wedding gifts, Wendell, and Paris

Russell and his wife (love the sound of that) came yesterday for a while. They went up to the two stores here and took care of gift cards, returns, and credits. They ended up with six each of the two sizes of casual glasses and will have about 6 place settings of their flatware. I will probably get them a couple of more place settings for Christmas if they don't have 8 by then. They did end up getting the accessory set that has the serving pieces, so I was glad about that. Those she will use all the time. I know that some gifts will still be trickling in for awhile. She ended up getting a good bit of the Peter's Pottery accessory pieces that she liked as well as some of the extra glasses that he wanted, some pilsners (I think that's right) and some red wine glasses. They seemed pleased and now have to go to Columbus to do the same. She has something like 17 gift cards for her formal crystal there, and she said that she will use some of those for credit for other things. Callie had only wanted the goblets and the champagne flutes in that, so she said that she will do 8 each and use the rest as credit. She did end up getting all of her formal china in Columbus, so she was glad about that.

Wendell had surgery almost 2 weeks ago for an intestinal blockage. What did he eat, you ask? A super ball! The vet thinks that it slid down when he ate something else, and he could not throw it up. So it sat in his stomach long enough to get kind of smooth, then it ended up blocking the passage from the stomach to the intestine. He was in the hospital for a couple of days, and has been home now for a while, but highly restricted. He was on one can of prescription dog food a day and limited water. He was also house bound, and still is a little bit. Yesterday was his first day to eat his regular food, and Callie said that he just gobbled it down without stopping to breathe practically. Russell even gave him a bite of steak yesterday after lunch. I didn't think that was wise, but it did not seem to bother him. He has a lot of energy and you can tell that he is ready to go outside and play. Monday will be his first unrestricted day after they visit the vet.

Then we went over to Mama and Daddy's and Carol Anne and David drove up just as we were getting there. So we all got to see the Paris pictures. He had them on the laptop, and they told about them as they went through the slide show. They were really beautiful, and I am just so happy that it all went well and they had such a good time. Russell said that they liked Notre Dame the best, and they even attended mass there. They had a beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower from their rooftop garden, and they loved watching it light up at night. But as for actually going to the Eiffel Tower, they said that it wasn't really worth it. It took about half the day and it was extremely crowded with tourists. Callie said that it was so high up that you couldn't really tell anything. They were also impressed with the bridges over the Seinne; they were all different and very impressive. Napoleon had built most of them. They also had photographs of the Arches de Triumph and Versailles. They said that the palace of Versailles was not that impressive until they went outside. The grounds were absolutely gorgeous. They had taken several pictures of the gardens, the orange trees, and so forth. They liked the Louvre, but not as much as they had thought they would, mainly because it was just too big. There was just no way to see it all, so they hit the highlights, like the Mona Lisa and the Wedding at Cana, and so on. The Mona Lisa was not impressive, but the Wedding at Cana was. They had also talked to us a lot during lunch about the wonderful food and markets. We loved hearing it all, and I'm sure there will be more to hear in the future.

For now, we are glad they are home and beginning their lives together.