Journal

I finally finished entering my dad's diary - for anyone interested go to our home page and click on "Doc's Diary". I wanted to get it all written down and this way I can print a hardcopy as well as share it. With all the talk of war these days, this little diary brought home in a personal way how awful war is. There are times when war is a necessity, but this is not the time.

Looking out from the kitchen window, we could see five turkeys slowing munching their way through the cornstalks. They are easy to see against the snow.

I took a walk this afternoon and went to the northeast part of the property. It was about 39 degrees and amazingly pleasant. We used to freeze in Houston when it was 45 degrees - guess the humidity makes a difference plus I was dressed for it. I was almost too warm. I had never walked up to this area - last fall we had a lot of trash trees removed thanks to John. It opens everything up and in the spring this area should be quite pretty - a place for a picnic. Of course, John was interested in opening up the grazing land for the cattle but I don't mind having a picnic with a cow looking at me.

Hard to believe it was 33 years ago that we were anxiously awaiting our first born (and as it turned out our middle and last born). We had such a good time watching her grow up. And now it is a real pleasure to know her as an adult. Happy Birthday tomorrow, Elizabeth!

I was at Mayo Clinic for a couple of days this week. It is an amazing place - if there were no Mayo Clinic there would be no Rochester, MN. The hospital complex is downtown and all of the buildings are linked by foot subway and skywalks. Several hotels, a small galleria and speciality stores are also linked to this maze of walkways. It was minus 2 degrees F. when I arrived but other than the ariport/shuttle/hotel part, I was never outside - a luxury groundhog experience.

We watched Full Frontal on DVD last night - thought it was strange and a little interesting and not quite as bad as the weblink review. Probably the most interesting thing since there were no initial credits was expressing surprise as the various stars appeared. A bit with Brad Pitt as himself; Julia Roberts, of course, David Hyde Pierce from Fraser and the photographer from "Just Shoot Me" whose name we still don't know. We didn't recognize David Duchovny at all - very small part - just saw him on the cast at the closing. Anybody else seen this?

Last week was a fun, pleasurable time in Park City, Utah with Elizabeth, Dale, Jonathan and their friend Andy. Jonathan and I got to be best buddies while the others skied. We took the free buses everywhere - Jonathan said "hi" to people as they got on the bus and loved pulling the cord that lit up "Stop Requested". We went to the grocery store on the bus and fixed the evening meal. We took the bus downtown and rode the Main Street Trolley and rode the bus to The Canyons and went up the mountains on the basket ski lift and the gondola ski lift - beautiful country and Jonathan loved the rides. We stomped in the snow. And he had his first ski lesson!

An additional special treat was seeing my niece Carol and her family - husband Brian, and children Trevor, Madison and Nathan - who live in Idaho Falls, Idaho. They came for supper on Saturday and then picked Jonathan and me up on Sunday for lunch in old town Park City. Jonathan was enamored of 10 year old Trevor and held his hand the entire time we walked around.

Hope there will be more ski vacations in the future!