San Diego Surprises!

Well, Thanksgiving turned out to be a little different then we planned. My mom ended up being admitted to the hospital with a diagnosis of congestive heart failure. Fluid had built up in her lungs and heart. They started her on a course of diuretics and oxygen and she spent 3 days there before being discharged on Sunday evening. This changed our plans not only for a Thursday night Thanksgiving dinner but our scheduled Monday departure. We ended up having our dinner on Friday night and we were able to FaceTime my mom in for a part of it. We also were missing my sister and brother in law. They were going to fly in from Salt Lake City but both ended up getting Covid! What a week! We were very thankful they became sick before arriving and exposing my parents! I'm happy to say that not only is my mom doing much better but Laura and Dennis are better also. My mom had a few set backs with her medicine dosages but think she is really on the right path now. The photo below was taken the night she got out of the hospital. Scooby wanted to stay right by her side!

The week then started with news that Elizabeth and her fiancé Tyler were also positive for Covid! They so far have been experiencing fairly mild symptoms but still on the path to recovery. With my mom just home, we made the decision to stay on a few extra days to get her settled and help my dad. One evening, my dad mentioned maybe they should go get a small tree. Well, the next morning. before we all woke up, Bob had gone to Home Depot and came back with not only a small tree but lots of decorations too!

My parents loved the final look and with everything on timers, they just get to sit back and enjoy the lights at night. With such warm temperatures it's hard to realize it's actually close to Christmas, but this sure put us all in the holiday mood!

My parents really wanted to see see Cousin Eddy the RV so we took an afternoon outing to where we were camping and they enjoyed a nice tour of the campground and the RV. Think they were all ready to head off somewhere with us.

Another almost daily trip was to take my parents on a walk at Shelter Island. A really nice view of the bay and lots of benches along the way for them to rest and watch the boats go by. Scooby loved the afternoon walks!

One of the sweetest moments of the entire trip was when I walked into my parents house to hear my mother playing piano! You see, I grew up my entire life hearing piano in our home because my mother had a degree in music and taught piano pretty much my entire childhood. The other incredible thing is that my mom has a lot of memory issues but sat at the piano and just played straight from memory! It brought tears to my eyes as I sat in awe and watched her play.

Another special moment actually happened the entire time I was in San Diego. It was to see how sweet my mom and dad were to each other and how much they love each other after all of these 66 years of marriage! An inspiration to us all!

Well...our 2 week stay turned into almost 3 but so glad our schedule is flexible enough to allow a change in plans when unexpected things come up! It was such a special time to get to be with my parents and also my brother and sister in law.

The photo below was taken on one of the last nights in San Diego at Bill and Brenda's place.

We pulled out of San Diego this AM and just passed into Arizona for the eastward bound section of our trip. We are on I-8 now and will just drive until we get tired. We want to be home mid December. Elizabeth and Tyler will be joining us for Christmas. Looking forward to that has helped eased the sadness of leaving my San Diego family behind. I miss them already!