It's April!

So it looks like my computer will be out of commission for a while (but at least we diagnosed the problem after 5 hours working on it last night)...so I'm going to try and update on this computer.
We'll go back to last weekend (Easter), which was highlighted by a lovely trip to Austin! Carolyn and I left Dallas around noon and a short 4.5 hours later (freaking construction!) we were at cousin Lisa and Eric's house. It was my first time at their house. I got to meet their two dogs, Darby and Travis (cute!) and gawk at their amazing aquarium. Eric was in the process of building another one, this one to house sea horses! We had a quiet dinner on Friday night and slept in on Saturday. Then Lisa and I passed the time by playing through Super Mario World on their modded Xbox. She was appreciative of my skills. :) That night we had Mexican food with Mike and Michael (which really appealed to Michael since he'd just returned from a bachelor's party IN Mexico). It was great to see them. We had to leave at 10am on Sunday so I would could get to work on time (and just in case it took 4.5 hours to get home). Luckily, the drive was made in just over three hours! Then I just had time to pick up Piper from the Roberts' (she spent the weekend there, bossing around Petey and Nellie).

On Monday, I got to pick up Leslie from Love Field. She accompanied me to the vet for an emergency check-up for Piper (she'd been having digestive problems all through Sunday night). Piper got a clean bill of health, though! Thank goodness! Dad got back from the ranch that afternoon (Mom was at Roundtop), and we had an early dinner with all the abandoned boys (Dad, Claude, Robert, RV) and Jerry at Peggy Sue.

Tuesday and Wednesday I spent mostly reading and recovering from a cold and the Austin weekend of adventure. Leslie and Dad spent a lot of time together, taking in the sculpture garden and Arboretum (pictures on overt's gallery). Tuesday night Carolyn and Matt joined us for a lovely family dinner (although sadly sans Mom). Mom returned on Wednesday and the people rejoiced. Leslie went back to California on Friday morning, fortified with (sleepy from?) a late-night talk with me the night before.

I got to spend time with Matt on Friday and Saturday nights, which was quite awesome. Yesterday Luke came over to work on my new computer and do some things with Mom and Dad's computer (my old Dell replaced their Gateway). In the evening, Matt came over and watched some basketball while we worked. Then we ordered pizza and watched Super Troopers. Classic. :)

This morning, Dad called me at 10am and told me he was calling from Presbyterian Hospital. They'd left the ranch to come home at 4am because Mom's abdomen was really hurting her (her stomach had been bothering her off and on for a week). They'd come home (come to think of it, I thought, Murphy did whine at my door awfully early on Sunday morning) and then had decided to go to the hospital. They diagnosed Mom as having gallstones and they wanted to take out her gall bladder. So when Dad was calling, they were just waiting to go to surgery. It was pretty quick and it was a laparoscopic procedure, which is great. They did the surgery and things went well. They also said it was good they did it when they did, because her gall bladder was inflamed and one of the stones was impacted in the duct. I went up to visit this afternoon and Mom was talking and able to get out of bed. I left them about an hour ago - Dad is going to stay the night with her. She will come home in the morning. People can send lots of good, happy, healing thoughts her way.

So that's the update. Now I'm going to go over to Matt's and try to relax a bit (seeing your mom in a hospital bed, no matter what the situation is, is not good for the nerves). I called work earlier in the day and they said it was all right if I didn't come in (which was excellent). I'm glad I can be on call if my family needs me.