January 24th - Still feeling Yucky, but a great day anyway!

I still have the sore throat and headache - sinus stuff always takes a while to clear - but I just loaded up on meds and had a great day anyway. 

I met Lisa and Brooks at the mall, where we spent a while at the play area.  He had a ball.  It is always more fun when there are not too many children there.  Then we had a cup of pretzel bites - a "must have" whenever he is there.  After walking the mall a bit, we went to the food court for an early lunch.  It wasn't really that early for them, but it was for me, as I had eaten breakfast just a couple of hours earlier.  I had a little snack, though.  A little more walking, then playing on the coin operated cars for a while, followed by a ride on the train, and our mall time was over.

We drove on over to Ashby's school since Lisa was the mystery reader for the day (but she was taking me to do it as a surprise for Ashby), but were still a little early.  As luck would have it a big crane and a small bulldozer were working on the edge of the side road right beside the school.  Since Brooks is absolutely crazy over trains and mighty machines, we just parked in the lot near where they were working and he got to watch those mighty machines.  He gave us a running description of what they were doing - digging, dumping, tapping down, pushing, etc.  It certainly filled the time!

We then went in to Ashby's class room.  She did not know we were coming, but she knew there would be a surprise.  One of the other children saw Lisa and shouted, "It's Ashby's mom!"  Then Ashby turned and saw me, too, and got all excited and shouted, "My grandma, too!"  Once all the big hugs were finished, I sat in the chair at the front with all the children on the floor around me and we read the two books we had brought from home.  One was the Berenstains Bears about the bicycle and the other was about PJ Funnybunny wanting to be something besides a bunny.  The children were very engrossed and it was a lot of fun.  Ashby stood right up beside me the whole time - proud as she could be!

Then we all headed home.  I stopped at the library on my way home to return a book and to pick up six more that had come in.  Actually, they were the same books that I had not gotten read and had returned last week.  I had requested them again before I even returned them.  Now I will have 9 weeks to get them read.  That means I am down to about 11 books out now, which is down from the 20 I had a couple of months ago.  After doing just a few things at home, I had to take a nap.  I had really spent all my energy and though I may not be contagious, this sinus flare-up still saps the energy level.

Bill got home while I was resting and when I got up, we fixed some spaghetti for dinner and watched a little TV - before I couldn't stand it anymore!  I went into the office and worked some more on resetting my family history files.  I think I am going to like what I am doing, but it will take a while to get everything converted over.

I finished another book this evening so I keep plugging away at the pile!  I had a really fun day with the kids.  It even ended nicely with Billy calling while he was driving from Des Moines to Cedar Rapids.  It sounds like he is doing well.  He started his first class this week and is excited about that.  The other class was not held since Monday was a holiday, so next week will be the first class.  He is also enjoying the job more as he is finally feeling like he is up to speed on the project. 

It has been a good Friday!