When I came over, George was asleep on the couch. He still needed to get his pants on so I thought a shower at the beginning of the day would be good. After he was done with his shower, making his bed, shaving etc. I made him some lunch. (When I cam over he had most of the cans out on the counter. It looked like he had eaten something earlier.) I had him drink an Ensure though while he was getting ready.
(He was looking in the closet and getting some briefs out, when I asked him what he was doing he said "We need to get some for the car" I gave him a confused look and he said "If we're going to be traveling..." I told him that Dennis and Trevor were traveling, he laughed. I like how prepared he is though ;) ) They are in Minneapolis for a ski comp until Thursday night.

We didn't get out until late and it was a good thing because while looking through the ads with him at lunch, we saw some cool stuff at World Market. I asked him if he wanted to go there and he nodded yes. Well...when we got there, I realized I had locked my keys in my car!! I called Wil and he was able to go to my place and get the extra set and bring them to me :)) the timing was perfect! We got to look around a lot ;) after that adventure, it was getting dark and cold so we came home.

George was asleep on the couch when I came over today. I told him he was going to have lunch with Sharon today on the computer. We went back and got him ready to get on skype. I brought him some lunch and coffee and they had lunch together and played with their animals. After George was done talking, I thought we would go up to Snowbird because he said he wanted to go up to the mountains and there are usually lots of people up there too. On our way up he was saying "No, no, this way!" I told him Snowbird wasn't that way but he was pretty insistent. I asked him where we were going and he said something like just over here and down around this way and when I asked him again, he said something like he just wanted to get to know that area. He was saying how big the homes were. It's fun when he knows where he wants to go and what area he is in. On the way back after a long drive, I drove into Willow Creek park. He walked with his wheelchair and then I pushed him in it, it was getting cold. We went all the way around and he was saying how he would like to live in one of the houses and then another and then one on the corner because it was 'high'. I think he would like to have a park in his backyard. We watched a bunch of girls 'exercising' at the park for awhile. He looked at me and said "Let's go home, it's getting cold." I'm kinda glad we didn't go up to Snowbird, it was kinda cold today. It looked warm though.

The weather is a lot better today than it was on Monday. It snowed over the weekend. George was just getting up when I came over around 1:30 (I received a text that he was still in bed at noon.) It was pretty late when he was ready, so we had lunch at home again and then we went to the mall to look around. He's pretty quiet today. He really wasn't into the mall, he seems pretty tired. When we came home, I fixed him something to eat.

George was in his room getting dressed when I came over today. He was really into cleaning, so I told him to take a break and then I fixed him lunch at home. We spent the afternoon cleaning. He got in the shower before I left.

When I came over today, George was still in bed! I went in and told him I was here and that it was time to get up. Usually he wakes up and gets going in his own time, but today I just went in and finally just got him up. I don't want his sleeping patterns to be out of wack. After he was dressed, he had breakfast/lunch with Sharon on skype. He got his shoes on and we went for a long drive. We were about a block from where I used to live so I took him up and showed him my old house. I said "This is where I used to live" "So what!" :/ he told me where to go and he saw a girl getting out of her car "Go ask her" Not sure what he wanted me to ask her...when we got home, he wasn't ready to be home but I had to go.

George was up 'wandering' when I got to the house. He wanted a 'drink' and wasn't happy I wouldn't get him one. (I did get him some water, but that's not what he wanted ;) ) I told him he needed to eat first and he could have one when he came home. He had some lunch at home and was looking at Tracy's family Christmas picture and telling me "These two belong to them" and "The youngest (Trevor) won 1st place a couple weeks ago." He was pretty proud of that. Once he was ready, he choose to go to the Senior Center and Living Planet Aquarium today. He rode the bike for about a half hour, lifted some weights, did some stretching, and worked with the resistence bands. I thought he would be too tired to go but he still wanted to go to the Aquarium. The fish were pretty active today. It was fun to watch the penguins play too.

Monday January 16, 2012

Dennis told me that George had a weird night and was up until 5am! He had lunch at home and seemed to be OK. After he was done with lunch, I got some cards for him to choose and activity from. He choose to go to the Senior Center but when we got there it was closed! I forgot about the holiday. I didn't really have a back up plan so we just drove down to Walmart and went to their garden center. George picked out some pretty flowering plants and some bulbs that were half off. "Oh we better get some of these." He chose some tulips and another one. Forgot the name. Some are fall and some are late spring planting. We drove by Wheeler Farm to see if the animals were out and to see the house "That looks like my house in Tacoma." When we came home we finally took down the Christmas ornaments! I found some hearts for us to put up for Valentines Day. George was sitting in the chair and didn't want to really get up and help me put the hearts on the tree but once he was up, he really got into where they should go.

Friday January 13, 2012

George had lunch at home today. We went and got his haircut (And washed). I talked to Yao about my trip to Thailand. It was fun to talk to her about it. Thanks Sharon for saving that for me to do ;) you are so thoughtfull. After George had his haircut we went for a drive.

Thursday January 12, 2012

I made George some breakfast, and he watched TV. His neighbor came over and visited with him for a bit. Sumo was on today too. I picked up Dennis and Trevor in the evening from their ski comp in Lake Tahoe.

Wednesday January 11, 2012

I remembered that Tracy Avairy is free on Wednesday's. George was really pre-occupied with cleaning. He has been all week. I could not get him going today. We skyped with Sharon (It was good to talk to you too). After that, he was ready to go :) Thanks Sharon...When we got to the Avairy it was $1.00 to get in instead of free. (I didn't bring my purse and was asking George if he had $2.00. A nice lady with a couple kids paid for us to get in. I thought that was really sweet of her. It was cold but I think we went through it all in about an hour. (We warmed up inside a building with some birds).

Tuesday January 10, 2012

I fixed breakfast and coffee for the both of us this morning. We visited for a bit and I left to go do some errands later in the day. I brought Wil over to the house later in the evening so he could look at my vacation pictures on Dennis' computer. We brought a pizza to the house. George had already made a 'sandwich' out of a hamburger bun with yogurt, white herring and butter. I wondered who went out and bought him a sandwich. He can be very inventive. It didn't look bad either. He didn't want any of the pizza. I showed him that we had plenty, but he just had his sandwich. Sumo was on late at night so he didn't get to bed until around 2am.

Monday January 9, 2012

Today I came over later in the afternoon. Dennis and Trevor are going out of town for a ski comp. I'll be staying at the house til Thursday or Friday. After I drove them to the airport I came back to the house and made dinner. We just hung out that night.

Hello! Yes I'm back. Sorry it took so long to add posts. It's my computer again :/ I'm glad to hear Sharon and George had a good month in December. Happy New Year too!

Friday February 6, 2012

I didn't notice that George had a podiatrist appt. today. He wanted to take a shower when I first got there instead of later. We will start back on the Monday schedule next week. We had lunch at home cause I came over a little later today. He was playing with his stuffed animal that dances at lunch. I called and re-scheduled the podiatrist appt. for later on. After he was done there, we went to the store. He looks nice in his new blue shirt :)

Wednesday January 4, 2012

Today when I came over, George was sitting by the window. We looked at all the fun things he got for Christmas and the fun basket of stuffed animals that he won at the Senior Center. I didn't come over on Monday, still not feeling too good. We ended up staying home today and just catching up. I showed him some of my vacation pictures after lunch but he fell asleep. Maybe Friday.

Christmas-New Years

David and I had to go back to MN on New Years Eve, so we celebrated New years with the Ogden relatives, Tom, Fran, Dennis, Ryan and Trevor on Friday. It was fun. Dennis had just gotten back from his trip so he told us a lot of great stories. And Sarah brought her new boyfriend. There were too many people to sit at the table so Ryan, Trevor and Carl had to eat somewhere else. Blake had to work so couldn’t come. Dad slid over to sit with Mamiyo and kept making faces at Dan. Patty brought him the best present: an animated stuffed toy, just like the one she had at Christmas! He’s been playing that thing nearly non-stop. So, David and I put tape over the speaker…too noisy! He really likes it though and it’s easy to operate—just one push and his ears flap. He was bouncing his leg in tune with the song (or maybe the movements?) I have to get him some more but hope we can disable the sound.

Don was in town too, but had to leave before everyone came. Dad recognized him and said, “Oh, it’s been a long time…!” but then he couldn’t remember his name and thought he was one of his cousins from Banbridge Island, WA. Those cousins are all gone now and would be in their 90s if they were still alive. He thought Blake was one of them too!

On the last day we were there, we wanted to take dad out so we asked him what he wanted to do. He pointed to the mountains and said, “let’s go up there!” He was really energetic and kept pointing the way. When we headed up little cottonwood, he said “Go to Snowbird!” He really knows that place. In fact, when we passed the first exit, he got upset. But we ended up in the usual place where the tram takes off. We ate lunch at the Fork Lift so he could have a highball and watch the skiers. He really likes to watch people and likes to be among the skiers just like an ordinary person.

He kept forgetting that we were leaving and was a little dismayed when we said we were going right now. So I showed him the photos of Jody and said that now she’ll be coming. He said, “Oh! I haven’t seen her in a long time!”, and smiled and nodded like everything would be ok. It was a good way to leave.

Christmas

Christmas
We had a full day and went to Ogden. Dad was up all day and was really alert. At Patty’s house he was really active and talked a lot. He especially liked the animated toys. One toy was a dog in a box and you press a button and he moves around and sings. His ears flap too. Dad was really excited by it and was making lots of noises while bending down watching it. At the end, he even flapped his arms to mimic the ears. He really entertained us. Later he got obsessed about a couple of obituary photos. He couldn’t figure out who they were but everyone was saying he knew them (someone connected to Sage Farm market). Auntie Mamiyo was so nice to sit with him and explain everything. They are so cute together. He got confused driving home in the dark and kept telling David to get off the freeway and ask somebody for directions. Tom and Fran stayed and watched football till close to 9pm and we opened presents.

Mid Dec-Christmas

December 13
Today, dad went to Dr. Baker for a quick check up since he’s no longer on hospice and to check his weepy eye. He remembered Misty, the nurse, and Dr. Baker real well. He said, “Hiya Doc!” He weighed 91 pounds with shoes, a coat and some coins in his pocket. I can’t believe he once weighed amost 10 pounds less than that!

After getting upset at Trevor, Carl and Ryan and talking to them for more than an hour the other day, he’s had 2 really tired days. He’s been going to bed sometime around midnight to 2 every night but I noticed sometimes gets up in the middle of the night or early in the morning. Sometimes the fireplace is going and the paper is inside but he’s in bed, once he was sitting in front of the fire in his robe. He looked really cozy.

It’s been hard to get him up and out. He seems pretty content just resting. But when he goes out he’s very alert and seems interested in everything. After the Dr apt at 4:30, we went for a long drive to look at the lights: Christmas Street, the zoo, downtown… It was too cold to get out and go into the zoo today but maybe when David is here. It looks really cool! He really likes the lights a lot and keeps looking for the neighbor’s lights to go on (they often don’t turn them on). He can’t see much of the one’s Ryan put up on his own house, so I think we’ll try to get some in the bushes or around the window.

Dad woke up around 7am had all the lights on and was looking around for people. He kept asking about “that guy whose staying here (Ryan)”. He sees his work truck out front and is trying to figure out what its for. He thinks Ryan is an electrician. Ryan made extra hot cereal this morning; dad liked it and ate it all up. He saw a lady running past his house and he waved at her and said “that girl whose running..she must be really healthy; she must be really strong”. He’s been talking a lot lately.

Dec 16
David came in on Friday morning. Dad remembered him and seemed happy to see him. He especially rememberd Marty, David’s dad. They looked at a photo of him and dad said, “oh, he’s your father!” We met Patty, Dan, Mamiyo, Sarah and Veronica for dinner at Golden Dragon. It was fun. Dad was like his old self. He held mamiyo’s hand and ate a lot of food and insisted on paying for part of the dinner. He gave a quick nod and wave when people thanked him. He likes being gracious. We took hin to Park City to get out of the inversion and he seemed to have fun looking at all the shops. Ryan and David put more lights out on the bushes and dad said, “oh good! “ We left some inside lights lying on the ground near the window and when we got home from shopping, he had draped the lights on the lower windows, like two Christmas trees. He also helped put up the tree. He had a lot of energy that day and worked hard on the tree. But then the next day he was pooped all day, went to bed on his own around 11. The next day (today, Monday) he was up but didn’t want to change out of his robe. It snowed over night and he was disappointed this morning. I tried to get him out to the Senior Center to pick up his raffle gift but he said no one drives on a day like this! Maybe tomorrow? We took Trevor to see a movie. We hope to take Blake on Thursday.

Tuesday

We picked up his gift at the senior center and he was really surprised and happy that he won a basket of stuffed animals. Afterwards we went to the barbershop and David got his haircut. Dad got a kick out of watching him. Then we went to the Museum of Natural History. That was a great place! But I think he was anxious to get home to enjoy his winnings. He was really obsessed about how to position the animals, including the ones he already has. And took a long time arranging everything just right in front of the window. And he was really giddy seeing them all together. I had to take a lot of pictures just to get the right shot (they had to fill the photo). And we put lights around his window and everything looked so pretty. He laughed really hard when he saw all the lights and stuffed animals in the window. I haven’t heard him laugh this hard in a long time.

Later this week (can’t keep track of the dates), we drove around to see the lights at night and ate dinner at mt. Fuji. He recognized it and said, we’re close to home. Ron came over another night with a carrot cake and we sat around drinking whipped cream vodka which we found in the cabinet. Ron stayed a bit too long for dad. He kept looking at me, then finally he told Ron “you better go home; you left your lights on…next time…” It was really funny. On Christmas eve, at 10pm, we took dad to another lessons and carols service at the Episcopal church down the street. He seemed interested in everything, especially the kids. People were nice to come over and shake his hand. He liked that. He’s been going to sleep before midnight lately. But he wakes up briefly in the middle of the night sometimes. Once he was at the front door when the newspaper delivery person came by around 5ish. He walks around opening doors then goes back to bed. But he’s been waking up around 9 every day now. One day we were able to get him all settled by 10am and then we took off to go skiing. He was still sitting on his couch at 5 when we got home. But it seemed he really enjoyed watching TV all day.