Almost healed

Don admiring a beautiful view

Heceta Head Lighthouse near Florence

Yaquina Head Lighthouse near Newport (tallest on Oregon coast)

My shoulder is feeling almost normal. I'm done with physical therapy 3 weeks earlier than expected. I bought some light weights yesterday to continue exercises but the soreness is mostly gone and I'm doing great. I found out yesterday that they cut off part of my collarbone as part of the surgery. That sounds weird but I guess it was necessary. My stomach hasn't felt exactly normal since the surgery and that's a little concerning. It's actually better today (I bought some infant gas relief drops and maybe that's helping). I don't know why the surgery would have messed up my stomach. I'm going to my support group tonight so I'll ask about it. I've felt pretty sick after eating really "safe" stuff and forget about taking a bite of a cookie or bread.

Don wants to get a treadmill so he can start walking consistently. Of course, I would use it too. With the cold and rainy weather and living on a steep hill it's not so easy to just walk out the door and walk everyday. We could drive somewhere but that takes too much motivation so we both think getting a treadmill would be a good alternative. We're going to go look at some today but don't know when we'll buy one - we might wait til we get our tax refund. It'll be Don's birthday present since his birthday is Friday.

We had a fun ward activity last Friday. It was a Mexican Fiesta. It was supposed to have been our ward Christmas Party but it had to be postponed because we had the big snowstorm the week it was originally scheduled. The woman who did all the cooking (and it was delicious) is Japanese so we thought that was kind of funny.

We had an "interesting" week last week. Monday night was Empty Nester's Family Home Evening. There were a lot of people there and we were in the middle of a wonderful, spiritual lesson when the missionaries showed up with an "investigator" they had just picked up in the grocery store. They are so sweet and really meant well but the guy was crazy (sorry, but there's no other way to say it). He was saying all kinds of very weird things and it really disrupted our evening. Then, after we got home, the missionaries called Don and asked if he could take the crazy guy to some social services places around town the next morning. Don never said yes (he never says no) and spent 5 hours taking the guy all over the place. He also made the HUGE mistake of giving the guy our phone number so the rest of the week the guy was calling us all the time wanting Don to do things for him. Basically, he was a user - a friendly, completely crazy user. Finally, on Friday Don spent 6 hours with him taking him places again and packing his stuff to have someone move him to Florence. I was afraid Don would get stuck actually moving him but he did have someone else lined up to do it. We've had a little talk with the missionaries since and advised them to use a little more discretion when getting involved with people. They meant well but I think they've learned a lesson and we certainly have too. We've always been pretty open to doing things for their investigators and having people over to our house, but I think in the future we're going to be more cautious.

Saturday we drove over to the coast and up to Newport (our favorite central coast town). We toured the Yaquina Head lighthouse (the tallest on the Oregon coast). It was quite a climb - I wasn't sure Don would make it but he did and got a button that said "I survived the climb." We had lunch at Mo's (which is a famous seafood restaurant on the coast) and I had slumgullion (clam chowder with shrimp) and a shrimp salad served in an avocado. I could only eat a few bites of each before I was full so I brought the leftovers home. It was all so delicious, though. While we ate we watched the fishing boats come in and watched a woman filet the fish right on the dock - kind of gross but boy, was she fast! I saw some great birds (no new ones, though) but there were some brown pelicans right on the rocks next to the Sea Lion caves and that was unusual. We also saw Surf and Black Scoters, Buffleheads, Red-breasted Merganser, Cormorants, 2 kinds of Grebes and a Kingfisher.

Saturday before last I went to the 2009 Bridal Show at the Lane Events Center with Lily and Joshua to look at all the exhibits. It was so much fun. We got to taste the wedding cakes and caterer's food and see beautiful flowers and displays. Lily's mom went with her the next day and I know they got a lot of good ideas for the wedding. I'm having lunch with Lily's mom, Marilyn, this Thursday so we can discuss a lot of the plans they've been making. It's so exciting! I'm really happy that so many family members are planning to attend the wedding. I can't wait to see everyone. It'll be a wonderful, happy time.