It is Saturday after noon and Ms. Kate and I are home. We left Fredericksburg Texas on Thursday morning and made it to Texarkana, AR. Then yesterday morning we decided to try to make it home. We were just tired and didn’t want another hotel bag drag. So, we pushed hard and arrived home just as the sun was setting at 1900 hours. Most everything is still in the car. One of my jobs today is to get everything out of the car and put stuff away. But today so far has been spent relaxing mostly. I did take the car and get it gassed up and 2,000 miles worth of bugs cleaned off of it when I went to the post office to pick up my held mail. 

Ms. Kate made the trip very well. She had a couple of small bouts of nausea but they passed relatively quickly with her medicine for it. It has been months since I saw her feel this good. God is so good. I thank each and everyone of you who has prayed for her. Her ordeal is not over. She still is facing the possibility of colon surgery. She will know more after her appointments with our doctor and her surgeon. It would be nice to think that she is completely healed but the abscess is still there. 

So, there are lots of leaves to mulch up and blow off of my sidewalks. Lots of weeds that need pulling an a lawn that need to be mowed. Some who none of that magically got done while we were gone. But, we did come home to a clean house because our cleaning lady had come on Wednesday and had us prepped and ready. She does such a wonderful job, and goes above and beyond. But, other than bring the stuff in from the car, I don’t know that I will do anything else today. I’m on vacation!!!

I pray you have a blessed weekend. Take time to give thanks for your week of blessings. Peace. 

 God is great and Hill Country Methodist Hospital is wonderful. They have Ms. Kate back in sync and have released her from the hospital about 30 minutes ago. So, we have come back to my hotel room and will spend the night and head out towards Evansville in the morning. Many, many praise to the doctors and caregivers at that hospital. 

That’s all I got!  Our day has been blessed, I pray your’s will be too. Peace. 

 Tuesday morning an we are still in Fredericksburg. Our vacation took a sudden turn and Kate is in the hospital here in Fredericksburg. She has been sick the whole time we were here and hadn’t left the rental house. We had a great visit with the kids though. We went and did things but mostly stay at the house with Kate. Sunday evening she started feeling worse and then had a terrible night, with nausea and vomiting. So, first thing yesterday morning she called her surgeon’s office back in Evansville, and her surgeon said she needed to be seen and have another CT with contrast scan done. So, I got on Google and found out they have a hospital here. Heather and John finished closing up the rental unit while I took her to the ER at Methodist Hill Country Hospital. They then headed to San Antonio to catch the flight home. 

The hospital is really good and they got busy with Kate right away. They did all kinds of bloodwork and finally came back and said they systems were way out of balance and the abscess on her Colon is causing the problem. So, they admitted her. They have looked at several options; —- everything from inserting a drain into the abscess to keeping her and building her system back up with Electrolytes and antibiotics enough to get home, to full out surgery. The decisions were fluid all day. I think they have decided to not do any surgery because they are leaving her  Coumadin levels alone.  So, at this point, I don’t have a final diagnosis and probably won’t until they do another CT scan to see how things are progressing. But — they have her nausea under control and she had a good night last night. We are hoping now to get on the road by Thursday. Heather and John changed their flight plans to fly tomorrow and came back. I got us a couple of rooms at the local Comfort Inn & Suites. 

So, That’s my news’s for this glorious day. We may not yet be on the way home, but Kate is where she needs to be and is receiving good care. God has looked after us once again. 

Peace. 

 Happy Sunday morning. I’m sitting on the back patio of our rental house again this morning. It’s a little muggy because we don’t have the breeze this morning like I had on Friday morning. But my world is complete; Kate, Heather & Steph are sitting around the fire pit (fire not allowed due to burn ban) and they are visiting and enjoying being together. Steph and Chris will head back to Oklahoma this morning some time. The rest of us will be on the road before 1000 hrs tomorrow morning. Heather and John to CA and Kate and I start the drive back home. It’s been a very enjoyable vacation with the exception of Kate feeling constantly sick. She hasn’t left the house because of nausea. It’s caused by the dang super strong antibiotics that she has to take. Bless her heart. But —- she says she has thoroughly enjoyed the visit. 

Yesterday the four of us went to the Texas Ranger memorial. It as interesting. I guess the thing that I really  found interesting is the high number of Texas Rangers that were killed in the line of duty over the years. From there I had them drop me off back at the house  and they went to downtown Fredericksburg and walked around and looked at the shops. I don’t know that they bought anything and it was a hot day to be doing that. Later they came back to the house and we sat around until it was about supper time and then we went looking for a good meal. 

I had hoped to find a good Chicken fried steak someplace so we went on line and found a place that was supposed to “have the best chicken fried steak in Texas”. We got there and it was so loud and the line was long so we walked one down the street and found another place. But —- they only had chicken fried chicken and not steak. We settled for that and it was delicious. 

Today I want to go to a Wildflower Seed store and look around. I’m thinking that I want to turn one of my raised beds into a wild flower bed instead of raising any garden next year. So I want to buy a mixture of wildflower seeds to plant in there. After that we are going to a winery tasting and then petting a rhino. What can I say, I’m a wild child. LOLOLOL. 

In a couple of hours, I’ll watch Pastor Art as he conduct the worship service at St. Lucas. 

That’s it; have a blessed Sunday. Take time to talk with God today. Peace. 

 Good morning. It’s Friday, September 22nd and I’m writing to you from the back patio of our rented house in Fredericksburg. It is currently 80 degrees and there is a beautiful breeze blowing through. However, the sun will be getting higher and the temperature is going to hit 95 by mid day. 

This has been an eventful week. It was just eight days ago that Kate was put in the hospital and we did not know if she was going to require surgery or not. Between then and Monday she was given massive amounts of antibiotics and is still taking some by pill now. However, surgery for the present time has been put on hold. She got to feeling much better and we took her home on Monday afternoon. We were determined to make this vacation happen although we have shortened it by a week. Tuesday we decided to give travel a test try and headed out and stopped in Metropolis  Illinois for the night. She handled that well so we took off of Texarkana, Arkansas and spent the night. Yesterday morning we headed on down to Fredericksburg and arrived around 1700 last evening. 

The house we have rented is a neat place; very spacious and very clean. Today Kate is feeling a bit nauseous and we are just sitting around at the house and waiting for Heather and Steph and hubbies to arrive this afternoon. In the meantime, I’m going to make a Walmart run. It is only about three blocks away. I need to pick up some simple stuff. 

There are some thing I want to see here in Fredericksburg, one of which is the Texas Rangers museum. And I need to check the local ads for good German restaurants.  

That catches you up. Have a wonderful day. Peace. 

 Monday morning, September 18th. We are still at Deaconess Midtown Hospital. But the hope is that Kate will get to go home today. Dr. Gessfora, the hospitalist, was just in and checked her out and also expressed that she hopes Kate gets to go home today too. but, I guess it will have to be someone from the surgeon’s group that actually releases her. So, we could easily be here until this evening. But that’s alright; —- boring but alright, as long as she gets to go home. She wouldn’t have been doing anything more than resting at home anyway. But, it would have given me a chance to get some preps done for the trip. I have my suitcase mostly packed but I know that I’ll be packing hers too. 

So, I’m officially on vacation. That’s our first since March when we ran down and back to North Carolina for Amanda’s wedding, and that was a whirlwind trip. We’re really hoping that this trip will be relaxing. Our current plan, (and they change daily) is that we will now leave on Wednesday and will arrive at our rental house on Thursday evening. Then we leave Texas and will drive to Biloxi, Mississippi. We have reservations at two different resorts while we are in that area. One in Biloxi and one in Gulfport. We have stayed in both before several times and really like both places. We have certain restaurants in the area that we like to go to. One of our favorites is over in a small town called Bay St. John. They have some seafood dishes that Kate really like’s and the seafood is of course fresh out of the Gulf. 

My favorite place is the Beau Rivage Hotel and casino. Kate and I do like to play the penny slot machines. We take along a certain amount of money that expect to lose and just consider it the price of entertainment. Kate’s sister, has in the past won some good hits on the slots there but certainly none of us have become paupers or rich. And, I really like the coffee shop restaurant and the buffet at the Beau Rivage. Having said all of that, if when we get ready to leave Texas Kate isn’t feeling well, we will just head back home and finish our vacation as a “stay-cation”. 

That’s it for today. I donn’t know how often we I will be writing this week, because our plans our fluid. So, I pray you will have great days. Peace 

 It’s ne’er a dull moment around our house. Today I’m sitting in a hospital room with Ms. Kate. I told you she had to go for a CT Scan with contrast yesterday morning. Well, her doctor got the results back and called her and told her to go to the emergency room. We did around 3:30 yesterday afternoon. We were in the ER for 3.5 hours but they finally assigned her a room. I went home as they wheeled her up to her room. They are treating her for a diverticulitis infection. She can’t have anything to eat or drink until my tomorrow morning. They are giving her very strong antibiotics. She has a leak in her colon and they are hoping that these drugs will close it. If not, they will have to do surgery to repair. So, I’m asking for prayers for her. 

I came up here this morning at 0800. I eventually went down stairs for breakfast. I didn’t want to eat anything in front of her and have her even smell it. That would not have been kind. 

The trip next week is still on until we are sure we can’t make it. If we can’t, Heather & John and Steph and Chris can certainly still use the rental.

That’s it in our exciting world. Hope things are better in yours. Peace.