Little Isobelle is Third Place in the GR Press Baby of the Year

We thought that she should be #1 but third from all the participants is pretty good! They got a lot of nice prizes.

Angie has her baby

Denny wasn't too far off from the weight. I'd say closer than the doctor's prediction on the weight. Of course, I was right. Angie and Mike have a 10 lb 1 oz baby girl! So cute. Grandma Sue Bronson is really excited. Now she has two grandchildren, Brady and Izzy. The baby's name is Izabell Sue. All the luck and love to the Gallagher family.

Congratulations to Donna and Bruce

Bruce and Donna became grandparents today to twin girls! Connor has two sisters, Finley & Emersyn. What a blessing.

Weather isn't for the dogs!

It's a little cooler here today but it's still hot out. Too hot for dogs to be outside. Oh, and people too.
Speaking of dogs, our friends, Annette and Roger, living in MI have the cutest little dogs. They sent me some pictures of them. One is one of the dogs sleeping with Dylan. Their kids are like our grandchildren. Dylan is only 15 and is working repairing golf carts! He saved his money and bought a paddleboat. Kayla is busy with her sports at school. And playing with her little cousins.
Here are some pictures that we got from them. The picture of the couple is of our friends Pat and Russ. We love them dearly too! They've been here visiting us several times now. We're waiting for the Villerot family to visit us!!!

Distressed flowers and my friend Shirley

I had a good garden shopping trip today. Yesterday I had to get one brick to finish off the edging around our trees in front. Jordan came over and laid them for us. What a good job he did. It was just too much for Denny to do in this heat. So, while I was there, I saw a big rack of plants that were 50% off the marked down price because they were ‘distressed’. I got four plants yesterday for $1.50 each. So today I went back and got 10 more. Now I have to plant them! I have to figure out what side of the house has the most sun. Oh, all of the plants are perennials.
They don’t look distressed to me. Oh well, I’ll talk to them and that will perk them up!

Yesterday I was going to send a birthday note to one of my dearest co-workers, Shirley Cook, that I worked with at Meijer. We both took the early retirement. Well, she beat me to sending me a note. She is so funny. When we worked together, we sat next to each other. I know that she’s a couple of years younger than I am but I don’t know how many. She’s a very pretty woman and you would think from looking at her that she would be really dignified. NOT! She is just a barrel of fun. One time she found a dead mouse in her garage that the insides disinagrated so it was a hollowed out mouse but it looked so real. She put the mouse on my desk for me to find when I got back from training a new person. When I got back, I had a pointer in my hand. I saw the mouse, cried out “eeeeeeek,” took the pointer and flipped the mouse off from my desk. Our supervisor, Colleen, happened to be walking by and the mouse hit her! She screamed, everyone came running and we all had the biggest laugh after Colleen picked herself off the floor! Just kiddin’. She was fine. I waited the rest of the day for her to bring Shirley and me empty boxes and be escorted out the door. It was always a scary thing to see. If a supervisor walked by with an empty box to someone’s desk, we knew it was to put all of the team member’s personal belongings in. Then we’d gossip the rest of the day to find out why the member was fired.
Shirley would bring things in to identify from our childhood days. She brought a roller-skate key in one day and, of course, the young people didn’t know what it was. Do you?
We had fun. We started a lot of cute things like everyone bringing in a picture of themselves when they were young and hanging the picture by their desks. It was really cool to see how people change in just a few years.

Tomorrow is the 4th of July. To everyone who reads this, I hope you had a very happy 4th!

Friends

I found out yesterday that an old friend from MI passed away. She was a year older than me. She's been ill for quite a while. She had something like Alzheimer's but her brother-in-law said that it was worse than Alzheimer's. I don't know what can be worse.

On another note, I got an email from another old friend. Well, he's not old! I should say a long time friend. Gary Keizer and his wife, Kathy. It sure was good to hear from him. He got our address from another friend that hasn't written to us in ages. I'm surprised that he still had our address.

Denny and I went to the cardiologist Thursday. Denny is going to have a fribrilator installed in his chest. No worry! It's just to prevent something from happening. His heart is only working at 35%. We think that it has been working at that percentage since 1994 when he had his big accident. He's doing good, umpires every day, in fact, he umpired 4 games today. He can still do everything he does now. It's just that if something does go wrong, the fribrilator will shock his heart and knock him on his ass! Those are the words the cardiologist told us!

I walked 3 miles after I got home from the movie today. I have to start walking. My knee is really messed up and I'm sure that I'll have to have the surgery that I always swore I'd never have done. I go on medicare June 1 so I'll have better coverage, in case I have to have the surgery. I've had the knee pain for 8 years now but it's getting worse. I have a real fear of any kind of surgery since our neighbor at Sandy Pines had rotor cuff surgery and is brain damaged because of the surgery! So much for routine surgery!

Our weather is just gorgeous. Dallas is just loving the weather, running in the sprinkler and going to the water park. I'm loving all of my flowers. Some have bloomed and some are getting ready to bloom.

Trip to Choctaw casino

What a trip! The casino has a new policy of giving out cards while the people are on the bus. And since we were the third bus in line we had to sit on the bus for 45 minutes waiting for one of the casino staff members to pass out cards on our bus. Then they were running up and down the aisle calling names. So you'd think that would be the end of sitting on the bus waiting? No! Every trip we've gone on, we're told "If you're not on the bus at 3:00, we'll leave you there because the bus will leave at 3:00". This is stated at every trip. Well, two ladies didn't show up and we sat there for another 35 minutes while they looked for them. At one point, I saw the two ladies walk by our bus. They stopped at our bus and were told that it was the Allen bus. They walked on. They didn't seem to care that we were all waiting. They've been on the trips numerous times before so the excuse that they can't speak English didn't hold water. I think the words 'bus and 3:00 should be understood at any language. And to think of all the times that I was so worried because Denny would show up at the bus at 3:00. I was so afraid that we'd leave him. Well, no worry anymore. It's an idle threat!
The trip, once inside the casino was fun. Linda and Theresa did a wonderful job. We felt so bad for them because the brunt on the problems fell on them. I don't know if the trips are worth going on. The last trip we had to wait because there were some women that couldn't make it back to the bus and we had to wait until the other bus went to the restaurant to pick them up.
I don't know if the liability falls on the city if something happens to someone that can't walk and falls. On the casino trip, there was a man, by himself, with a walker and he has Alzheimers! He doesn't attend the center so it would be hard to find him in the casino. Oh well, at least he was on the bus on time.

Joyce

Joyce went to the doctor yesterday and found out that she is in remission!!! That's the best news I've heard in a long time.

More Michigan friends

I have a lot of friends from Meijer where I retired from. We always had a good time and still got the work done. I'm including pictures of the girls that I have pictures of. Barbara C., Carol S. and Kathy T., Lisa H., Shirley K. and Evie C. and a picture of all of us at the lunch when I visited them in the summer of 2006. Denise is in the picture, Lori and Cathy J. Shirley Cook, Nancy C. and Lisa M. are missing from the picture. I write regularly to Cathy J and to Carol S. It's so nice to hear from them. I wish the rest would write more often.

My Texas Friends

I have a lot of friends in TX. Most of them are from the center. We have a lot of fun together and I enjoy going to lunch or on trips with them. We went to downtown Dallas one day. I'll write another time about our trips. Here are some pictures of some of them. Vivian, Mary, Joyce, Lena and Bruce, Bob R. One of 'old Bob' who is 93 years old. I have to put more pictures in. Donna, Minetta, Thelma for example.

Lunch with Betty

I went to lunch today with LB and Betty who I used to work with at Raytheon. We had a good visit. I went into the Raytheon office and saw all of the girls that I worked with. It was so good to see them again. I enjoyed working there.

Friends

We have a lot of friends in TX and MI. We see the friends in MI in the summer. I didn't go last year. Denny went to MI by himself. Jamie and I will go there for a week next summer. Here are some of our friends from Sandy Pines. Gloria, Roger, Annette, Kayla, and Shirley. I'll post more when I find them in my library.