Monday, July 28, 2008

Friday the 25th Brian and I celebrated 21 years of marriage. It was a quiet day, spent taking a drive, enjoying the sunshine, each other and our girls. The years have gone by fast. I have been going through old photo albums and it is amazing how we have changed.
Last week a couple of friends rented a DVD from the 1960’s shows Dark Shadow, Twlight Zone and Paladin. The acting was old fashioned and hokey but we had a great time watching them. Everyone sat around and talked about how old they were, why they loved the show and their favorite character.
Tuesday, we are taking a drive to the Mckenzie River outside of Eugene. We wanted to go in the winter but the roads were closed. This is river Brian loves and has wanted to revisit for a long time. It will be quite a journey for us. Will take about 6-7 hours. I am taking all the ventilator batteries, plus food and medicine. It will be worth the effort.
We are taking the girls on a drive this weekend to the Siletz River. This is a river we visited in the spring but could not get to the rapid Brian wanted to see. The road is open on the weekends so we are going to try again.
Brian’s health is the same. Not much happening, he seems to be in a stable period at the moment. We are getting our third Hospice nurse this week. Apparently the nurse we had was just a fill in until our nurse returned from vacation. We have really enjoyed our nurse and look forward to meeting our next nurse.
Brian continues to enjoy his communication device. He has quite a sense of humor and loves showing off. He also is able to tell me how he feels, what I need to tell the doctors, therapists and other health personnel. It is wonderful when it works.
While Diane was visiting we went to a beautiful lavender farm. The lavender was in full bloom with lots of bees flying around. The view was spectacular. Mt. Hood in the distance and the valley below. We are lucky to live in Oregon.
Monday, we started out going to Astoria. We drove as far as Columbia City to find out the road was closed due to a brush fire. We turned around and found a very curvy road to Vernonia. I was completely stressed out because it was an old poorly paved highway and Brian’s neck was bobbing all over the place. I hold onto the brace but I could not give him much comfort because of the road. We had to pull over several times to let log truck go by. We both agree it was a beautiful once we got home and relaxed a few minutes.