Trip to Kansas City July 2013 - Days Three and Four

Along Indian Creek Trail

July 16 was Mom's 101st birthday.  In contrast to last year's big celebration, this was a calm celebration.  I began the day as usual with early morning coffee with Sean who had flown in the day before with his family.  I accumulated some more stars at the local Starbuck's while I got caught up with his life, especially the developments with his very challenging job.  After that, Marilyn and I took an hour's walk along a wonderful biking hiking trail along Indian Creek near my Mom's place.  It was a cool start to a very hot day although it was much hotter in Rochester where there was a heat alert in effect!

We returned to Mom's and sat in on her physical therapy session and then went to lunch with my brother Terry, his wife Johnny along with Sean and his family.  The family members in town then gathered with Mom for dinner at Cinzetti's, a wonderful Italian restaurant.  We had our own space for a lively session with lots of laughter and way too much good food including many--too many--delicious desserts!  Two of my siblings were not in town:  Tom who had been here before we arrived and Anola who was in North Carolina for the launch of her newest novel, Whisper Island.  

The next day was spent reviewing the reports from Mom's therapists as we began the process of making decisions about her living situation.  Marilyn and I took a break and headed to the Country Club Plaza for lunch and shopping and then stopped by Loose Park to view the rose gardens.  Of course, we also stopped at the Baskins & Robbins in Brookside for some ice cream.  Hey, it was hot.

We went down for dinner with Mom at Grand Court so we could visit with her friends at the table.  Bill Binder was there along with Nadine, Barbara, and Mary.  All the men in the dining look forward to our visits so they can get a chance to see Marilyn.  Before dinner, we met Nels and his wife Jean.  They were married at Grand Court two years ago.  Nels is 94.  Their wedding was the first and so far the only one involving residents of Grand Court.  He happily explained that two Social Security checks are better than one.  I suppose that there will be more such weddings in the future.

My big learning for the day concerned my Android phone and its camera.  I had no idea of the many functions that come with the camera function:  HDR, panorama, and a number of very sophisticated editing apps -all of them free.  Marilyn had sent me a link to very informative book about these.  Click here to go to the Android Store for a free copy.  After dinner we went for a walk in the new garden at Grand Court where I used the new apps to take some photos and then edited them.  The picture to the right is an example.  The app I used easily allowed me to achieve an SLR look by defocusing the background while keeping Mom and me in sharp focus.  Nice, huh?  These apps are so impressive that I may try leaving my other cameras at home on a trip and just using my phone!

We spent the evening watching one of Mom's favorite movies, "Shall We Dance?"  She has watched this so many times that she actually wore out her original DVD and I had to get her a new one last year.

Go here to see the continually updated Picasa album of this Kansas City trip.