The restaurant is open

Sarah had this idea to open a restaurant, use our fancy china, and serve Jason and me a romantic dinner.

 

First Caroline and she set the stage.... Rearranged living room furniture.  (Please note the bread and olive oil with balsamic vinegar to dip it in.  She got the idea from California Pizza Kitchen.) :)

 

 

Fancy glasses and plates.  Waiting for us to order...

 

  

The menu....

She wrote 2 so Jason and I could have our own.

 

 

 

Sarah called Jason at work, and said, "Is this Mr. McGlamery?  I understand that you have reservations at our restaurant tonight.  What time will you be arriving?"

 

He came home right at 6:30.  I met him on the driveway so we could walk into the restaurant together.

Caroline sat us immediately. 

 

 

We had a lovely salad with our bread.  Sure, it was a bagged salad, but Sarah did it herself. :)

 

 

She also made homemade lasagna....

 

 

(Our waiter, Jack, graciously agreed to take our picture while we ate....)

 

 

And our desserts were homemade cake with homemade icing and homemade snickerdoodles.

 

I emphasize "homemade" because Sarah cooked ALL DAY.  It was precious how hard she worked to make this special.

 

 

Jack and Caroline did everything that they could to serve and make us happy.  Whatever role Sarah assigned, they performed without any arguing.  They whispered while Jason and I talked and ate and waited for us to be finished before they had dinner.

 

So... of course, I offered to give them the same fine dining experience with fancy plates and glasses.  :)

 

 

It was a fun night.

 

A lot of work.

 

A lot of dirty dishes.

 

But this kind of thought into giving us a special dinner melts my heart. :)

 

 

Prayers please ... thanks, friends! :)

July is a big month for our family. It's all health-related.

(1) My mom is donating her kidney to her cousin, Wynette.

I don't know if you know your mom's cousin, but I love the Kents! I babysat Wynette's kids when I was a senior in high school. The same kids I babysat were in my wedding. They live in Highland Park so it wasn't a far drive for us to keep up with them through the years.

Wynette is in her late 50s or early 60s. She lost her dad to a degenerative kidney disease. She was born with the same kidney disease and opted to adopt her children so she wouldn't pass it down to anyone else.

Now she has 10% functioning of her kidneys, and she's in dire need of a transplant.

Unfortunately no one matched. Except my mom.

(There was someone else who was acceptable, but my mom matched like a sibling.)

There is a BIG transition between-- "I think it's a great idea to see if you're a match to save Wynette's life." and "Oh. You're a match?? Seriously? Crap. Hang on. Let me process this." We've all had to go on that journey in our own ways and on our own timeline.

Mom's cousin needs a kidney, like, yesterday... so this process of approval and setting a transplant date was FAST.

But we're all on board and SO proud of Mom. Mom doesn't advertise the donation. She's not telling a lot of people about it. She downplays EVERYTHING. (I don't understand how we're related.)

Her transplant date was set for July 8.

Then Wynette got pneumonia. So they've backed it up a couple of weeks.

THE PRAYERS:
1) That Wynette will get well soon! And that she won't be discouraged as she waits!
2) That the surgery will happen in July!
3) That it will be successful!
4) That recovery will be fast and easy for mom and Wynette!

..............................

(2) Jason is having eye surgery. His right eye has some type of muscle weakness that causes it to cross when it gets tired. There's a name for it. Don't ask me what it's called. But they'll basically go in and release the muscle, from what I understand.

It's a fairly routine surgery. But still... whenever you're messing with someone's eyes, there's a cause for concern. (Even though almost everyone in my family has had LASIK surgery successfully, we still worry about eye stuff.)

Also, I've noticed that Caroline's right eye does the same thing from time to time. I'll ask her if she's intending to cross it. She's not. :/

PRAYERS:
1) That Jason's surgery will go well. (The date has not been set yet.)
2) That his recovery will go well.
3) That we'll know what to do about Caroline if hers crosses as well.

...............................

(3) My dad is also having surgery on his retina. He had problems in one eye a couple of years ago and had an operation. The recovery was less than fun, but I think the procedure was successful. At least, I've never heard him complain. Now his other retina is detaching... at least I think that's the issue. Gosh. There's so much going on; it's hard to keep it straight.

He'll get it fixed at a time that works with Mom's transplant schedule.

PRAYERS:
1) That Dad's surgery will go well. (The date has not been set yet.)
2) That his recovery will be easy!

An oldie but a goodie.... An American Coach Coaches Soccer

And then they brought a piece of complimentary butter cake

Oh. My. Word.

I can die happily now.

(We've decided we're gonna tell restaurants and hotels we're celebrating an anniversary from here on.... whether we are or not.)

Tenth anniversary dinner

Made Jason do a mirror selfie. :)

Had my first filet in a long time tonight. Cooked perfectly medium. With mac and cheese I'm obsessed with.

Roll me out the door please!

Bought a long sleeved shirt today just in case

I know I'm a wimpy Texan with thin skin, but 60s are cold in shorts.

It feels a lot better today but I don't trust it to stay warm. ;)

The evolving weather

And its effect on my wardrobe and hair. :)
Ya know... the important stuff.

Shorts and straight-ish hair on the Chicago river.... to shorts and a hat at The Bean as walking on the lake front made my hair get bigger and bigger... to jeans and giving into the curl for Second City.

(I left my cap in the room... so like good dorky tourists, we bought Chicago hats.)

Today we're gonna buy a long sleeved shirt. It's way chillier than we expected.

Even our river tour guide was like, "Please come back. Chicago is usually pretty this time of year and it usually doesn't feel like October." :)

Although we can't swim in weather like this, we're kinda loving the cooler temps. I just wish I had packed a little differently.

The view from our room

And an anniversary treat from the hotel.

At Second City...

... ready to watch a comedy sketch.

Fort Worth Children's Museum

Mom took the kids to Fort Worth to visit her mom.... and as an incentive for surviving the nursing home (which is a feat for EVERYONE), she took the kids to Whataburger and the children's museum.

Thanks, KK!! :)

Got some great pics, but.....

By the time our tour ended, Jason and I wished we had long sleeves (brrr! ) and the fog rolled in. 

Big time!

Life is good

A river cruise and a bloody Mary. :)

Having fun at the arboretum

Dad took the kids to the arboretum today.

Looks fun!! :)

Winner, winner chicken dinner

I was randomly selected for additional screening.

Hello, pat down.

Maybe I should play the lotto. I'm feeling lucky.

Off to Chi-town

Should I call it that while I'm there? I'm sure that's what all the natives say. ;)

Jason and I are getting away this week.

Woo hoo!!

This is only my second time ever at Love Field. It's pretty exciting!  :)

I'm easily impressed.

Camp Gap

Sarah left for Pre-teen camp yesterday.  (I prefer to call it "Children's camp".  There's no way I have a pre-teen.)

It's her first camp. Her first time away from home for a week.

I gave her the pep talk... you know, "you'll have fun", "there's no need to feel sad or homesick", "but everyone will understand if you miss me terribly and feel the need to cry". :)

She laughed and said, "Thanks for the talk, Mom, but I'm so excited!  And it takes a lot to make me cry. I don't think missing you is gonna do it."

Happy 40th!

My parents celebrated their 40th anniversary while on a 2 1/2 week excursion to France.

How do you compete with that??

It goes something like this--

Me (to my sister): I'm thinking about giving Mom and Dad a 40 in a paper sack.

(If you don't know what a 40 is, I want to know where you grew up and what you called it. A 40 is a 40 oz beer. Usually found in a paper sack.)

And then follow loosely the train of thought...
Why?
It's their 40th anniversary.  A 40 on their 40th.
And I'm also thinking about 40 scratch off tickets.
Hey, let's do a white trash theme.

We camped out in the front driveway. We had Taco Bell. We had wine, wine coolers, and beer in an iced down Home Depot bucket. We had snack cakes for dessert.

The guys busted out sleeveless shirts and Oakleys. Hil and I had pulled-back hair, cutoffs and ill-fitting bras with white tank tops or shirts. The kids were hot messes eating tacos and riding scooters. 

We had several concerned neighbors take a second look. And a couple even approached to make sure we weren't hooligans taking advantage of my parents being gone.

All I know is.... my parents graciously loved it.  After weeks of French food, they craved crappy Taco Bell. We gave them $40 of scratch off lottery tickets. They won $62. Woo hoo!

It was a down home, red neck,  white trash party.

And it was fun!!