Gettin' A new Attitude in Manitou

This week was a teeny bit challenging, to say the least. We had the ups and downs with my Mom who ultimately had a spinal injection to relieve the pain in her back. That thankfully did the trick and she was able to go home on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Brad had a few days with several seizures, had an MRI on Tuesday and a follow up appointment with the oncologist on Thursday.  Once again, the MRI showed nothing significant, but there was serious concern for the seizures, and his doctor told him he could no longer drive....not exactly what Brad had in mind.  Meredith and Carrie were at the appointment, so he did have witnesses. It's going to be difficult getting him to be compliant. We have an appointment with a new neurologist on Wednesday, so we'll see.
On the bright side, Carrie and Gabi and I went to the Candlelight Dinner Playhouse Friday night to see "Hairspray".  Gabi was enthusiastic about seeing the play, as she will perform there in "Annie" this summer.    While we were there, Amie and Grayson were enjoying a performance of "Jake and the Pirates" at the Buell theatre in Denver.  The grand kids are so fortunate to have such opportunities!  Poor little Corbin, on the other hand, broke his pinkie finger playing "John Elway" at school Friday. (He explained that one person throws the football and whoever catches it gets to throw the next ball.) He has to have it splinted for 3 weeks, which is going to be hard on his sports schedule. On Friday, my sister called to invite Brad and I to Manitou (thus Spencer's title for this week's blog) and we both felt like it would be good to get away for a few hours. We always have a great time there, so we drove down on Saturday morning, just in the nick of time to attend the annual "Fruitcake Toss"which I guess signifies the end of the holiday season (?) and which although well attended, was a bit underwhelming!

 

 Pam was finishing one of her newest sculptures with hair made from rusted chain link, and we saw some of her newest paintings. (I was fortunate to be able to bring home one of them!)

 

 Saturday night, we took a drive to the Broadmoor, and Brad and I never having seen it, were amazed at how gorgeous the buildings and the setting were.

 We stopped at an Italian restaurant on the way back for a scrumptious dinner (and a few glasses of wine!).  We did miss an excellent (we are told) concert put on by the Children's Chorale of which Sophie is a member.  We will certainly make an effort to hear the next one.
We got back Sunday just in time to gather for the Super Bowl at the Frost house. We had lots of salty, fattening and super delicious snacks and spent time working on a jigsaw puzzle and watching the girls dance  along with Katy Perry at the Half-time extravaganza. Gramma sat and held Cupcake and Emma shared her school issues. It sounds like she has some really good classes.

We put up a card table for Gramma while we were out of town so that she could work on a puzzle, too.  Here's the progress for the first three days.....(I did suggest that she try putting the outside pieces together first....)