Shuko stayed with our family for a month. She was in her 30s and had worked in Japan at an orphanage! I was always touched by how careful and kind she was.
After living with us, she found an apartment in the SW. She hopes to get a job working as a nanny.
Christmas truly is the most wonderful time of the year. Our 2024 Christmas was busy and rewarding.
We don't really do a good job of decorating for many holidays around our house - but we definitely do a little more for Christmas Our tree had a designer approach....all silver and white (beads and tinsel, but alarmingly, no Christmas balls!) I really liked it. It was all Allen's idea but I happily went along. I loved having it up and sitting by the tree to read each day. The Christmas gifts were wrapped in paper that matched the theme as well. Allen is so clever!
All the fun started on December 22 when Jill and Chase arrived from Edmonton. Peirce and Michael also came over and there was a big sleepover in the family room (bigger people means bigger sleepovers!) It was so fun to have them here and my heart was especially happy to see everyone get along so well. Grandma Jensen also came and spent a number of days with us, which added a lot of fun to our time together. A friend of ours, Meredith, also spent time with us over the holidays.
Christmas Sunday at church was a fantastic musical program. There were a lot of songs I had never heard and our ward's little choir easily took up the challenge of the complicated music. It was really nice to all go to church togethr. I didn't want to pressure Peirce into attending and so I told to Peirce him it would be fine either way. After talking it over with Michael, happily, they decided they would attend with us. Peirce said that the first time someone said something stupid to him though he was going to march out. There was no need for that. Everyone was so happy to see him and to meet Michael. Again, a heart warming experience.
My dirty little secret about Christmas is that Allen does most of the shopping to get us ready for Christmas. In turn, I try to do most of the cooking....although everyone helped a lot. Saturday night when everyone arrived, we had our traditional Chinese Food night. On Christmas Eve, we had a six course meal! Sunday was the regular turkey dinner and on Boxing Day we enjoyed a pot luck with friends at the church.
On Christmas Day, we went to a movie: The Boys in the Boat. I read that book years ago and thoroughly enjoyed the movie as well (although, I still say the book was better). Our friend, Meredith came with us to the movie. I even decided to use the word "swing" from the book for my word of the year. More on that later.
Jill, Chase, Peirce and I volunteered to usher at Storybook Theatre. We got to see One Christmas Carol....which was a version of the story told by one actor playing ALL the parts. It was really something else. That takes some talent!
Allen took on the challenge from our Stake President to make sure the social needs of people we knew were met. It meant that he invited family friend over for dinner on Christmas Day, organized a Boxing Day pot luck, a young families dinner (lots of kids and lots of fun and lots of noise!) and an empty nesters pot luck. Phew!! It was a lot of socializing. LOL
On New Year's Eve, Jill and Chase invited their friends, the Holoboffs over. We had breakfast supper and then played games. The Holoboffs are really great. We were really happy to spend the evening with the cool kids! LOL
Being together and having everyone enjoy being together is really what made our Christmas great. We have a wonderful family.
On Saturday, we had dinner with the NAckroyds! It has been a long time since we have done this and I was surprised at how excited I was to have them over. I decorated the table with a yellow runner.Sad, but true.
Our menu was: turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberries, fancy green beans, carrots, Thai cabbage salad, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, rice pilaf and for dessert the NAckroyds made the most amazing apple pie (with one crust!)
On Easter Sunday, Allen was asked to speak in church. He gave a really great talk on the Atonement. It made my heart burst with love and admiration for the good person he is. Jill and Chase came to our ward and Peirce listened on Zoom. What a blessing to have everyone be able to listen to his talk!
This is our family Easter dinner on Sunday photo. Sad, but true. I took the photo of the table before dinner and meant to take one when everyone was at the table, but....alas. I need to work on this!
Jill and Chase came over for Easter baskets and dinner. We had ham, scalloped potatoes, Asian cucumber salad, green beans (I love green beans) and for dessert, we made the kids share their Easter chocolate. LOL
We had a wonderful Easter even though I didn't record it very well.
I love conference weekend. I sit through all the sessions and write and read and listen and think. I was thinking today that I really don't have to wait for six months for the next one. I could have a deep dive weekend like that any time really. I guess the thing about this weekend though is everyone knows it's conference so they don't expect you to do other things.
I didn't have a notebook ready so I didn't take notes today. I went and bought myself a new notebook tonight so tomorrow I'll get back on track. I've felt a bit ho hum lately about my scripture study. Perhaps I can turn things up a notch by re-listening and take notes from the Saturday sessions. Jill came over for the afternoon session...and lunch!
Now and then Allen likes to cook. Today was one of those days. He made us grilled cheese sandwiches that were to die for! I had turkey, swiss cheese and cranberry spread. It was a lot of calories....but it sure was good!
He doesn't skimp on the cheese, for sure! There were layers of cheese and turkey. So good!
CBC decided to tell a story about us:
A Calgary woman says her husband ended up sick with COVID-19 a week after being released from a Foothills hospital cardiac unit — which is now at the centre of the largest active outbreak in Alberta — and no one from Alberta Health Services alerted them to the danger.
Four people have died and a total of 63 patients, visitors and staff have tested positive as the Foothills Medical Centre battles several outbreaks. Six units now have declared outbreaks, including several cardiac wards, and two others are on outbreak watch. As of Tuesday, 290 health-care workers were in isolation.
Dawn Ackroyd's husband, Allen, was admitted to Foothills hospital cardiac unit 81 on Sept. 9, for an angiogram to treat blockages in his heart, and released on Sept. 11.
He started experiencing mild COVID-19 symptoms one week later (on Sept. 18 ), the same day the first COVID-19 case was identified on the Foothills hospital cardiac care units. That outbreak was declared on Sept. 19.
Allen tested positive for COVID-19 on Sept. 20.
"I expected somewhere along the way somebody would call us from the hospital or Alberta Health Services to say that there had been an outbreak and to be cautious but nobody has," said Ackroyd.
The situation is particularly concerning, Ackroyd said, because heart patients like her husband are at higher risk for COVID-19 complications.
"In his case it's life and death," she said. "We definitely have that concern and are watching him closely."
What Ackroyd has discovered is that the contact tracing at Foothills hospital doesn't involve connecting with every patient that has been on impacted wards .
In a news conference Monday afternoon, Foothills hospital medical director Dr. Peter Jamieson told reporters the window for contact tracing dates back to Sept. 1, to account for the incubation period of the virus.
However, AHS has confirmed not all patients who were on an outbreak wards during that time period would be contacted.
"At-risk patients who are identified through our outbreak investigation are contacted by AHS' public health team if they are no longer in hospital. Patients who have already tested positive are notified through standard contact tracing," an AHS spokesperson said in a statement emailed to CBC News.
The spokesperson further clarified that the "at-risk" patients are those "who are deemed by infection prevention and control specialists and other health professionals such as medical officers of health as potentially at risk of exposure to a confirmed positive case."
According to Dr. Stephanie Smith, an infectious disease physician and director of Infection Prevention and Control at the University of Alberta Hospital, patients are considered at risk for infection if they had face-to-face contact with a symptomatic case for 15 minutes or more.
"Certainly for the index patient, obviously anyone that was in the same room with them would be considered exposed. But if there was someone on the ward that was in a different room and there was thought to be no direct contact between those patients they wouldn't necessarily be considered to be exposed," she said.
Ackroyd is so concerned she filed a complaint with AHS and is calling for all patients who are admitted to outbreak wards in the 14 days prior to the identification of cases to be alerted.
"They said they were sorry that nobody had contacted us but they were doing the best they could and they can't be sure that that's where he got it," she said.
"I wasn't really satisfied with that because he hasn't been anywhere but the hospital and home and so my guess is the numbers that they're sharing about cases from that outbreak are not accurate."
The outbreaks at the Foothills hospital continue to grow. Three more cases were identified in patients and staff on Wednesday as public health officials continued to piece together how the virus got into the hospital and put a stop to it.
We have had quite a month in our house. This fall, after being sent for a couple of stress tests, it came to light that Allen had severe blockages in his heart. They gave him strict rules (no walks, no mowing, no going to the gym, nothing to stress him.....they even said don't wash dishes! LOL) as they were really concerned that he could have a heart attack. All this time they've been trying to figure out why post stroke fatigue was such an issue for him. Now we know. He heeded their warnings and went to emergency a couple times. The first time they ran a long list of tests to make sure he hadn't had a heart attack as well as check his heart. The second time he went in they decided to admit him until they could give him an angiogram. He was admitted on Wednesday, had the procedure on Thursday and came home on Friday. This was the first week of school. Teachers always talk about how there's no tired like September tired. Well, I now know there's no tired like September tired when you're dealing with school and covid and then you get to spend evenings at the hospital! ugh
We also have great neighbors who do runs for chips and orange juice and just keep us well stocked in treats.
This is hard for me to write. My heart is broken.
On Friday, I had driven out to Chestermere, Langdon and Strathmore to deliver some certificates to seminary teachers. On the way back, my car was overheating. I pulled over on the highway and called Allen. He came to help me and while that was happening, Frank got out of the car. He ran on the highway. Cars were swerving and trying to miss him, but he got hit. It was the most awful thing to see and I cannot get it out of my mind. The people who hit him stopped, stunned. They apologized. We knew it wasn't their fault and told them so. Allen ran over and picked Frank up. We rushed to a vet's office. Allen held him and begged him to hang on, but he didn't make it and died in Allen's arms.
I have so much guilt. I should have taken Allen's car out there.
I should have known he would bring Frank with him and helped manage him.
I should have been able to catch him.
I should have....
I should have....
I should have....
We called Jill and asked her to come over. We went and got Peirce at work and told him. Jill and her boyfriend, Adrian, took Peirce home and I took Frank to the vet's office.
When we all got home we sat in Peirce's room and cried. Chico came in and was uncharacteristically affectionate. I think he knew and wanted to comfort us in our sadness. Adrian cooked some food and we looked at pictures and cried. There was a lot of crying. Jill suggested we have a family prayer and thanked Heavenly Father for the time we had with Frank and for the comfort in knowing we know where Frank is and that Jesus has felt all this pain before as well.
I don't know if I will ever get over seeing everything happen. It will always hurt my heart. My friend Lauri Bell sent me a message and I said to her that I wondered how long this would hurt so much. She said:
"It has been said, 'time heals all wounds. ' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens, but it is never gone."
I believe that is true.
My friend, Lori T, said that the pain is part of the result of loving so much. We sure did love Frank. I can hear Allen sobbing now and then and Peirce stays in his room and it all just breaks my heart.
We will always remember Frank so fondly. He was the happiest dog. He brought happiness to us and this all shouldn't have happened. Somehow, we will go on but we will never forget.
This is what Peirce wrote:
