ON OUR WAY TO ABU DHA-BAY

Since we have been planning this trip for eons now, we got our hopes up that all would go well. HA! on that one! Last week, Bill had to get a quick appointment for the dentist, having broken off a tooth the week before! That amounted to a new crown and $$$'s. He'll go to the Daub with a temporary crown and get the final one when we get back. Then yesterday (Thursday) I went to work feeling like crap. I had had this pain in my (as the hospital says) "belly" and kept thinking it would go away soon. NOT! So, about 8:30 in the evening, I told Bill he'd need to take me to the ER as the pain was getting worse. Thinking I had appendicitis, I was a nervous wreck. I made up my mind I was NOT going to miss this trip and was prepared to argue with any of the doctors about getting the surgery over with immediately so that I could travel by the next weekend more $$$'s. Well, it wasn't the appendix, but diverticulitis! Just one more thing to give you a headache about getting OLD. Damnit! Well, they put me on some really strong antibiotics for the very large infection they said I had after going through a CT scan, etc. In a colonoscopy last spring, everything was just fine with only a small amount of diverticuli detected. Now, again damnit, I have to have those damn things about every 3-6 years instead of the every ten years they first told me. So, now Bill is feeling the same way, but this is fairly normal for him after having a Sigmoid Colon resection a few years back. So, we are both on (you kids will love this one) a "soft" diet for three days, then going back gradually to regular food within a month! I mean, I feel like I should rush out and by Depends and baby food in jars! We already have our burial set up, and that's one of the questions they ask you up front..."do you have a living will and your final time arranged?? What the hell? Am I dying NOW?? What a shitty thing to happen right before we go on this great trip! Oh well, we'll work it out and still enjoy all the great food that Sydney and Stu are going to show us....no nuts, no seeds, no popcorn,.....and on and on. I told Sydney we'd just pick out all the nuts in the Chinese food and she can still cook her recipe that has nuts in it!

I doubt I will try to write much more than this before we go. I can't seem to get anything together to write about. Our lives are pretty boring, really, and my humor only lights up at work when I'm downing certain people and their management skills!! haha Yes, work has never changed and is only getting more ridiculous as each day passes. Everyday there is a new "rule" that is "from corporate" or so we're told. They now call the store to check up on the phone operator(s) to make sure they are saying "the right thing." Whatever happened to freedom of speech and your own style of greeting customers on the phone that is natural to you? Now, we have a FRAMED greeting to read from as if we are still in the first grade annual play! This does nothing to people but make them paranoid and uncooperative. Everyone is on edge in every department. Ahhh...but I digress....

I was saying I probably won't write anymore here until we return. I'm sure I'll have plenty to write about then!

So, in ending this boring post, I want to say how much Papa and Mimi enjoy everyone's blogs and to read all the interesting posts that everyone does. It's entertaining to see the different ways of expression that everyone has. I haven't read some for a while and others I don't have addresses for, but we love them all and check more than once a day to see any new posts that have been added while we are idle! Keep up all the good and funny things!

As we take this great trip, we thank God for all the good things He's allowed us and given us the opportunity to do. This is a season of Thanks and we thank all of you, especially our own kids, Marcia (Deven), Monica (David), Mary-Leah (Jeff) and Doug, for being such great children throughout our lives and for all the wonderful grandchildren they've give us. Now, I know we'll hear from Doug (since he has no children of his own that we know of) as he will want us to include Woodie and Ozzie in the "grandchildren" list, but that would mean we'd have to mention ALL the dogs in the family....oh well, OK....."Merry PETmas" to Pongo, Woodie, Ozzie, Georgie, Coco, Charlie, Shade and Sparky, our token "cone head." ha You always have to have that "one" in the group that is different, right? My mom used to say it was a poor family that couldn't claim an odd one in the family! And more important than pets we mention all the grandchildren, too, since they are the light of our lives: Sydney, Stu, Justine, Hayden, Maddison, Flower, Aubrey, Mitch, Hayley, Hannah, Harrison and Arlie and our sweet little guy in that land so far away, Kaden, the only great grandchild so far!! That's it! All your names on here, I hope! I know for sure I'll hear about it if I forgot someone! HAHA

Love you all!!! See you again on or about January 2, 2009!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!!