It's been a rather quiet week here. Rose and I took Jalen and Brayden over in Illinois to meet Scott on New Years Day and return his boys. They were surely glad to see their Dad, and we have been sorely missing them. We nearly ran out of gas coming back because gas was $3.09 a gallon in Illinois so we wanted to wait and buy it in Missouri. We thought we were going to have to back up hills like Joe said they did in Model T's to conserve what little gas we had before we crossed the bridge into Missouri. We made it but the car took a full tank.

Pete and Janet were going to leave Idaho for Arizona on the 28th, but a blizzard struck Idaho Falls. They were snowed in and couldn't get out until New Years Eve morning. They took their time, stopped two nights along the way. Pete called me, I think it was Wednesday; they were still 120 miles from Quartzite.

These pictures that we've been posting on the blog have been mostly taken with the camera that Scott and the boys gave me for Christmas. Rose is the expert at it and takes the majority of pictures. The only problem with that is that there are none of her. I'll try to remedy that by having Shirley be the photographer. I looked at the ones of me and Brayden and Jalen and at first wondered who that old lady was. Then, "Oh no, it's me!."

Rose treated Jalen, Brayden, and me to a very nice restaurant on New Year's Eve. Brayden accidently spilled his water soon after we sat down, which embarassed him badly. He ordered shrimp and pasta which he thought was going to be fresh shrimp with a serving of spaghetti. It turned out to be boiled shrimp in noodles in white sauce. He took two bites, then leaned over to Aunt Rose and whispered "If I eat one more bite I'm going to puke." He did like the salad and ate two of those, some of Jalen's meal, and lots of the hot bread. He proclaimed on the way home that he much prefers McDonalds.

Tuesday is the beginning of my ordeal. I have to be at the hospital at 6 A.M., so Rose and I have decided we may just have to stay up all night. Chris offered to take me to Barnes Jewish Hospital, but it would be a long, long trip for him with hiway 40 shut down as it is. I'll be in the operating room for 3 to 4 hours. I'll shower the night before and was worrying about how my hair was going to look after sleeping until I remembered they will shave part of my head. I'll be in ICU for 2 or 3 days after the surgery because of risk of infection. I know Rose will hover over me and make sure I'm well taken care of. Also Margaret and Norm will be around and Joe (and maybe David, too) plan on coming up one day. Chris says he's going to jog in Forest Park which is across the sreeet from the hospital, so he can visit me quite often. I know I'll have other visitors and calls, and I'll have my cell phone and my computer after the first few days. I may be in there 10 days to 2 weeks for this monitoring ordeal. Hopefully I should be seizure free and able to drive again if all goes as expected. If this next monitoring pinpoints the problem area, a follow-up procedure to remove the offending cells and a short hospital stay will be all that is necessary. Again, keep me in your prayers. They've helped so far.