Recovery continues...

Well, the itching from Wednesday worsened until my joints were swollen and inflamed by Wednesday afternoon. I went straight to the clinic and got two shots-- cortisone and prednisone-- and took an oatmeal bath and felt much better by Thursday morning. My three prescriptions helped a lot, too. CVS is practically on our speed dial nowadays.

Thursday morning we woke up feeling better, though Brad was still in pain. We picked up Dad from the airport and got him settled in at home before taking off to Ralph and Chris's house for dinner. It was great-- little kids around, football on, fantastic food, wonderful family time... the only thing missing was the 30 degree temperatures. It was odd to sit by the pool with the screen door open. But we made the best of it. :)

Friday was our adventure day. We decided to brave the throngs of shoppers and get a deal at Sears on a Craftsman tool cabinet for Brad's birthday. We got there by 5:45 a.m. and waited until 6 when it opened, and it was a zoo. We got the cabinet along with a few tools and were out of there by 7. Bob Evans fed us well and after a few more stops we were home by 10 a.m. for a nap. Dad went out and found a country club where he could get a guest pass and he hit some golf balls in preparation for his match against Ralph on Saturday. In the evening we went to Naples for dinner at Tommy Bahamas and to see the snow!!! They have a little winterfest where they have musicians on the sidewalks of the little downtown, and "snow", which is actually soap-suds sprayed about with a little fan from the tops of the streetlamps. It looked like snow, but the poor kids running around with their tongues out found out quickly that it was not real snow. It was cute, though.

On Saturday Dad played golf against Ralph and friend John and then met us back at the house in the afternoon. We all went to Sanibel for the evening and ate an awesome meal at Gramma Dot's on the marina. It just doesn't get any better than that. There's something about going over the bridge to Sanibel that instantly takes the weight of the world off one's shoulders.

Sunday was Brad and Shelley's birthday, so after church and a little running around we all had dinner at Lonestar and cake and ice cream back at our house. It was the first time we'd had everyone over, and it was a ball to have a full house. We can't wait to entertain more often. We also got to go over and see Jeff and Shelley's new house, which is about 5 minutes from us. They'll move over from the other coast in early January!!!

Dad left this morning to head back to the cold, er, north. I don't think he minded the Florida-style Thanksgiving as he spent quite a bit of time with his eyes closed or on the lanai, soaking up the sun.