What a trip!!!

Sunday afternoon, Geri and I loaded up "Lexus", her cage, all her belongings and enough clothes for three or four days and headed to Shreveport. I love going to visit my Mom and seeing my family.
We went to help out because my Step-dad, Eddie had surgery on Monday morning and I wanted to be there for them. Eddie's surgery went great and he is now at home recovering. I really felt bad for him in the hospital. He is blind and is limited on what he can do in unfamiliar surroundings. Not to mention, the difficulty of having surgery and the pain that usually goes along with it. Once he was able to get back home to his own world, he was much happier and Mom and I tried to make sure he took his pain medication at regular intervals. Before too long he was his old jovial self. Well, almost, until his pain returned. We finally got him convinced that it is alright to take the pain med. when you are hurting and we were able to keep him somewhat comfortable. I really admire him. It would be so easy for him to sit down and say, "I can't!" But, I don't think he even knows those words. Beth tells me he is her mentor. Although she has serious vision difficulties, like Eddie, she has the opinion that she can do anything and the intellegience to figure out a way, when a lot of us would just let someone else do it for us.

Monday evening after the surgey, Eddie was too tired and uncomfortable for company, so we let him rest and Geri and I toured "The Boardwalk" with Frankie and Kim.
We had so much fun! Geri was the official photogragher. She took over 1oo pictures of all the interesting sights, including me, Frankie and Kim. I will be posting them at a later date. Geri is busy editing and cropping them. When she has them just right she will download them to my computer and I can share them.
We must have walked forever! The wierd thing is when we finally got back to the car, according to my clock, we were only out for about two hours.
I really enjoyed the time I got to spend with my little brother. He was such a clown and picked on Geri constantly. Kim was almost as silly, so we got to laugh a lot.

Tuesday morning, Eddie was released from the hospital. So we stayed close to home and watched over him. Mom made "chicken and dumplings" for dinner. When I was little, that was always my favorite meal. I found out, it is also Beths' favorite meal. We spent Tuesday evening watching American Idol (Jordin was outstanding) , watching over Eddie, creating a blog for Mom and just sitting around the dining room table, drinking coffee and talking girl talk. I never get to see enough of Mom and Beth, it was so nice to get to sit and talk.

In between, other things, I taught Mom to clip the birds wings and taught everyone how to physically handle Lexus and Sam (Moms' cockatiel).

We left around 11:oo this morning. It seemed to take forever to get home. We made a couple of extra stops for food and other things. When we got home, I cooked dinner and watched the Idol results show with Jerry.

I love going to Shreveport. But it is great to be home. I miss my sweet husband when I am away from him. He won't admit it, but I think he misses me, too.