Wow!

I'd have never believed a week could fly by so quickly!

Noel's birthday went well. Dottie took her "antiquing" to Atchison as a surprise while I waited for the grandkids to come home from school and fixed dinner. She had a great day, as did we.

Monday and Wednesday there was lots of shopping-more than we had planned on having left at that point! Some things weren't available until last week, others hadn't been put on the list yet...

Our 30th anniversary was Thursday. Dottie's sister Jane and her husband had enjoyed our being in Vermont for their 25th this last summer, and our 25th slipped by in the fog of Dottie being told she had terminal cancer (she didn't, but we were lucky!) when they found the cyst on her kidney, so they made a point of making sure we enjoyed this one. They arranged with our younger son to get us a gift card to somewhere we'd never ever go to eat! Valet parking, the whole bit! We've never gone anywhere like that since we've been together...we just don't do things like that, lol, always figuring we should do something else with that kind of money! John got the card before he left town, Noel gave it to use on Tuesday but with instructions not to open it until our anniversary. Not knowing what was up, we opened it, along with our cards to each other and the gifts I got her at midnight on Wednesday, then she went to bed because she had to work that day.

I had roses delivered to Dottie at work that day as a surprise. They were (and still are) gorgeous! Being between sizes again (going the wrong way, sadly) I called the restaurant to ask about dress code (there are places on the Plaza that are coat and tie only) and they said jeans were acceptable with a nice shirt or sweater, thank goodness! Dinner was wonderful, and it was a great evening until it was time for her to go to bed.

I had known Noel was fighting a cold the day we were there; I didn't know the grandkids had been fighting a stomach bug for days before that. The bug caught up with me about 2AM on Friday, and I'm still not quite over the aftereffects. I hadn't "hurled" in 28 years (for me things always go the other way) but I did that day! I thought I was better on Saturday, and we did some more last minute shopping along with the weekly trips I didn't get done on Friday while she was working; that almost became a mistake.

Sunday I didn't dare go anywhere, so we started wrapping gifts. For once, everything is pretty well done except for a few things awaiting some more last minute things we'll pick up tomorrow. After years of promising we won't be wrapping on Christmas Eve, we might actually not be!

In the "whirl" of it all though, the Chrismas letter didn't get written until last night, and just finished printing because it had to await editorial appproval this morning, lol!

I'm very disappointed in myself for not getting around to check in with everyone last week; I hope you all forgive me!