Perry

Great report from Dr Saltissi (Nephrologist) today. Kidney function is back up to 68% which is considered fantastic. Down to one injection every ten days (was two per week).....increase the potassium supplement and see you in eight weeks!!!!!

We are starting to get pretty excited about the two weeks cruise on the Pacific Sun, leaving Brisbane a week from this coming Saturday.
There will be fourteen of our bowling friends going on the same cruise.....pretty freaky....none of us colaborated on this! We are the only couple among this group to be going on a cruise for the first time and have been soaking up all information from those who have been on the same ship several times. It gets a 10 all round !
Roll on January 31.

Beach Babes

Two darling 11 year olds....Georgia and Rachel.

James who is now 14 said to his mother....."You don't mind if I don't come with you this time do you mum?"......"I love Nan and Pop, but I think I would rather go on the bike trip with dad.......I will come with you next time.....is that O.K.?"
That time has come!
Enjoy the grand kids while you can!

Time flys.....when your'e having fun!

It's 5.30 a.m. and Pam, Rachel, Georgia and Perry have just left for the airport.
We all had a fantastic visit....just went too fast!

We spent nearly a whole day at the pool.

Ditto....the mall.

Hours at the foreshore on Bribie....swimming (the two girls).....ice cream at Scoopy's.... (this is a tradition)....then more swimming (again the girls) between the flags at the surf beach on the other side of the island at Worrim, which hasn't been updated on Google Earth yet. This past year the main area of this little town has been upgraded to accommodate all the visitors. It looks really terrific.

Dinner one night at the R.S.L.

Loads of time enjoying eating and drinking on the deck while watching the sun set.

That's it for now....back to bed for awhile. Zzzzzz.....

Parents to be....Lucy and Chester Baker

This picture was taken over two years ago. Lucy and Chester married just over five years ago and July 1 is the date their second baby is due. Lucy miscarried some time ago at 16 weeks, so hopefully all will go well for her this time.

Just had a last minute chat with Pam....all is in place for a lovely four day get together. Rachel's little friend Georgia is really looking forward to going on vacation. She is a very anxious child (with good reason of course) who hopefully will benefit a lot from the break.
Her normal "routine" is very troubling and I believe Pam and her family are in her life for a positive reason.

Perry and I did a few months of taking care of kids at risk. We were just past it, as a round the clock effort. If we had started out down that road years before we did we would have coped better. Teenagers are pretty much full on when they are just being teenagers, let alone having years of mental or physical abuse (or both) behind them. These days when I see a very young dad totally in love with his baby....I am heartened. Stuart is such a hands on father with James and Rachel. Love it.

Lucy and Chester's child will thrive. They are a wonderful couple.

Crikey ! What the......

Squally wet weather today....so no game. Squall....ever wonder about some words how they seem to fit just right ? I looked it up...yep the description matches the sound perfectly.
Took a run to Morayfield's big hardware store named Bunnings....if you can't find it there....good luck.
We only have a small area under grass out front ..... the guy that takes care of it doesn't do it often enough for our liking, so we need a small electric mower to get the job done when we feel it needs doing (weekly at this time of year)....Bunnings sold over three hundred during the Christmas week.....(not my idea of a Christmas present!!!)....so altho they do have the one we want in stock, they can't use the high pickers while the store is open. Back we go tomorrow. While we were out, we stopped at "The Good Guys" ( huge electrical store) to buy a HD set top box for our 42" Panasonic Plasma T.V. that lost it's picture a couple of weeks ago. Bought a 22" to use in the living room till we get the other one back. Hopefully next week ! The small one has all the up to date stuff and will go on Perry's bedroom wall. You can set it to turn on or off when you want it to. Good for him, as he probably wont last thru a whole program. I read....if you didn't already know!!......anyway.....we seem to have a steady flow of media stuff that becomes outdated after a short time. You don't feel like sending these things to the dump....but no one wants them. I remember getting a steam iron for my nineteenth birthday.....it was admired and used by my sister and my mother, who incidentally bought it for me....(quite a bright woman my mum !) I think it lasted about ten years....and the one I have now really doesn't do anything much different, but you have to remember to push various buttons in order to get it to do what the old ones did without any prompting. One thing I like about this one is the fact that if you haven't used it for several minutes, it turns itself off! Not a big leap in all those years!
Boring blog, but I thought I would share this amazing picture with you......so of course after I posted it I had to add something. Sorry about that.

Isn't this a great picture ?

Found this picture among my collection. One of my favorites.

Four weeks tomorrow till we set off on the first of hopefully many cruises we will take during the next several years...health issues permitting.

Earlier today Perry visited our doctors office to have his nurse remove a forgotten (souvenir??) staple that was left in his skin after the knee replacement surgery.

He had been aware of something not being right in an area of scar tissue....after a close look at it using a magnifier.....hello......a STAPLE. No wonder their was such a tender spot.

He is doing.....o.k.....sort of. Weight loss is something he isn't sure is normal and has an appointment to visit his Renal specialist soon. Monday he will contact the office to see if he can get an earlier appointment after having the usual blood tests done several days before the visit. Anemia is still not resolved ..... sleeping way too much and his BP is erratic. Better than it was, but still too high a lot of the time.

Put off knee surgery folks!

We didn't go anywhere New Years Eve....just sat on our deck and enjoyed the neighbors from two doors down having a bunch of people over. We were invited, but declined.....neither of us were up to it. Nice to watch from a distance and turned in well before midnight. If we had gone I don't think we would have been able to last the distance.

Yesterday was better than the day before....each day seems to be a little better than the day before.....overall.

We are bowling tomorrow, weather permitting. It has been stinking hot....three days in a row over 30c with fairly high humidity. I won't play in that sort of heat. Perry does.....don't ask me how !

He has played three or four games since surgery and after has been O.K. Doctor told him to do whatever he feels he is able to do. Inactivity drives him crazy......me too, but I cope better somehow. Reading is my vice! Speaking of which.....I am reading 'The Thunderbolt Kid" by Bill Bryson....for the second time. Many times I get more enjoyment out a book or movie the second time round. This one is one of them. I would love to have him over for dinner! Just finished reading Grishams' latest....boring. Also read a Jeffrey Archer (one of my favorite authors) last week. I read too fast sometimes....that is why I am on "The Thunderbolt Kid" for the second time....the library is closed for a few days over the holidays. I buy some books....but the library here is comprehensive and we don't have a lot of space for loads of books. I got rid of a huge number when we moved up here....was sorry for awhile....but let go of it.

Pam, Rachel and a friend of Rachel's....(Georgia) ... arrive Tuesday at 8.30pm and will stay with us for 4 days. I am REALLY looking forward to having Pam around. We miss each other. Perry is very anxious to see her again also. He enjoys listening to Pam and I enjoying the good laughs we have whenever we see each other. We will probably spend quite a lot of time at the local swimming pool. It is a really nice pool for a 'country town'. The water is heated and I use my swim fins which make me feel like an Olympic swimmer....lol. I usually stay in the water till I begin to look like a prune!

Time for bed....that was a long blog !!!!!