"You've got to see the baby!"

 6:16 am - Monday - June 11th - Rancho Cucamonga, CA - 70° F, humidity 44%, wind ZERO mph out of the west by southwest......clear, but hazy skies today (this is SoCal) with a forecast high of 95° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were having an early dinner at Fiesta en Jalisco (Mexican restaurant)......

A walk after dinner

....located in Poulson, MT on the shores of Flathead Lake.  We took a walk along the shore after dinner.

I collapsed into bed at 8 pm Saturday evening, and slept until after 6 am Sunday morning.  Amazingly, I felt mostly alive, and mostly refreshed after our grueling 16 hour travel day Saturday.  We were awaiting word from our daughter as to whether she and Caleb would be discharged from the hospital Sunday, or staying another night so we would know when, and where we could visit them later in the day.

In the interim I composed my daily missive about our travel day, then TLE and I walked about 1/4 block to a little coffee shop called 'The Nook Coffee Bar' to get some real coffee.  We all know hotel coffee is not REAL coffee, it just has the appearance and aroma of coffee which deceives one into believing it is genuine until you take your first disappointing sip....

.....we knew right away this must be a good coffee bar as the line was out the door.  Once we placed our orders for our share of this life saving, and enhancing elixir we found a table at which to await the calling of my name.  Once we had our liquid gold in hand we walked back to the hotel to enjoy our purchases (coffee for both, a brownie for TLE, and a chocolate chip cookie for moi).....

....we both ordered Americanos, and loved every precious sip.

We lingered in our room for several hours before receiving the call from our daughter that she and baby Caleb were being discharged between 1 and 2 pm, so we then made arrangements to meet our daughter Kate, and her family at Panera Bread for lunch at 1 pm, and then we would proceed from there over to Sharon's home to be introduced to baby Caleb Jett.  As is some times the case I got so caught up in conversation with Kate, Nick and their children (Charlise, Jolene and Levi) that I neglected to memorialize the time with any pictures....my bad!

Anyway, Panera Bread was quite busy filling orders, and it took us close to 40 minutes to get our orders.  They take orders at the counter, plus they have to kiosks at which you can self order, plus they take online orders.  While they had a lot of people on duty, they did not have enough people to handle food preparation on a timely basis.  All that being said we sat talking, and the time passed by quickly.  The food was very good....I had a Chicken Caesar salad, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Because of the long delay in getting our food we didn't leave to drive over to Sharon's home until around 2:45 pm.....

Brayden holding his baby brother

With Rod, the proud poppa

He is so perfect.....I am in awe

With the happy momma

TLE wants her turn....lol!

.....we spent about an hour with Sharon, Rod and Brayden before we decided we had intruded enough on their first day home with baby Caleb, and then headed over to the home of Chris and Rochelle (son and daughter-in-law....she feels more like an actual daughter to me) to visit for a while.  We got there around 4:15 pm, and didn't leave until almost 7:30 pm.  We drank a little bourbon, and smoked a couple of cigars while we talked endlessly about everything under the sun.  The bonus was my daughter Meredith made a surprise visit, so it was perfect.....

Left to right: Moi, TLE, Rochelle (TAR....The Amazing Rochelle), Meredith and Chris

....considering how many moving parts there were to this day everything worked out better than we could have planned.  By the time we got home it was 7:30 pm, and we were tuckered.  I watched TV for about an hour, then went to bed (TLE preceded my by 30, or 40 minutes) with a large smile upon my face.  This is the best time of life, and we both feel so blessed.

Our flight home leaves at 1:30 pm Monday, goes through Denver with a FIVE HOUR layover.  Why? Well, our original flight was supposed to depart at 4:30 pm, but was changed a few days ago to 1:30 pm.  Our flight from Denver to Reno still departs at 9:15 pm, so our original 2 hour layover became a 5 hour layover, so we are essentially flying to Denver to have dinner before we head back to Reno....lol.  We won't get back to LPG&RVR until 2 am Tuesday, but at least we'll have the whole day to recuperate before heading back to work on Wednesday.  I think I'm getting too old for this.

Thanks for stopping by!