October 2019 at the Library and beyond

 I got a little crafty.  Well, not really. The Copy Shop person even cut out the die cuts for me. But I did the tags, filled the bags with some candy and Lori baked peanut butter cookies to go inside, too. Happy Halloween to my student workers in the library.

 Sometimes we find the most random things in our library stacks. This little ceramic (complete with the Deseret Industries .75 cents price tag) was found on the second floor in the literature section. Perhaps it was with Irish poets.  Previously, we'd found a puffin knick knack in the Journals and Magazines, shelved appropriately under "P".

 The back of Gail's denim quilt was the cutest flannel print of national parks!  It had Grand Canyon and Mt. Rushmore and some others I can't remember, but it was way cute.

 Robert and Janet came for a visit with Mom and Dad the weekend of October 25-27. We had a nice dinner out with R & J and Gail and Jonathan on Friday at the Pizza Factory.  Saturday Robert and Janet did some errands in St. George for Janet's parents at their place down there (turn off a/c, turn on heat AND pick pomegranates--which they generously shared with us! thanks!), then spent the afternoon and evening with Mom and Dad.  A new T V was purchased and set up, and many other l odds and ends.  And just some good visiting. It ended on Saturday with a trip to the Golden Corral. Too much good food.

 Jonathan, Gail and Mom. We need to get some stuff hung on their walls.

Robert and Janet attended church at Brookdale with Mom and Dad. Gail and Jonathan attended with just me in my ward since Mike was not feeling well. He had some vertigo for some strange reason. Mike enjoyed laying around all day, listening to his audio books. Rob and Janet had lunch at Brookdale, Gail and Jonny left right after our church and headed home. I went to visit with Mom and Dad and R&J before they left to go home around 3 pm Sunday.

Halloween

My mom hates Halloween. But at Brookdale, they were having a massive Halloween party. People apparently were required to wear a costume at dinner that night. This is Mom and Dad's. :-)

October 2019 Brookdale

 We moved Mom and Dad into Brookdale Assisted Living Center on October 17. They are slowly settling in. I don't have any photos of their furnished apartment yet.  We still haven't hung anything on the walls yet and Mom's trying to get organized and still is trying to find things because *I* was the one who emptied boxes and suitcases and probably hid too many things. ha.  No, not really. I did unpack, but some of their drawers were already packed and she has to sort through a lot of stuff.

 We want them to be involved in the community, so I forced them to attend "Sit and be fit" the other day.  Home health is coming in to treat Dad's bedsores on his bum. Poor guy. But he just SITS. All the time. He needs to get up more and let them heal. But getting up is hard. Standing is hard. Walking is hard.  Even sit and be fit isn't the best, but at least he gets up to walk there and has to walk back. This time, we (Mom and I) walked down the hall and back with him for a bit more exercise. After the short class of sitting and moving, the longer walk down the hall and back, he was ready for a nap.  But they had to trek on down to lunch instead.

 The halls and nice and wide and roomy. Dad does know his room number. He has some good memory moments, but does still forget lots. He repeats. He repeats. A lot. A lot. That's hard for Mom. He is still adjusting, too.  Mom and I left to go check on prescriptions at Smiths and when we returned, he was still tucked into his recliner right where we left him. But he was afraid to move and had become so warm and uncomfortable.  And that made him grumpy and cross. But then he apologized to Mom for being so cross.  He apologized multiple times.  We don't know why he didn't just take off the top of his snuggy till he cooled down. . . but it didn't occur to him, I suppose. He is comfortable being up and down all night like he was in Georgia.  He makes it to the bathroom and doesn't leave and go down the hall, so that's a good thing. ;-)  It could happen.

Here's the cute kitty that was hanging out in the Halloween decorations in front of Smith's.

Below is the apartment under renovations. They just re-pained and re-did the flooring after the last occupant left.  They can make it their own and we hope to help them become more comfortable, more strong and more social during the coming days, weeks, months and years.

Moving the folks. October 2019

 October 7, 2109. Mom and Dad in the rental car, heading to Atlanta to fly away from the Georgia home of the past 15 or so years at 248 Clopine Lake  Road, Fort Valley, Georgia.

 Mom and Dad, Robert and I enjoyed lunch at the Olive  Garden in Warner Robins on the Friday before Robert took off to drive their moving van (with Janet ) across the country. They stopped to visit David and Laura in Texas on their way to Utah.

No comment.

 Probably the cleanest Dad's lawn mower has been since he bought it. The home is for sale and the contents are being sold (including the shop/garage contents) at an estate sale Oct 10, 11, and 12th.

 This is Mom and Dad checking out their new place at Brookdale. It's being remodeled right now--new carpet and new paint. The lady in the plaid shirt is Amanda, the director of nursing there. She took us all on a tour and we had lunch in the dining room.

 Their living room window overlooks the mountains to the east.

 Do you think they can learn to share a bathroom sink? They've had two for a very long time. ;-)

2019 Quebec City with the Burnetts

Yeah, we got lost.  A LOT. But it was fun. I got to drive.  We asked for directions. We saw the Citadel. We found a statue of a relative of the Burnetts, Louis Hebert, who helped found the City of Quebec. Our Citadel tour guide, Yo, was a delight and had beautiful English. Our tour was cold and downright chilly, but we learned a lot and had a nice time.

 Overlooking the St. Laurence River

 St. Michel's catholic church where we stopped to ask directions from a nice gentleman who was sitting, reading his car in the church parking lot. Thankfully, he spoke English and told us how to get inTO the old city. We'd missed it. ha. But we drove through some charming neighborhoods in the meantime.

 Statues of martyrs. The one just to the right of the cross was spotted by Dale when we were on the highway below. He knows, because Dale said, "He was waving at me when we drove by!"

THAT's the Old City, way in the distance.   Wrong -Way Linda. That's my name. ;-)

 A Canadian Crossing Guard!  I took that one for Gayela while stopped at a light.

 On our tour of the Citadel and museum, we learned of a mascot GOAT. Above. Me and Mike.

 An armoury

 A captured gun.

 The door to the armoury.

 Barracks. It's still an active military base/station.

 Cool ariel view of the star-shaped Citadel. No blind spots for cannons.  A strong fortress that was never really used AS a fortress as never were any shots fired in defense of Canada. Or even England, who built it.

 Canons, residences, etc.

 The top of a famous hotel in the distance. 600 rooms. Here is a Wikipedia picture of the WHOLE thing.  It's big. Hotel Chateau Frontenac.

 Mike likes guns. All kinds.

A jail for the "Bad Soldiers", as Yo said.

This was an amazing trip with Dale and Irene Burnett. We so loved hearing their stories, we hope they might have enjoyed a few of ours, too. It was so much fun to share time together.  After we left Quebec City, we headed down the freeway toward Montreal, hoping to find a hotel. It wasn't an easy task!  There are not a lot of towns that we could see...and my phone was a big fat FAIL with data, etc. So we just trudged until we came upon one and took it.  Mike and I ended up in a rather large and expensive suite and at that point, Mike was so tired and grumpy he didn't care.  We'd stopped somewhere earlier (Irene is diabetic and it was getting late and we all needed food) and had a bite to eat at a Tim Harvey or something. I had soup--NOT donuts. Well, I did buy a brownie for dessert. I think that chain is kind of like what Kneader's is.  Sort of.

I took pictures of some of the signs in the church building to try and figure out what those rooms were. I've yet to look any up on Google Translate. What do you think? I could figure out the RS room and Distribution Center . . . Chapel... but not these.

The next day, we drove on in to Montreal. We stopped to see the temple, wandered through the Stake Center on the property looking for the distribution center (found it) and then they dropped us off at the airport.
Mike headed off to Salt Lake City and I headed off to Georgia.