Candles, Trailers, Cousins & Friends

23Jun

Lots happening in our world today...

The tractor trailers started rolling in this morning and now the north side of our street is bumper to bumper big rigs all the way down the block. There is filming going on close by, we don’t know of whom or for what purpose, but ours is just one of many locations busy with Hollywood North activity this summer!

Our friend Heather celebrated her 26th birthday today! The pics she posted show a beautiful young woman, with rosy pink cheeks, who blew out the candles on her cake in one breath! Now that might not sound impressive to the average reader, but consider that only a few months ago, Heather was much too close to drawing her last breath, and then the miracle of her transplant happened. We couldn’t be more excited for her and wish her many, many more wonderful birthdays!

Just after lunch Carman’s cousin John and his wife Roberta arrived for a visit, fresh from a night spent with their grandkids here in the city. John and Carman did a bit of balcony bonding, while Roberta and I played wives with knives, chopping veggies for the batch of Gazpacho I was putting together for supper with Jess & Brad. Shortly after they left later in the afternoon, we realized we’d let them get away without signing our guest book...we’re confident they’ll be back soon, everyone must sign the book!

At 5:30 I left to pick up Jess & Brad and bring them back to our place for dinner. They are living about 5 minutes away from us, and for the second time in 2 days, the traffic was minimal and the drive only took about 5 minutes to do! I had texted just before leaving home so they were ready and waiting for me when I arrived. Poor Brad had been up late the night before to bake cupcakes for our dessert (he’s very sweet). The consumate professional, he even packaged them in a special white box with spacers so they wouldn’t get squished in transit! I’m not sure about the Prairie Girl Bakery sticker on the box, but oh well...they were amazing, just the right amount of sweet and melted in your mouth! 

We had a lovely evening together, sharing stories about our kids, Brad’s three boys (all back home, out east) and Jessica’s journey with CF compared to Carman’s with IPF. Carman is on O2 24/7 adjusting his flow rate during activity, while Jess doesn’t require any while seated, but needs it for activty and during sleep. Although they both require lung transplants to survive, the diseases are very different, CF affecting many other organs, not just the lungs. Jess also blogs, read about her journey at Jessica's blog

Now that we know how close we’re living to each other, we’re looking forward to many more get togethers...which will no doubt include some serious card games!

...AND we remembered to ask them to sign the guest book (having reserved a spot for John & Roberta, of course).