Day Newsletter - December 2012

January 2, 2013 NEWS FROM THE DAYS: Stephanie got free tickets to a U of U b-ball game and took me. Enjoyed the game – sorry to see so few people there. Linda and I saw A Christmas Carol, the Musical at the U of U Pioneer Theatre. It was very, very good! Joined some of the kids at the Dickens’s Festival held at the State Fairgrounds, an annual event. Enjoyed seeing all the neat stuff they sell, watching some kids perform, eating and buying some of our Christmas. Linda took all the girls to the Nutcracker this year, and they thoroughly enjoyed the performance – a special Christmas treat for all of them. We watched Sofie one Sunday afternoon while Jack (3 yrs old) went to his 2nd ski lesson at Brighton. Katie put a video on face book of him coming down a hill all by himself and waving. We’re so proud! Cole and Jessica became new parents again on Dec. 19th – his name is Jax Patrick Rikli. You can also get pictures of him on face book. Wiggins has had some back problems recently, and when they x-rayed his back, they found it cracked around is 5 area (?) in the lower back. Apparently from a sports injury when he was young, and now its physical therapy and possible back surgery to fix it. Debbie announced her engagement to Stuart this past month – no date set yet – but we’re very happy for them. Perhaps the biggest news in our family (outside of Jax & Debbie’s engagement) was Linda getting shoulder replacement surgery (left side). Dr. Chris Martin of St. Marks did the surgery, and Linda goes in tomorrow to get the staples out – sounds awful doesn’t it? She has done pretty well so far – only takes her oxycotin pain pill when necessary. Everyday gets better. She will also start physical therapy after tomorrow, and probably return to work at least part time next Monday. Her hospital stay, other than Nurse Ratchet who attended to her the first night, was pretty good. I guess I made too many comments about Nurse Ratchet the next morning, and next thing we know, we are visited by the floor director asking how the previous night’s stay went? Nurse Ratchet came on duty, and Linda was still pretty drugged up from surgery, plus I had been helping her push the magic button every ten minutes to help with pain. When Nurse Ratchet tried to talk to Linda, she didn’t get much response. She then said in a rather loud voice, standing directly over her, MRS. DAY!!! MRS. DAY!!!! CAN YOU HEAR ME????? DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE????? Whap, Whap, Whap – that was the sound as she slapped Linda repeatedly across the face….OK – I made that part up. Anyway, she told me to never touch the magic button that gives pain relief, and said “All she has to do is push the nurse call button”. That’s when I lost it and said Linda hardly knows where she is, let alone about an obscure nurse button laying by her side. I made Nurse Ratchet promise to keep a close eye on her overnight, and to not use electric shock treatment. The world didn’t end on Dec. 21st, although to hear most people in Utah, you would have thought the world ended on Nov. 6th, the day Obama was reelected. I attended a funeral of a man that had retired from the DMV two years ago. I really liked this guy, as he shared my political and religious views, and he was an absolute character. He died after a scheduled surgery at the U of U Hospital. And it was sad to hear David Lyon also died about a week later. Oh yea, it was also Christmas, and a special one with grandkids and Steph staying here this year. We enjoyed our annual trip to the Zito’s dinner Christmas Eve (Linda’s side of the family), and to the Bairds after for a drink. Linda wasn’t recovered enough to make the trip that evening, so Sarah (age 6) stayed with her to babysit. Stephanie and I prepared the traditional Christmas Day afternoon buffet, and the other kids chipped in with yummy additions. It was a “one bag” day after opening up family gifts – you should have seen it in previous years when it took 5 or 6 bags of garbage to get rid of all the wrappings. I guess this means everybody is cutting back. Still, a great time. Then two days later, it was off to St. George with Steph driving us all down in her van. Before we left, we picked up Danny at the airport. His flight got in about 20 minutes early, and we got there 5 minutes later than we planned, and Danny got tired of looking, and sat down in some chairs at one end of the bag carrousel area (about 3 away from where his bag came in). After I frantically looked 20 minutes for him, I was on my way to security when I saw him stand up headed to a Coke machine. So all turned out well. We stopped at Joseph and Alisyn’s beautiful home in Orem for lunch and got to see them, Deon and Steve and Adam Boone as well (he was staying there for a week). Alisyn put on a wonderful lunch, and we enjoyed visiting and seeing everybody. The book we had bought for Deon and Steve for Christmas turned out to have Sherilyn Farnes as author of one of the chapters (the second book in a series about early Mormon women in the church). We didn’t even realize it, or we would have had her autograph it first. Perhaps the most humorous remark we heard of the particular trip was Danny telling us how Hillary (of the Rhead clan recently called on a mission) had to go to have her endowments taken out of her. And me, I just couldn’t resist, asked him if it hurt. Danny said he didn’t think so……… In St. George, we got to see a great play Forever Plaid, adapted to the holidays, and renamed Holiday Plaid. It was playing at the Dixie college auditorium, and was a fun, fun show to see. We also saw a funny show called Parental Guidance with Bette Midler and Billy Crystal. All about generational gap between kids, parents and grandparents. We celebrated the New Year while there and enjoyed somewhat warmer weather before returning to reality, work, snow, cold and school for the kids. And that’s the news from the Days. Love, Tom & Linda