Saturday, April 28

Up at 6:30 to get ready to go to another town about an hour and a half east to attend a baby shower for Hubbie's niece. We left town around 9 a.m. Daughter had not arrived yet to stay with Mother. I texted her to let me know when she got here. When I had not heard from her by the time we got to the other town, I called Mother to be sure she was okay. She was.

Before we went on to the town where the shower was to be held, we stopped in the larger city 30 minutes from that town to shop at the warehouse store. Just inside the door of the store, someone intercepted us to ask if we wanted to apply for the store's credit card. An incentive to do so was a $40 offer that could be applied to our purchases today, if the purchases amounted to $100. Since I needed to buy a package of printer ink cartridges, plus several grocery items, we knew we would spend the required amount. I got a bit of sticker shock when I discovered that the cartridge package price had risen from $72 the last time I bought one to over $85 today. That $40 discount came in handy!

We arrived at Hubbie's sister's house around 11:30, and she had a deli meat/cheese sandwiche, and veggies with dip lunch prepared for us. Shortly after noon, I received a text from Daughter that she had arrived to stay with Mother.

We enjoyed visiting with his sister and niece until time to go to the shower. Hubbie dropped me off at the church where the shower was held, and then went to visit his daughters, son, granddaughter, and great-grandchildren at his ex-wife's house. The ex, with whom I'm friendly, was at the shower, and the daughters joined us later.

The shower was held in the church fellowship hall, which had been decorated in rubber-ducky bath motif. Each table held glass containers, with blue water, Styrofoam balls for bubbles, and little yellow duckies. The refreshment table held an oversized champagne glass filled with the blue water, "bubbles" and duckies. Clear glass Christmas balls were suspended from the ceiling to represent bubbles.

Refreshments included rice crispy treats, dyed yellow, and shaped like rubber duckies, sandwiches on Hawaiian buns, ham roll-ups, Chinese egg rolls with a sour cream dip, and a tiered dish of yellow and chocolate cupcakes with blue icing and rubber ducky decorations. The drink was some sort of blue punch served from a bucket in which rubber duckies floated.

Around 30 women attended, so Niece received a carload of gifts, cash, and gift cards. Before she opened her gifts, we were each given cards on which to write advice to the new mother. I advised her to learn to love sleepless nights, doing laundry, spit-up on your favorite dress, etc., which is worth it for the joy of that first baby smile, first tooth, first baby step, etc.

The event lasted from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Hubbie returned to pick me up shortly after four, and after he visited with some of the ladies he knew and partook of the refreshments, we went back to his sister's house, where we spent a little while snapping photos.

We were back on the road home around 5:30. Back home, I stepped over to Mother's house to let her and Daughter know we were home.

Since it was around 7 p.m., Hubbie and I decided to have a sandwich supper. Daughter finished watching a TV show with Mother, before coming to our house and watching a couple of disaster movies from the SyFy Channel with us..."Polar Storm," and "NYC: Tornado Terror."