It must be because of the holidays and things aren’t very busy? The Operating Room was running on schedule today. Dad went in right on time. The procedure will take an hour and a half if all goes well. Otherwise, who knows how long it’ll take?

He was looking better a lunch time today. His color is much better and he’s in pretty good humor (other than they won’t let him drink anything). The gall bladder surgery is schedule for 4 p.m. however I expect it’ll be later than that when they actually get him into the operating room.

The cardiologist finally came by about 9 p.m. to do an evaluation of dad. His report was that dad has some serious congestive heart failure going on. They’ll work to “dry him out” tonight, but that he’s probably OK to proceed with the gall bladder surgery tomorrow. That surgery isn’t scheduled, yet, so it probably won’t be until late morning or afternoon.

By the time we left the hospital about 9:30 p.m. this evening he was looking and feeling better. The IV drip had hydrated him and they had given him a pretty strong dose of antibiotics. That seemed to be helping. Earlier in the evening he was pretty confused and didn’t know where he was or what was going on. We sure hope that this turns out to be the root of his problems and that he quickly gets back to his normal self!

We planned to go to Soda Springs today anyway, but not particularly for this purpose. Mother called about 9 a.m. to tell us that she was taking dad in to see the doctor at 10. Dad was complaining of feeling lousy. He had a lot of gas and a distended abdomen. The doctor said it looked like a gall bladder problem and ordered an ultrasound. That showed a gall bladder that absolutely needed to come out. They admitted dad to the hospital.

However, his heart rate was very high, his heart rhythm out of sync, and the heart beat wasn’t as strong as they would like, so the hospital and doctor in Soda Springs decided to transfer him by ambulance to the hospital in Pocatello. We got to the hospital in Pocatello to find that he had been admitted into Intensive Care! When we met with the surgeon, we learned that dad was quite sick and that they needed to get some other things (like his heart) stabilized before they could do surgery. The cardiologist will be in later this evening to do an evaluation and determine what needs to be done to get dad in a position to have his gall bladder removed. The surgeon told us that they needed to remove the gall bladder pretty soon as it would eventually rupture bringing a serious risk of gangrene, but that they didn’t want to kill him in the process…. Good plan in my opinion. So, I’m at the house taking care of Bradica and will head back to the hospital in a few minutes. I’ll update this later!

In a few minutes we’ll sit down and read aloud the Christmas story from the Bible. This has been a family tradition for many, many years. We’ve had a very nice Christmas Eve. The choir program in Sacrament Meeting this morning actually went pretty well. The program at the prison this afternoon was very good. They were well prepared and presented a lovely program. The piano at the prison, however, needs to be replaced with a functional instrument. This may well turn into a service project in the coming year.

We had a very nice time with mom and dad yesterday afternoon. Mother now has the printers where she’d like them on her desk. It took a bit to make that happen as one of the cords wasn’t very cooperative. However, after tearing the desk apart underneath, dad was able to get the cable out so the printer could be repositioned. They are both feeling much better and should soon be back to their normal activities.

I think this is the first Christmas Eve we’ve spent alone in our entire married life. It’s been very quiet. We’ve been just doing stuff around the house, listening to Christmas music, and reading. Ninas good friend from Australia called … it’s already Christmas Day in that part of the world. Jared has arrived in El Paso safely. Everyone else in the family seems to be safe and warm and having a nice Christmas Eve.

This holiday was set by the Catholic Church at a time to displace a pagan holiday even though scholars agree that the setting in the Bible could only have happened in the spring of the year. That doesn’t really matter … it’s the reason for the celebration that matters. While Santa Claus is a lovely sentiment, the real reason for this holiday is to celebrate the birth of our Savior. I love the music, the stories, and gift giving of Christmas as it symbolizes God’s infinite gift to us — his Only Begotten Son who has made salvation possible for us. I am eternally thankful for that gift of gifts.

As Nina wrote on her blog, we tried as parents to instill a strong sense of Christmas traditions and we’re happy that some of these are propogating down to the next generation while new traditions are being developed. This is a most wonderful time of the year! Merry Christmas!

Denver got clobbered with snow a couple of days ago. Salt Lake and the surrounding area got snow. Meanwhile, Pocatello was high and definitely not white. All that changed overnight last night. When I got up this morning we had a little more than three inches of snow on the ground. More is forecast for Saturday night. It’ll stay cold for the forseeable future, so we’re assured of a white Christmas. Everything around Christmas just looks better in the snow!

Our neighbor boys came over this afternoon and asked if they could shovel the driveway and front walk. Nina agreed and over they came. They worked and worked. I’m sure they discovered that the job was much bigger than they thought it was in the beginning. They did earn some Christmas cash, however. I thought they did a great job. But, will they want to do it again?

A few inches of snow is just right. However, our very good friends in Colorado Springs are definitely bemoaning the blizzard that literally shut the state down. The Denver Airport was closed for almost three days until they could move enough snow out of the way to open up a couple of runways and taxiways and get the deicing equipment working this morning. Our friends had booked a Christmas Cruise. They were to fly out yesterday. We came very close to booking the same cruise to go with them, but in the end decided that our cruise next June will be expensive enough that we needed to save the money for that. The decision turned out to be a good one. Our friends will miss the cruise. There is no way for them to get to Florida in time to catch the boat. When we book cruises many months in advance we always buy cruise insurance, “just in case”. They do the same. This time the insurance will pay off for them. What a bummer, however, to be snowed in rather than cruising the Caribbean Ocean!

Tomorrow is the beginning of a four-day weekend. I’ll go back to work on Wednesday for the rest of next week. The company I work for generates a significant part of the quarterly revenue in the last two weeks of every quarter (which makes the difference between a profit and a loss). That means the last two weeks of December are crucial business weeks and computer systems or network problems during this time period can be disasterous. At the end of September a super typhoon blew into the Philippines, right over our facility in Calamba. Through heroic efforts by the staff in Calamba, the computers and networks stayed up long enough to get the necessary parts shipped to meet the revenue targets. Hopefully this coming week will be calm and quiet in that part of the world.

We are planning a very quiet Christmas here. We’ll go to Soda Springs tomorrow to spend the afternoon with mom and dad. They’re beginning to feel better (dad much better than mom). Sunday, which is Christmas Eve, I’ll be singing in the choir in Church in the morning (I even have a solo part to sing) while Nina is up at the prison. Then that afternoon the Kinport Branch (that’s the branch of the church that serves the prison where Nina is the Relief Society President) is having their Christmas program so I’ll go up the prison with Nina for that event. The inmate choir is performing and they’re always a listening pleasure. They REALLY get into the music. Monday is Christmas Day and we’ll stay home. I also have Tuesday off but we haven’t decided what, if anything, we’ll do on Tuesday. There are lots of options and staying home is right now one of the more desireable choices.

So, we’re having a White Christmas in Pocatello, Idaho. Merry Christmas everyone!

The doorbell rang. I was on the phone for a conference call with some folks in Manila and chatting with my brother Perry on Instant Messenger. But, I could hear people out on the porch, so I left the phone chattering away, Perry hanging, and opened the door. This group of folks were on the front step singing Christmas carols. They sang four songs and then moved along up the street.

The group is one of the show choirs at Highland High School. The music director at Highland lives around the corner. He brought the group up to the neighborhood as a Christmas present to the neighborhood. They were really good! By the time I got back to the phone, the meeting was ending. Unfortunately, Nina wasn’t here. On Thursday nights she’s up at the prison for the Thursday night Relief Society Activity Night. She spent the day baking cookies for the guards and for the inmates who come to the meeting tonight. That meant getting to the prison early so the cookies (all of which had to be individually wrapped in clear wrap) could be inspected. She makes great cookies. Looks like we all had a treat tonight. Merry Christmas!

Dad should be coming home from the hospital tomorrow morning. He says he’s feeling better than he has for months. He certainly sounds much better than he did a couple of days ago. The doctor and hospital staff have gotten him pretty much back to normal and when he gets over the bronchitis, he should be doing quite well. He was on an experimental drug trial for some kind of heart medication and the doctors think that was what caused him many of his problems, particularly not being able to eat and keep anything down. The doctor also said that dad was on the trial medication and not in the control group. So, he’s out of the program and getting back to normal. The hard part for mother will be to keep him from trying to do too much when he gets home!

Meanwhile, mother has also been feeling very poorly with a severe cold. It’s settled in her chest and she’s been unable to sleep much because of the coughing. The doctor fixed her up with a prescription cough suppressant this afternoon so she hopefully will get a good night’s sleep tonight. That’ll be a good thing because dad’s coming home tomorrow!