Tuesday after the holiday and it's kinda quiet around here. Everyone I've heard from had a great holiday as we did. Several of our guests contributed to Black Friday by spending a good part of the day taking advantage of the sales. Scott and Sherry had to leave after dinner on Thursday because of work. When Scott opened one of his stores on Friday morning, he discovered that he'd had a breakin sometime while that store was closed. Fortunately nothing much was taken, and the thieves were unable to get into the safe. Scott had had a brand new computer system installed recently and, luckily, they didn't bother that.

We got to keep the Brayden and Jalen over the weekend. They spent Friday afternoon at Doug and Suzanne's playing computer games, among other things, with Lucas and Josie. Jalen spent the night there on Saturday.

Mark and Karen took Jalen and Brayden to the City Museum Saturday afternoon and to lunch. Brayden was so tired out that he fell asleep on the way home, and it's not a really long trip. Goldman and I took the boys halfway home on Sunday and met Scott to take them the rest of the way We had lunch at the halfway point and we explained to Brayden what a 'snow day' is. Goldman, being a school teacher is a big fan of snow days. Brayden is still not crazy about school, and on Monday Scott said he got up hoping for snow that morning. He caught on fast. Scott asked him if he was going to tell his class about playing computer games with Lucas. Scott said Brayden looked at him in amazement and told him "Of course not, they don't even know Lucas."

John and Jana will be moving this weekend if every thing goes okay on the final inspection on their house on Wednesday. We'll keep Ellie most of the day on Thursday while they load up and then they'll go to Kansas City and return on Sunday. They'll stay with us for two weeks during the week until their move and transfer are complete. We are looking forward to having them here, especially Ellie. She is at a really special age where she just does everything cute and is learning something new every day.

My month of December is filled with doctors' appointments. I have a dental appointment tomorrow and my regular overnight stay in the hospital for my IVIG on the 5th. I'm having another basil skin cancer removed from my forehead on the 17th. I have to go to Barnes for my Pre-Op on the 19th and some time I have to make an appointment with a surgeon to have a cyst removed from my back. My doctors are going to have to start calling me for an appointment.

Rose and I are going to see Sabrina's Alex play basketball tonight. He is a star on the eightth grade team. Rose has charged up her movie camera to film the event. Rumor has it that Sabrina gets as excited and as loud as any parent there. It will be fun to watch her as well as watching Alec.

Some of our other contributors are behind on their updates. We're waiting to hear what's going on with the rest of the family.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL OUR LOYAL READERS!!!!!! Some days it's hard for me to remember how much I do have to be thankful but today I'm truly thankful.

We're hosting Scott, Jalen, Brayden, Sherry, Chris, Shelly, Mark, Karen, Andrew, Shirley's nephew Michael and his wife Leslie, Shirley, Rose, and me. Rose and Shirley have been bustling around here all morning getting prepared for the arrival of these special guests, of course, with my counsel. The table is set and good smells are emanating from the kitchen.

Mike Madden and his wfe, Sarah, over on the other side of Missouri, are hosting Sarah's family for the occasion. Mike is serving wine that is, I think, made from grapes in his vineyard to compliment Sarah's cooking. Mark is bringing wine from his wine cellar to compliment the cooking here but it won't be 'home-made' as they say down.

Sandi FeLLin didn't update yet but emailed they're all going to be at Maudie's except Kay-Kay and family who (I think) are in Arizona and Sandi's son who is in Florida. There's going to be at least 30 in Spokane. How many turkeys and hams does that many consume? I hope you make the men do all the dishes.

Sabrina is hosting the Abbott clan. She came by here yesterday for a short visit and didn't seem to be in a panic yet. She's done this now for a couple years so perhaps it's getting to be old hat to her now. Margaret says she's just going to go out there and eat. She'll have to get there when dinner is ready to be served to keep herself from helping, I'm sure.

Joe, Mary, and Lisa's family are going out to eat. Pete and Janet were going to Mesquite to one of their 'establishments' and I hope they remember to eat. John and John and Ellie are in Kansas with John's family. Doug, Suzanne and family are having dinner at Doug's parents. Goldman is going to his sister's and also stopping by here to see Scott and the boys. Leslie and Sam are going to one of the King brothers.

I gripe about tatoos all the time and I have a temporary one I'm going to put on before Brayden and Jalen's arrival. Perhaps if Granny has one, they won't ever want one. They're due soon. Happy Turkey Day.

This is a correction for KU, K State, and MU fans. I posted the wrong opponents for Saturday's game. Missouri beat Kansas State, not Kansas University. Scott corrected me with a hint of impatience. He says Missouri will beat Kansas University NEXT week. Sorry, KU fans, I guess.

I had a nice Email from Mike Madden. He and his wife are hosting Thanksgiving Dinner and are serving some of the wine made from his vinyard. His daughter, Lauren, is studying to be an oentologist (I hope I spelled that right) which is the study of wine making. Mike says his and Brian's ambitions in life were to be St. Louis Cardinals. He hasn't given up hope. Lauren's sounds more achievable.

Rose and I went to the neurosurgeon this morning. We had lots of questions, and he had lots of answers. The first procedure we discussed is scheduled for January 8. The neurosurgeons will insert electrodes through incisions on each side of my head onto the surface of my brain. The wires will be attached to monitors. Prep will require shaving both sides of my head for this. I will be in pain for a few days, but the neurosurgeon said they will be certain I'm given pain medication. I'll be in the intensive care unit for one or two days after this procedure. Then I'll go into a monitoring room (audio and visual), similar to the one I was in last time, except the electrodes will be inside my head instead of outside.

Then we just wait. Last time it was six days before I had any seizures, but Dr. Dowling said sometimes it might take two weeks. Before, the doctors took away all seizure medication, but Dr. Dowling, the neurosurgeon, will let Dr. Hogan, the neurologist, make the decision on the dosage of that medicine. The neurologists want me to have seizures so they determine very definitely which side of my brain the seizures are generated from. They believe they are generated from the right side, but to be as positive as they can be before they do the actual surgery is the reason they are doing this complicated monitoring.

Should they find the seizures do originate from the right side of my brain as they all think they probably do, the actual surgery will mean a much shorter hospital stay, a less painful operation, perhaps reduced medication in the future, a probability of driving once again, and maybe others things I haven't even thought of. There will be some healing time between the first procedure and the actual operation. Dr. Dowling says the span of time is required to insure no infections set in. This was a good meeting with Dr. Dowling and very informative. However, I'm glad today is over.

Not a lot of happenings since my last post. Pete called Saturday morning. He and Janet are settled back in Arizona and he had to brag about the weather. We had a nice day here but we didn't need the air conditioner like he and Janet did. They stopped in Bendover, NV., on their way to Arizona. We're not sure how he did. We had to remind him that all gamblers don't lie.. Just a lot of liars gamble.

I had lunch with a group of GMAC retirees on Friday. Most of them knew Brick and wanted to know all about the boys and grandchildren. I don't think I've posted a recent update on Mark's two, Katie and Drew. Drew is a student at Truman College. Kate is a graduate student at KU and recently got an internship with a design process architechitural firm. Mark says she will be working with someone on one of their projects as well as learning to make coffee. Kate, let some man make the coffee. Mark and his fiance, Karen, are on a 115 mile bike ride in Arizona. They'll be here and have Thanksgiving dinner with us and then leave on Dec. 4th for sailing lessons in Cancun. They'll be gone two weeks, come home, and get married on Dec. 22, and leave on Dec. 26 for Puerto Vallarta on their honeymoon.

Kate and Drew are going skiing over Thanksgiving and aren't going to join us for dinner. We had to call Scott yesterday to see who won the MU - KU game. He said it was really no contest, of course Mizzou won. Scott has a Mizzou tiger tatooed on his back (a small tatoo), much to my objection, and was elated over the outcome.

Donald is coming through town Tuesday and he, Rose, Margaret, and I are going to have lunch. Scott, we're having pizza. It's not Domino's. It's Pio's. Pio's in St. Charles was making pizza before whoever started Domino's was born.

I have an appointment with the neurosurgeon at 9:00 A.M. tomorrow. I hope to find out what the next step in my treatment will be. They may hospitalize me, drill holes in my head, insert electrodes, and wait until I have seizures. If they can be absolutely sure the seizures originate from the right side of my brain, then they will do brain surgery and remove the scar tissue causing the seizures. The neuroligist who is working with the neurosurgeon was born in West Plains, MO. and grew up in Springfield. That's only one of the reasons we have such confidence in him. I'll update after my appointment tomorrow.

Out of respect for my mom's wishes, this will be the last update regarding her breast cancer on the blog. She is a very private person and doesn't wish to display private health information for the unknown cyber world to read. She deeply worries about such things and we feel this is the last thing she needs to be thinking about at this time. Any family that would like to know more can reach either me - Catrina - at 314-808-5218 after 5:00 on weekdays or anytime on the weekends, or Stephanie at 636-358-6413. We'll be more than happy to update you and let you know how she is doing. Of course, my mom would also love to talk to and hear encouragement from her family - all of us - when she feels up to talking.

Update on my mom - she went to the doctor this morning. The biopsy results were not what they were expecting and are pretty much inconclusive. She will be seeing an Oncologist soon and we'll know more after they run more tests. We'll update as we know.

We're waiting this morning to get the results of Margaret's lumpectomy that she had done last Friday, and we're all praying for her. The doctors have been very reassuring so we anticipate good news. One of her doting daughters will post the results as soon as they hear.

We three women living here together have become a bit eccecentric and each set in our ways. With the limited use I have of my hands I'm not much help, and they split things up accordingly. Shirley does the grocery shopping because it's easier to do it than to tell Rose what to get. Shirley does the laundry because she loves doing laundry. (This morning she started a load at 5:30 am.) They both cook and do dishes. Rose does odd stuff like picking up, recycling, trash removal, and minor repair work. Shirley has warned me of certain place that I must not leave things because the "clutter police" will make them disappear. We have a cleaning lady every couple weeks for the big stuff. We get 10,000 mail order catalogues. We laugh a lot about our ways.

We'ew having Scott and the boys, Michael and Leslie, Mark and Karen, Chris and Shelly, and hopefully Deena and family from Indiana over he Thanksgiving Holiday. We're looking forward to it very much.

A wonderful thing has happened in my life. Kay Berry has come back in to it. I called her yesterday. She thought it must have been an answer from God because she had been thinking about me. I told her I may have to have brain surgery. She said she's not concerned cause there's not much there, no big deal. Hasn't changed a bit, has she?

Joe Felin sends his "Turnbow Times" update which is posted below:


Attention: Sandi, your article was excellent and begs for one explanation: What kind of a super secret
communication system exists between you and my sisters, Sue and Rose? Only yesterday (11-11-07)
did they mention the following in a most appreciated e-mail:

" Rose and I often wonder where the rest of this big family is"

After reading the e-mail from Sue, I vowed to send something today but after reading Sandi's excellent
contribution, I am really being challenged! Here is my best shot.

Granddaughter Lydia returned last night from a school Media trip to Philadelphia, PA.

Daughter-in-law Mari'Ellen aka M.E. returned yesterday from a Chicago business trip.

Daughter Lisa, after returning from Minot, N. D. recently is leaving this Wednesday for a trip to San Antonio, TX where she will again make a presentation to some kind of a teachers meeting.

Son Dave was in Branson, MO the last part of the week to a technical meeting and a couple of overnight stays. Dave and Mari' Ellen's two dogs spend the time in the local Vet kennels.

Weather in the Ozarks continues to be nice. Our first killing frost was last week and a much needed rain is
continuing this morning.

Brother Pete called Sat. and said he and Janet were heading to "Q" AZ on Sunday with a layover in
Mesquite, NV (Las Vegas area) They are both "high rollers".

Again, all of us are very interested in news from all of our scattered family members.

This is Catrina with a quick update. My mom (Margaret) found a lump on her breast on Saturday, October 27th and a biopsy confirmed it was Stage II Breast Cancer. Mom went in Friday, November 9th for an outpatient lumpectomy and the surgeons were successful in removing the lump along with several lymph nodes. We are still awaiting final results from the tests but the prognosis is very good and at this point it does not appear she will need to undergo any type of chemo and/or radiation therapy. She is recuperating at home and we'll update more when we know more.

Hi folks! After much prompting from Aunt Sue, I'm finally getting this updated. Other than Aunt Sue and Aunt Rose, I'm not sure who else reads about our family up here, so I try to make it somewhat interesting. Thus the delay, not a lot going on in the northwest!

Haunauma Bay, Oahu, Hawaii!

This summer the Langstons invited Mom and I to join their family in Hawaii for a few days. It was wonderful! My favorite thing was snorkeling in Haunauma Bay! Good thing we did that the last day Mom and I were there because Cyndi and I got really sunburned! It was worth it. I loved it and would go back in a minute! Mom did everything we did and went everywhere we went. What a trooper - we dragged her all over the island. We souvenier shopped at the famous Swap Meet, we went to the Dole Pinapple Plant, body surfed on the North Shore where we saw turtles! Those big waves are so cool!!!! We toured Pearl Harbor, the USS Arizona and people watched at Waikiki Beach. We enjoyed the hot tub and pool at the resort, ate out just twice, so another favorite thing to do was to make dinners at the condo and enjoy our time at the table together. Those boys, Kyle and Jake are hilarious!

Kyle is a senior in high school and busy, busy with his Boy Scout Eagle project, band, track, holding a job and taking college credit classes at the university. Whew! Makes me tired just thinking about it. Jake is also in Scouts, band and has found his niche playing football. Their team - the Warriors went all the way to the championship! Last night Jake was honored with playing in the All-Star game. Aunt Tammy made it some of his games and said they were more fun than the Seahawks! Go Warriors!

Cyndi and Dave are busy being taxi drivers, cheerleaders, loan officers, coaches, and chefs just trying to keep up with these busy guys.

Here's the famous line backer!

Anna and Dan are in the process of buying a house north of Spokane. From my understanding, it is on two acres. They have been searching for sometime and will be hosting Thanksgiving there if they are moved in by then. I can't wait to see it! In our family, we have created a tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving with the family member with the newest home. You know, kind of initiate it ! It is fun and chaotic! When I moved in - during Thanksgiving week - 6 years ago, everyone came and we enjoyed being together and christening my new house. I had little furniture and a "one-butt" kitchen, but it is a treasured memory for me. I hope Anna and Dan will have fun having us all crash into their new place! Congrats! I'll post pictures when I get them.

Tammy and Dick hosted us all in Yakima to celebrate the Septmember birthdays. It was fun to see Dick's lovely home and meeting in the middle of the state was easy for all of us to make it. I went on to Spokane and stayed with Mom a few days. We picked the plums and some apples and I got to enjoy walking the loop early in the morning. Mom is doing great and keeping busy. I can't wait to see her on Thanksgiving.

The deck and shed that Glenn built!

My last couple of months have been spent finishing up landscaping my backyard. It is almost completed! Thanks to brother Glenn, the electricity is hooked up to the shed and all the irrigation and lighting systems are in. I hired Eric-the-yardboy to help do the lifting and digging that was too hard for me. We have transformed the backyard into what I had envisioned when I first moved in. Man am I tired! I had it excavated in July. The 80 foot long and 3 foot high rock wall and steps built in September, we put in the sprinkler system, lights and laid nearly 3000 sf of sod in October and November! Now, I'm just waiting for the fence contractor to come this week and next to frame it all in and it should be done!

The General Contractor at work!

Glenn was the general contractor, plumber, electricitian, photographer, historian, comedy relief and brains behind the whole project. I just had help once in a while, pay for the materials and clean up the muddy mess when we were through. I made so many trips to Home Depot and Parkrose Hardware that they know me by name! Tomorrow I am concentrating on getting the inside of the house cleaned up which has been neglected and Eric will help me get the Christmas lights up! (Yes, I know I'm a little, tiny bit early, but I have to be the first one on the block to have them up! I usually shoot for the driest day on or after Veteran's Day! It helps the whole neighborhood get in the mood!)

The rockwall, sod, lights and sprinklers are in! Just waiting for the new fence!

I've been enjoying having Monica (Peggy's youngest daughter), flit in and out of town lately. She is working for a cruiseline that is ported in "Port"land and so she drops in between cruises. One weekend she popped in and Tammy came down while we were digging all the trenches in the backyard. Now that's what I call a fun visit with Auntie! She will be in and out the next couple of months so I hope to get some good visits in. I am so privileged to have her visit and want to hang out with me! She's a doll and a very hard worker! She just bought a little Cabrio convertable that needs a home while she is on the ship...I think it would look great parked in front of my house - just don't forget to leave the keys Monica!

Hope this all finds you well. We are keeping Aunt Sue in our prayers as she continues with her treatments and upcoming tests/surgery. Happy be-lated birthday to Aunt Rose and Uncle Norm. We miss you and wish we were there to celebrate with you!

More later!

Love you!

Sandi

Rose and I just returned from an office visit with my neurologist, Dr. Hogan. He's a very personable and we believe competent young(45)man who was born in West Plains and raised in Springfield. He explained the next steps in the procedure. A neurosurgeon will admit me to Barnes-Jewish, drill burr holes inside each side of my head, insert bitemporal strips in these holes, and wait for seizures. Dr. Hogan wants to make sure these seizures originate ONLY from the right side. If he can be very sure that they do originate from the right side, then a neurosurgeon will do the actual brain surgery. Dr. Hogan, from all his experience, is pretty certain that these seizures are sourced from the right side, but he and Dr. Dowling, the neurosurgeon, want to be 100% positive. If they possibly don't originate on the right side, they will step back and make a new plan. My first office visit with Dr. Dowling is November 19. Dr. Hogan doesn't have any idea when they will do the procedure and subsequent remonitoring.

Leslie, Liz and I spent the weekend celebrating old girls weekend at the lake. Liz cooked Friday night. Leslie cooked Saturday night. We ate at my favorite restaurant on Sunday night. We spent a lot of time trying to determine what time we went to bed and what time we got up - what with the time change. Maudie Ree tried to teach me years ago "Spring forward, fall behind" but I still had trouble cause some clocks changed themselves, some Liz or Leslie changed, and some didn't change at all. Rose and Shirley had the same trouble.

Goldman told me that Christopher came by one night last week and entertained them with stories of his and Scott's summer visits to Idaho when they were kids. Uncle Pete let them ride the tractor, slop the hogs in their new tennis shoes, go to bed whenever they wanted, and numerous other things that I never knew about. They ate and loved foods Janet prepared that they would never have touched at home. Pete now is always giving Maddog and Goldman advice about women. "Check their teeth. They're easier to get than to get rid of" are just a few of his 'wise' advisements. Goldman's roommate wasn't sure if he had ever met Uncle Pete. Goldman assured him that he wouldn't have forgetten Pete if they had met.

Joe stopped by to visit Monday on his way to a Railway Club meeting in downtown St. Louis. He told us that his granddaughter, Lydia, is 15 now and eligible to drive with a driver's permit and that he would soon be out of work. He wouldn't spend the night because he didn't want to miss any of his special taxi runs. We talked about Dr. C.R. MacDonald from Marshfield who we always referred to as 'old Dr. MacDonald' before we moved from Marshfield in the late 50's. We discovered that he delivered Rose who was recently eligible for Medicare and David, Joe's son who is in his early 40's. Joe and I both agreed that 'old' back when we moved from Marshfield had a different meaning than it does today.

We need updates from our other editors. This is a FAMILY GAZETTE and we are a very large family. If anyone else would like to be added to our editor list just let us know and we'll add you.

Just a note this morning before I'm off to the lake. John and Jana brought Ellie over on Halloween to go trick-or-treating. Her costume was a ladybug. Jana said John was just using Ellie as a decoy to get candy for himself. He allowed that this was a good neighborhood for accumulating a good supply of goodies. They're off to St. John this weekend, a 9 hour drive. They'll meet themselves coming and going.

Mark and Karen are getting married 'under the misteltoe' next month and the guys are having a bachelor party for him tomorrow. It begins at 10:30 A.M. with a golf game and I don't know what is going to happen after that.

Joe called yesterday. Things are good in Springfield. He didn't have much news. Things are pretty quiet around here, too.

Leslie {aka that King girl} is going to do the grocery shopping for the old girls weekend. When we lived on the same street in Springfield we took turns making dinner. On her day she would come home from work, watch Rachel Ray's 30 minute meals, go to the grocery store, and cook whatever Rachel had prepared that day. We ate better on her day. She has probably prepared the menu for the weekend.

This was a pretty short entry so it's time for some of our contributors to make some entries. It has been some time since we've had updates from a lot of you.