AZDonna

Ken’s grandfather died yesterday. I send my prayers and sympathies to him, his mother and all of their family. He was in his late 80’s and had spent the past few years under hospice care. He and Deanna’s mother were married over 60 years.

I hope Ken doesn’t mind my sharing a sweet story he told me last night. His grandmother had stayed by her husband’s bedside for the past 2 weeks. She finally went home on Monday to rest. However, she woke up at about 3:30 in the morning feeling like God was prompting her to go back to the hospital. She got dressed and went back to his side. Just thirty minutes later he died.

There will be a graveside service this week, with a larger memorial service for the extended family in early March.

Brian and Carrie took the kids up to the White Mountains to see snow this weekend. Nathan has never played in snow, and Lauren certainly does not remember it. Brian knows someone who owns a cabin near Showlow. They were offered the use of it for the weekend. These are pictures taken last week. Beautiful, huh?

I woke up this morning at 1:50 a.m. hearing “patta, pat, pat, patta, pat, patta, pat” in the back yard, and the sound of running water. I laid there for a few minutes, but couldn’t go back to sleep. I got out of bed and peeked out the window, and saw it was pouring rain. I figured out the sound was a plastic frozen dinner plate that Holly had carried outside and water was dripping off the porch roof onto it.

I went back to bed, and tried to go back to sleep. But I kept hearing that “patta, pat, pat” and it was really beginning to annoy me. I couldn’t ignore it, and I couldn’t go back to sleep. So I got out of bed and went outside in the cold and wet to get that plate. As soon as I opened the sliding door, I discovered the sprinklers were on. It was pouring down rain, and the sprinklers were running! Apparently the rain sensor was drowned or something. I grabbed that plastic plate, turned off the sprinklers, locked up, dried off my feet, and went back to bed.

I finally dropped back to sleep at about 4 a.m.

I’m not a football fan. But it was impossible to ignore it this past week when the Super Bowl came to town. To let you know just how much it has been in the local news, even Mom knew that the Patriots were one of the teams playing!

I watched the pre-game show to see what the national commentators were saying about the Valley of the Sun. I would say we scored a major touchdown with the media, celebrities, athletes and fans.

Jordin Sparks knocked it out of the stadium with her rendition of the national anthem. The commercials were okay … no better or worse than any other year. I’m not a Tom Petty fan … in fact I don’t even know who he is. So I pretty much ignored the halftime show.

Oh, yeah… the game. It was a football game. Since I don’t follow it, I didn’t have a favorite team. I thought it would have been kind of fun for the Patriots to accomplish their undefeated season, but I didn’t lose any sleep last night over their loss.

Super Bowl week coincided with the FBR Open pro golf tournament. That brought thousands more people to Phoenix, and along with Super Bowl fans who stopped off at the green, they had record attendance on Saturday AND Sunday.

What I liked best was all the money those visitors dropped into our local economy.

I have a sick mommy. Last Thursday, she started having symptoms of asthma/ bronchitis/ laryngitis. I went over on Sunday afternoon and got her some TV dinners so she wouldn’t have to pay the dining room to deliver a tray. On Tuesday, she complained she was coughing uncontrollably in the night, so I went out there after work and picked up some Delsym for her. She said it took a couple days, but the coughing is subsiding and she’s beginning to feel almost human again. She showered and dressed and went to the dining room today. Hope you’re on the mend, Mom!

Sure was a great game last night — Wildcats versus Cougars.