Mother slept well for 11 hours last night and woke up feeling herself again. Phew! Cyd and I are taking full credit even though Deb told us what to do. That’s just how we roll.

We decided last night to plan a slow morning that approximates Mother’s life @ home. We got up around 7:00, brought coffee to the room around 8:00, and then went back down around 8:30 and selected breakfast and brought it to the room. At 10:00 Mother was enjoying a morning nap. This seemed to be a good plan and set us on the right path for a good afternoon.

A tea party with Mother’s next door neighbor of 17 years, Marge, and their mutual friend, Loretta, was the bright spot of the afternoon. It was fun to listen to the three of them reminisce about their days together: borrowing cups of sugar, drives in the mountain, house sitting, dog sitting, holidays, and watching each other’s children grow and change.

From Marge’s we stopped at a local grocery store to pick up dinner to eat in our room: chicken fingers, soup, and bread and butter. We splurged with the Holiday Inn Express hotel points Dan offered and have a nice, big suite, so we spread our picnic out on the table and dug in.

Our day ended on a high note with a visit to Mother’s very first and therefore oldest friend, Helen, 93. They met in first grade in Fraser. Helen was as cute as they come with an infectious giggle. She told us about working in the timber with her dad. When we asked what a 14 year old did in the timber, she explained her job was to strip bark from the trees before they were made into either fence posts or telephone poles. Helen also mentioned that her grandparents were advised to move from Wisconsin to Colorado in the hopes of curing her grandmother’s TB. They went west in a covered wagon and, sure enough, the grandma got well, had more children, lived a long life, and is buried in the Fraser cemetery. One of Mother’s favorite Helen stories involves the two of them, both six at the time, going on a picnic. Mother packed a bologna sandwich and an apple in a covered pail, walked the mile and a half to Helen’s house and together they went on a half mile more to a lone grave where they enjoyed their lunch. Mother and Helen also talked about their cemetery plots which are next to each in the Fraser cemetery. Helen reminded Mother that she (Helen) has a promise from her children to decorate Mother’s grave each time they decorate hers.

Our day went so well. The weather has been unseasonably warm with full sun. Mother was tired by bedtime but felt so much better than this time yesterday.