Family first

I will not to dwell on the horrific political events of the week but will focus on Lambson family instead...

Sarah was still with us until Wednesday morning and we had a lovely last two days with her.   We watched two movies with her:  Wonder Woman 1984 on Monday at Beckie's place and Tenet on Tuesday at our place.  Both movies were OK.  But, not ones I would need to see again.  Sarah spent some of Monday with Beckie and Kyle and Micah browsing an antique mall and she bought a guitar!  Beckie got a cedar chest.  On Tuesday, she and Steve visited a Sam's Club, met Beckie for lunch at a local burger place, and then the three visited the World Bird Sanctuary.  I just wasn't up to walking around in pain so I stayed back and had Larkin Preschool.  It turned out to be a snowman-themed one.  Larkin made a snowman picture by gluing white circles onto blue paper and placing snowflake stickers all around, she used my snowman pen and a spiral notebook and tallied all the snowmen I have around the house for January (I have a LOT!!!).  We sang "Once There Was A Snowman", we watched "The Snowman" video and she got a snowman lollipop.  We also played with the ottoman full of beanie babies upstairs since Bones and Lily were being kept downstairs.  Larkin is still a bit nervous about dogs.  She is warming up to Linus and Sally a bit, though, and she enjoyed the short walk we took with them.  Anyway, back to the beanie babies....she dumped all of them out and climbed into the ottoman and had me pile stuffed animals on top of her.  Photos below followed by pictures at Sarah's departure Wednesday morning...

The rest of the week seemed kind of empty with Sarah and the dogs gone.   I cleaned house Thursday and Steve and I started to transcribe more of his father's personal history.  We watched Steve's January movie Les Miserable while I did some sewing.   Friday morning, I had a quartet rehearsal which was quite enjoyable and in the afternoon, Steve and I drove to Emily's for piano lessons and a visit to the Menards out their way.  My back pain comes and goes.  Mornings are usually better but any type of prolonged walking will be uncomfortable.  I am hardly using the heating pad these days and I am faithfully doing my PT exercises and still taking my Tylenol and Aleve and I see the doctor on Monday, January 18th for follow-up.  

Saturday we went to Columbia for many reasons:  to give Ethan a cello lesson, to take some things to Elise, to buy gluten-free flour ingredients at the Amish, to visit Steven and Tamara and to celebrate Melanie's birthday with her.  It was an all-day affair and we took the dogs with us.  They turned out to be the perfect travelers!  We brought their beds and they slept all the way there and back.  They loved Elise.  Linus and Bacon were friendly but Sally was kind of wary (and growl-y) so I held on to her during our visit with Steven and Tamara.  They loved Melanie.  They behaved in the car when Steve and I went into the Amish stores (we didn't stay in either one very long).  Sally felt like she had to bark at an Amish horse, though!  It was a nice trip.