Better Late Than Never!

The WT's celebrate birthdays as close to the actual date as possible. However, we celebrate other holidays whenever we can get the group together. Today we celebrated the new year--just a few days late but it was still quite a celebration! We met at the hospital so that we could all visit with Pat and have a celebration at the same time--to celebrate the new year and hope for good health in 2007, to celebrate Pat's recovery after the accident and to celebrate Lorraine's recovery after her fall.

The two "Walking Wounded"--Lorraine on the left and Pat on the right.
Lorraine shows that she can still raise a glass in celebration--even with the bad elbow. Today she got her staples out and a new cast put on. What a sport she is to come out with all of us so soon after this!
Anna (left) and Helen S. (right) are evidently deep in thought (or tired from the wine and beer!). Helen just returned yesterday from two weeks visiting her son and family for Christmas in Connecticut.
The traditional group photo: Front: Jodie, Lorraine, Pat and Anna.

Back: Dorothy, Mary, Emily, Joan, Sharon, Irene, Helen S., Tee and Naomi. Again, a good turnout for a party (of course, there was plenty of food: shrimp cocktail, crackers and cheese, homemade hard tack by Irene, and wine and beer!).

On New Year's Day, Pat's grandchildren made a snowman for her right outside the window of her room--great fun to watch them build and great fun to see every day!

A Walkie Talkie anecdote: Yesterday Jodie was shopping in Target and ran into one of the nurses from the hospital. Conversation soon turned to the party we would be having the next day. The nurse wanted to know if we would be bringing stemmed glasses to the party. She was so disappointed when she found out we would only be using the regular water glasses in the hospital cafeteria. She made Jodie feel so bad that she finally ended up buying some plastic flutes to use (after all, they were on clearance after the holiday!). Last night the nurse called to say that she had found a dozen wine glasses for only $10. She said they wouldn't "ping" like crystal, but they were quite nice. She said she would wash them and bring them in and we could buy them or not. Well--they were great. Now the WT's have wine glasses for the next party. Irene is storing them at her house and has our permission to use them if she throws a party of her own! We have found that lots of people like to help with our celebrations and get a vicarious thrill from doing so.

Once again, a great time was had by all. We are all so thankful that Lorraine and Pat are doing so well!