Back to Normal, Whatever That Is!

Hi everybody! First of all, I want to thank each and everyone of you for your well wishes. I’m back to normal, if that’s a good thing! I did end up staying home for Thanksgiving, so whatever bug I had lasted about four days. When I woke up Friday morning, I felt completely fine. We were able to spend the day at the zoo as planned yesterday and today we’ve been at Brad and Mandy’s again all day. Several of the nieces and nephews, their spouses and Brad‘s parents came over for the afternoon. Pizza was provided by Brad and Mandy and Dennis and I. Some of the others brought treats to share. We all had a grand time just visiting and having a relaxed afternoon of fun. After everyone else left, Dennis, Alex, T. and Baby J went over to tell Grammy goodbye. Tomorrow morning we’ll pick them up for breakfast on the way to the airport. Their flight leaves about mid-day and it will be a red-eye back to London where they should arrive Monday morning. 

The visit was too short, but we crammed a lot of fun into it, and even some together time being sick! Shades of when the kids were little and sick and we would all share the germs. 🤒 Well, I guess that part wasn’t quite so much fun.

But first, some photos from the zoo. It was SO cold. 17°F when we left to go home and we walked close to 5 miles! Most of the things we saw were inside but you still had to walk between the buildings. There weren’t very many people there, because there was a Nebraska game on and it was a home game to top it off. Plus, it was Black Friday. All in all, it was a perfect day for the zoo. 

Brad and Mandy will be gone next weekend and Piper and Lizzie will be staying with us. We plan to go back to the zoo with Piper because although it was all decorated yesterday for Christmas, it was too cold to stay around until dark and see all the lights come on. Next week is supposed to be much warmer, into the mid 40s.

There are a LOT of pictures, so just skip on through if you would rather not see them all. I wish I could remember the names of the first two animals but my mind is blank. They both were so cute though. 💜

The Tawny Frogmouth Owl.

Mr. Roadrunner. We enjoyed watching him run around and flip his tail up and down. There was a zookeeper sitting in this exhibit, holding another road runner and feeding it by hand. They seem to be very tame.

We sure enjoyed time with our kids and granddaughters.

And we saw lots…

and lots…

and lots…

of nasty snakes. I really don’t like snakes at all.

I will spare you the hundreds and hundreds of bats that were flying around and hanging from the ceiling.

But the puffins…

and beautiful forms of starfish…



and king crabs, this one was about 3 feet across!…

and especially the giraffes, more than made up for the snakes. There was even a baby giraffe, but he was to busy and fast playing to get a decent picture.

We all commented that it was the most animals we’ve ever seen out and active in our trips to the zoo. I don’t know if it was because it was cooler or less people staring at them, but every exhibit we went to had active animals, insects, or snakes. We didn’t even make it through a third of the zoo, but then again, we never do. It is huge!

We exchanged Christmas gifts today with our out of town kids.

And had a real Christmas cake brought from London, soaked in rum and lit on fire!

Alex and Brad look pretty pleased with their work in lighting it on fire. ☺️

And that is that. A busy and eventful few weeks. I would love to share more actual photos of the kids, but you know the story of that. DIL’s job prevents us from posting photos of them online. However, just since September sweet little Baby J who is just 20 months old, fully knows her alphabet in both English and Japanese and speaks to you in 4-5 word sentences in BOTH languages. She has actual conversations! I seriously have never seen anything like it. Her language skills have exploded in the past two months since we saw her. The nanny talks to her in only Japanese, T in just English and Alex speaks both fluently. We have enjoyed this time.

Brad, Mandy and Piper were excellent hosts for Thanksgiving and picked up both my part and Dennis’s too, since he only has one hand and couldn’t carve the turkey or do the dishes, his normal jobs. Their house has been bursting with guests everyday since Thanksgiving and we’re grateful for them being here for everyday life and help.

Now I’ll end this too long post and hope that you all had a lovely blessing filling weekend too. I give thanks to the Lord for each one of you and your families. 

Much love and many blessings,

Betsy