Surprise Grandson's Phone Call

Merritt and Grandpa clowning around.  Top photo is of Bobby and Artelle, his wife, when they were first married.


I was elated a couple of days ago when I received a phone call from my Grandson Merritt.  He was waiting for the bus he takes to work.  I was shocked to hear his voice as it has been a while since I have seen him and it is unusual for him to call.  We talked a few minutes just the usual stuff, and then he started to tell me some of the things that have happened to him lately.  He works at Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas as a life guard and has to ride the bus to and from work.  One day while on the bus, someone shot at the bus, now that wasn't funny and could have been serious, but it just made me realize that Vegas is not a very safe place to be.  There are so many crimes like this that they aren't even reported in the news.  Sometimes I wonder if it is because they don't want to scare the tourists away.  Merritt will be moving to a better part of town next month and that will be a good thing.

We went from the serious gun shot to the bus, to a funny episode that happened to him just lately.  One of his friends that he rooms with was going to take him to work one morning.  Merritt's alarm clock didn't go off and when he woke up and realized what had happened, he jumped out of bed got dressed and he and his friend headed to work and he was able to make it just in the nick of time.  He wasn't late.  He worked his shift and was getting ready to head to the bus stop to catch the bus home, when he realized he had forgotten his wallet due to the rush to get to work that morning. In the wallet was his bus pass. He called a friend, but his friend's phone wasn't working.  So he thought of something that I would have never thought of.  He made a poster that said "Compliments $.25 per compliment."  Something like that.  He stood on a bridge over the strip and held up the sign.  He ended up with one lady giving him $4.00 and she told him that was a bargain.  I would have loved to have heard some of the compliments he gave out.  I am sure the people that gave him money for the compliments saw he was a clean cut kid and just wanted to have fun with him.  He ended up with the bus fare and was able to get home.

Now most of us would have asked a co-worker for a loan that would be paid back the next day, but my ingenious grand son came up with a different way of getting the money and the best part is that it worked.  I told Merritt that he reminded me of my brother Bobby who would have done something like that.  My brother Bobby was always doing something funny, and was a real character.  Unfortunately Bobby, committed suicide several years ago and I miss him a lot.  I can't help but wonder if Bobby passed along some of his funny genes to Merritt.

New Look For the Master Bedroom

Frank and I have never really liked the paint color of our interior walls.  The color was supposed to be a neutral beige but ended up with a lot of yellow or gold in the color.  It has faded some and doesn't appear to be as gold.  If we could do one thing to our home it would be to have it professionally repainted.  We have only been in our home five years and the paint is in good condition except for a few dings in the dining room and one in my bathroom.

I have bought so many bedspreads trying to find something that would look good with the paint color.  Frank didn't like the dark brown spread I had as he felt it made the room too dark.  So We started looking for a new bedspread a few months ago.  We couldn't find anything we liked until last week at Sam's Club we found one that had the spread, beds skirt, and pillow shams. 

Then, of course, I had to find new curtains.  We went to Anna's Linens and we found some that we thought looked good with the spread. 

Frank helped me out a lot this morning and steamed the new spread as it was badly wrinkled.  We hung the curtains yesterday.  So here are the views of the new look.  One is just the comforter that I already had and I was thinking it looked good with the new curtains and pillow shams. I could just add a dark brown throw across the bottom which seems to be the new look.  Well hopefully we will be satisfied for a while.  I have about four bedspreads waiting to be sold at our next yard sale.

Another Fun Day With The Girls

Yesterday turned into a fun day with the girls.  Sherry talked Renee into coming out to Overton with her to get a treatment from Bret.  Renee called Robyn and Jamie to come and join us for lunch. So we all met at The Scoop after Sherry and Renee had their treatment from Bret.  Jamie met us at Sherry's after lunch and Frank left me with the girls to visit. We had so much fun visiting and watching Rozlynn learning to crawl and play.  She crawls like a worm, and it won't be long before she will be crawling all over the place.  Every time we see her she is bigger and doing something new.

Robyn is really looking PG now and looked so cute with the belly poking out.  We can't wait for her to have her baby and to watch him grow and enjoy him. She is due August 22 and that really isn't that far away, as time flies. It is nice to have Robyn closer and to be able to see her more often.  We decided to try and do another marathon visit on June 28.  We will see if that works out as it seems like something always comes up.

The best part for me was when Jamie drove me home and gave me a massage. She started on me around 6:30 PM and finished around 8PM.  We gabbed to the whole way through the massage and it went by way too fast. I was like a wet noodle.  I got up and ate something, watched a little TV and then went to bed.  I slept really good as usual after a massage. Well, that caught me up on the blog.  I just came in from trimming my roses, and fertilizing them.  So it is time to turn the computer off and get ready for bed.

Family fun in Las Vegas

Frank and I were a little stir crazy and decided to go to Vegas and stay with Sherry for a couple of nights.  We wanted to do something fun.  The first night Renee, Jason, baby Rozlynn, Sherry, Frank, and I met at the Yard House and had dinner.  Rozlynn entertained us and we all enjoyed the meal tasting each others food.  We had to walk a country mile to get to the restaurant, as it is located in Town Square but at least the weather had cooled down so actually the walk was nice. It was really windy and I ended up having to take all my eye makeup off as my eyes were itching, swollen, and watering and my nose was running. I sure am glad no one took my picture.  There must have been something blowing in the wind that I was allergic to. 

When we were through eating we went outside and sat on a bench and visited for a while, by then the wind had died down some and it was so cool and nice we just lingered and enjoyed the coolness as we knew it wasn't going to last long.  Bret you will enjoy this one.  Pops was checking out the asphalt problems.  He explained to everyone about your shopping trips with Pops and I, a long time ago, and you and him checking out the asphalt.  Pops is going to tell you he a found a good  place to find asphalt problems.

The next day Frank and I did a little shopping as we have been looking for a bedspread so we went to Kohl's where I had no luck in finding one that I liked. Then we went to a health food store looking for a diabetic supplement that I wanted to buy, but unfortunately they were out of it and won't have any in until July. We then headed to Mandalay Bay and went to the Sharks Reef.  That was fun and we saw a lot of interesting fish. I have been wanting to do that for a long time. We waited too long to eat and I was feeling the effects of not eating.  We decided to go to Red Robin and I had soup and salad.  I was disappointed with the salad as they didn't put the tortilla strips in it like they usually do, and I forgot to ask the waitress if they had stopped putting them in the salads.

 We went back to Sherry's condo and Jason, Renee, and baby Rozlynn came over to go swimming.  Jason and Renee are working with Rozlynn to eventually learn how to swim.  The weather was cooler than normal so the water was cold.  Rozlynn liked it at first, but soon got cold and started fussing.  Poor Jason was freezing too.  We went back inside Sherry's condo and waited for her to come home.  Jason was exhausted and soon fell asleep and Renee took the baby and crashed on Sherry's bed.  I went to bed later and Sherry told me Renee and Jason slept until almost midnight before they got up and went home.  The next day was Saturday and we went to Sam's and to my surprise I found a bedspread there.  We ate some lunch and came home.  We had a nice mini vacation.

Cousins Visit

I received a phone call from Lisa my cousin from St. George.  She asked if she and her Mom could come for a visit the following day Monday June 7th.  I was so excited as they have never been to our new home.  We usually see them in St. George and it is usually when something is going on with the family, weddings, graduations, etc.  So I called Sherry and told her Lisa and Penny, Lisa's Mom were coming to visit.  Sherry decided she would drive home from Vegas and spend the night just so she could be here and get to see them. 

It was so much fun as we talked, laughed, cried etc.  We ended up going to Sherry's new home so Lisa and Penny could see it and we stayed there for a couple of hours.  We came back to my house and snacked on some macaroni salad, crackers, and cheese.  We decided that we should do this again and make sure we invite Lorri, Penny's sister as she was disappointed that they hadn't invited her, but it was such a spur of the moment thing and Lorri is always so busy she wouldn't  have had enough time to prepare for the trip.  Next time they come, it will be a sleep over party.  I hope it all pans out as it seems like planned things never work as well as spur of the moment things. 

Sherry won't like this picture.  She hasn't been feeling too good as she has been having some dizziness going on.  She thinks it is from allergies that she had a month or so ago. I sure hope she gets better soon as she has to work with heavy trays serving drinks, and she has had a couple of spills due to the dizziness.  So Sherry don't be too mad at me for the picture.

Catchin up With the Merritts

Since my last post about my Sleep Apena, I finally went back to Dr. Hall the dentist that works for Dr. Saifee.  Dr. Hall does all the things necessary to have the dental sleep apena
appliance made.  I had to have x-rays, measurements of my mouth, etc.  Then the yucky part of having the gunk put into my mouth on trays to make a form for the appliance to be made from. 

A couple of weeks ago I was able to go back to St. George to get the appliance and be instructed on how to use them.  When I first saw them I thought to my self, "Those things look big how the heck am I going to handle having them in my mouth?"  I have a very small mouth and when I first put them in, I felt like a had a big ball in my mouth.  But after using them for two weeks now, I can get them in and out a lot easier, and I have been sleeping better as long as Frank doesn't snore.  They open up the air passage way and I can breath better. 

Poor Frank just can't seem to get used to his CPAC as he can't breath back into the mask.  We went over to Mesquite last week and the lab guy worked with him and he ended up with a different mask and also adjustments made to the machine.  Frank thought he would be able to use it, but so far he still has problems.  He has been trying to use it during the day as instructed, but yesterday he fought it.  So we have another option and that is a higher tech CPAC.  I keep hoping that he will be able to use it as we have been told that it would make a big difference in losing weight, feeling less fatigued, and lower blood pressure.  In other words just make us healthier. Guess it is a wait and see thing.  Frank thinks maybe he could use the dental appliance, but after I was thinking about it, I doubt they would work for him as he can only breath through his mouth, and the appliance is designed to keep your mouth closed.

The Heat is On

Wow! it was 108 today here in our valley.  I think we all knew that it was coming and I guess we shouldn't complain as the month of May was wonderful.  We were going stir crazy today and I tried to busy myself with genealogy on ancestry and that took my mind off from the boredom for a while. 

As I was sitting at my computer looking at an old property deed, Frank invited me to go to Mesquite for dinner.  I jumped up and was ready in a few minutes.  Yea! we were getting out of the house for a while.  The first thing I noticed that is all too familiar was the heat wave hitting me in the face as we got out of the car at the Casa Blanca.  Yep, summer is here.

My idea of getting away for a month or so to a cool place like a Park City, Utah Condo blew up like a big balloon popping. When I inquired about a monthly rate on a nice condo, and the owner said $2,000, I said "well that is a little out of our price bracket."  Who am I kidding, it is way out of our bracket!  Park City is only for the rich and famous.  For people like us it is a place to drive through and see the beautiful scenery and homes of the rich.

My Aunt Kay used to own a condo there, and she let us stay there for vacations, and we really enjoyed it.  That was for free, and all we had to do was leave it nice and clean.  Now that is my kind of price. :) We had a lot of fun as Park City is close to all kinds of fun things to do.  Salt Lake is close by with all of the attractions there, including relatives and friends to visit.  So we thought that would be fun to do again.  Well, I guess I will have to come up with a new game plan.  Maybe some new misters and a barbecue on my back patio, or one of those blow up pools to splash in. :)  I can always sit by my fiith wheel travel trailer, and pretend that we are back by the beautiful ocean.  That wouldn't last too long as the sweat would be pouring down my face in a minute.  Oh well, the think tank is starting up.  We will see what we can come up with.