over and taught us how to play two very fun card games: 9 Innings and Canasta. We hope we can remember them long enough to play in the hospital before I get chemo brain!

'Tis the Season to be Prairie

We recorded our first Christmas album in 2000. Last year we recorded our 18th. We actually missed a year in 2002 when we didn't realize we'd be doing this for 20 years!

Fresh off the press is our newest CD, recorded in December 2018 and mixed and ready for release! We're pretty proud of it. There are three songs where the girls do spectacular three part harmony. John and Nolan both have solo songs, as well as Ed. Judy does a solo for the first time, under significant pressure from the family. Even 3 year-old-Mabel has a solo on track one!

If you'd like to hear it, download it at: http://www.whistlingprairie.com/tis-the-season-to-be-prairie-2018/. Merry Christmas!

Coda is a True Mutt

When we adopted Coda from a shelter, they told us she was from West Virginia and that her mother was a cocker spaniel. We've always thought she might be part border collie, because she is so smart. We sent in a swab of her saliva to Wisdom Panel to see if they could give us more insight. She is so much mutt that they couldn't narrow it down. We might have just wasted $89!

Here is their analysis. She is 62.5% either a sporting, terrier or hound breed. That really helps. She is also 25% Chihuahua. That might account for her propensity to bark! Either way, we love her a lot!

CODA'S BREED BY PERCENTAGE

Exciting news, the results are in! Here’s what makes Coda so unique. Using the data generated from Coda’s DNA, our sophisticated computer algorithm performed over 17 million calculations! What you see here is Coda's ancestry by percentage.

Chihuahua	0.25	25.0% Chihuahua
Russian Tsvetnaya Bolonka	0.125	12.5% Russian Tsvetnaya Bolonka
Breed Group(s)	0.625	62.5% Breed Group(s)

25%

Chihuahua

12.5%

Russian Tsvetnaya Bolonka

62.5%

Breed Group(s)

• Sporting
• Terrier
• Hound

Cancer, lunch and dinner

I like to pretend that cancer doesn't consume our lives, but it sorta does. We went to a symposium on CLL (chronic lymphocytic leukemia) on Saturday. I have BPLL, which is more rare and more aggressive, but in the same family of leukemias. This was the second year we have attended the seminar, and it was just as helpful and informative as last year. At the break we talked with Dr. Stevens, who runs the trials at Huntsman, and found out that our doctor had already talked to her about me. Four months ago when we talked to Dr. Couriale (the BMT) doctor) he suggested I have CAR-T treatment to prepare me for a stem cell transplant. At that time I was fresh out of Campath treatment, which had destroyed my T-cells. We didn't think I'd be alive in 4 more months, giving my T-cells a chance to recover so I could qualify for CAR-T. In two weeks my 6 months will be up, and I might very well be accepted to this study. It is a hard treatment, but also can be life-saving, so we're hoping I can get it. We will talk to Dr. Halwani on Thursday, and should know more then.

In the meantime, I am feeling good, and my blood counts are stable-ish. My WBC was 11.92 and my platelets were 26. The low platelets are not a problem to enter this treatment, fortunately.

I enjoyed going out to lunch with my ministering sisters on Wednesday.

I also enjoyed a special dinner at the Monte L. Bean Museum with Brittany on Thursday.

I've decided to eat, drink and be merry. A CAR-T patient was one of the featured speakers at our CLL symposium. He lost 30 pounds during the treatment. I'm working on plumping up for my ordeal.

Halloween, Phantom and Platelets

We had a nice, but cold Halloween with 44 trick-or-treaters. Ed saved the last box of Twinkies for himself, and has been working his way through them the past few days.

We went to Phantom at the Hale Centre Theater on Saturday with Barbara and Lacy (who subbed for Kent, who wasn't feeling well). It was a great production, with fabulous singers. I didn't realize it was not the version by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It was really well done, but there was a part of me that missed the more familiar songs from the other version. The plot was slightly different, too, which also made it interesting.

We got new blood results today. My platelets finally jumped up to 22! I was pretty happy. WBC stable at 13.02. I'm feeling great, and am enjoying getting out. We're starting to think maybe we could sneak in one more Christmas CD this year, If I don't get into transplant by then, that would be a great consolation prize!