What's been going on

It's been a busy couple of weeks around here. We got back to work on the 2nd, which was good, because we were starting to run out of things to work on at home. I can't remember what we did on Saturday (puttering about town window shopping, I think), but Sunday morning we were woken up with a phone call from my uncle Don and aunt Becky calling to tell us that my grandmother had had a heart attack overnight and that she was in the hospital in Manhattan. We quickly called all my siblings to let them know about it, then got dressed and got in the car to go see her and to be with my grandfather. My brother, Dan, was also able to come in from Hays. When we got to the hospital, Grandmother was alert and smiling and laughing with friends. She slept on and off during the time we were there, but otherwise looked and felt pretty normal, with the exception of all the tubes and bruises. My aunt and uncle, Roger and Sue, from Albuquerque, were planning to arrive late that night, so shortly after dinner, we left Manhattan to come back home because we knew that Grandfather would be okay if he had help from them for the week. Grandmother was released from the hospital on Tuesday, and is doing fine.

Sometime right before my grandmother's heart attack, Jeff and I were trying to decide where to take a vacation to this spring/summer. We were comtemplating San Francisco, Aspen, and DisneyWorld, but none of those places were really appealing to both of us. I guess San Francisco was, but we were shooting for a week long vacation, and if we went there, we'd want to see Monterey, and Napa, and probably Yosemite, and that would take more than a week. Jeff wasn't too keen on Aspen because we were in Colorado on our last long vacation, and Disney sounded fun, but just not as fun as the others. So, on a whim, we checked ticket prices to Europe. We found a killer deal on tickets to Frankfurt, so we bought them, and have been spending the last week trying to book hotels and restaurants and a car and various tours. We're going to rent a car and drive to the Champagne region of France, see Reims and maybe Epernay, and tour some caves. Then we're going to move into Paris for about three days and catch some sights that we missed out on last time we were there. After that, it's back towards the airport, and we'll see Luxembourg City, Trier and some more of the Mosel River before flying back home from Frankfurt. It will be a short trip for flying all the way over there, only about 8 days, but I think we'll have a great time!