Valentine's Day Treat

It's time to confess.  We still have our Christmas decorations up.  I'm pretty sure we'll have to buy a new tree next Christmas because the cats have climbed this one once too often.  The lower branches now hang way down and when I try and push them back into place they don't want to go.   If I had all the boxes here at the house instead of the storage place I'd probably have slowly taken some of it down by now, but it's going to involve a bit of time and a truck to get them all over here.  So, for now the Christmas things stay up.  If I wait much longer I can just tell people we put our decorations up early this year!

I still had candy canes left over from Christmas.  I also had some of the candy melts left over from when I made the Christmas Tree candy that I showed you here.  Since it's almost Valentine's Day I decided to make Valentine's Day candy.  It was just a matter of buying a pan with heart shapes instead of Christmas Trees.  These are very easy to make and taste pretty good too.  My picture isn't fancy (or very good), but it will give you an idea of what they look like.  I used one of those Wilton silicone pans that I got at Joanne's.

We've had some really cold weather lately.  So cold that the cats had to cuddle up to stay warm.

But today it is beautiful outside.  I was out in the yard for a while and didn't even need a jacket.  The windows are open for the first time in weeks.  I do believe that Spring is right around the corner.

Reid's cold has continued to get a little better each day.  The shingles look ugly, but they really aren't causing him any discomfort.  We should find out this week what the new game plan is for the stem cell transplant.  Hopefully, it will only mean a one week delay.

We had told Reid last November that we would plan a vacation for him and his brothers.  A way to celebrate the stem cell transplant and something to look forward to during the treatments.  They all wanted to go to Comic Con in San Diego in July.  I had never heard of Comic Con, but I quickly learned that I've apparently led a sheltered life.  Comic Con is very popular and the biggest convention that San Diego hosts.

I believe the tickets went on sale online the first time in November.  Knowing it was a popular event Reid and I each got on a different computer and attempted to buy the tickets.  We couldn't get into the site.  Finally, they announced that their site had crashed and they'd sell tickets another time.  The second time the same thing happened.  I believe we invested two or three hours each time reloading the screen.  Then one day in December as we were walking into the hospital Reid saw on his phone where they had sold 1,000 tickets that morning unannounced as a way to test their new ticket selling procedure.  We were kind of bummed that we missed that opportunity, but waited for the new date to be announced.

Finally, the day came last Saturday.  We had Keith standing by in Austin on his computer and we all attempted to get into the site for the sale.  This is what we saw...again.

We tried again for a couple of hours.  Finally, I had to go out and Reid and Keith became discouraged and gave up.  While I was gone Reid decided to go back again and try one more time and he had success!  He was able to buy tickets for everyone including Jim.  (Well, not exactly everyone.  I'll stay here to take care of the dog and cats.)  Then we started looking for a hotel/motel.  We found that anything close to the convention center is already booked.  Finally we found a place not too far away and locked in a room.  (We might have to take out a mortgage to pay for that room.)  So, Comic Con here they come!  It's July 21-24 2011.  Hopefully, Reid will have regained a lot of his strength by then.  Another reason why we're anxious for the stem cell transplant to get underway.

Now I'm going to go back outside and sit on the deck for a while and enjoy the day.  I'll let you know if I see a robin.  I always know Spring is on the way when I see the robins migrating through here on their way up north.  I usually see the first one sometime in February.