A change to 90th Birthday plans

While Mark was at the ranch with his Mother, Denisa and her Mother (Betty) were 15 miles away on the farm. This is the house where Denisa was raised, so she's once again sleeping in her old bed room. The first plan of action was unloading Betty's car. It still had all the things she brought with her from her winter in South Texas. Then we started the process of opening up a house that had been closed for the last six months. That includes getting the water going, and turning on the telephone, television and internet. It sure would have been great to have Mark staying here, as he is so good with all the technical aspects. As it was, we had to have a three-way conference call with Mark talking technical to the wifi tech guy, while Denisa plugged and unplugged things and described the color of the lights on the router. Describing the different locations of green and yellow lights is about as technical as she gets.

It also took another couple days to get Betty's water reverse osmosis system back up and running. It took most of a week to get all those things accomplished. During that time we also did lots of cleaning and organizing around the house. Denisa also took a massive shopping list to the grocery store. We took a totally empty refrigerator, freezer, and pantry and stocked it up with enough food to last for a month! We baked and cooked and froze single-servings of food so Betty won't have to get out until the "sheltering at home" orders are cleared.

In between that cooking and cleaning, Denisa took walks out in the pasture to get some exercise. The sand plum bushes are in full bloom this spring.

But after snow and several nights of below-freezing temperatures, the blooms had that brown-ish frozen tinge that implied that the plum crop would be slim this summer.

Mark came to visit to help with some projects during the ten days. But he was always careful to change his clothes, use lysol wipes to clean anything he brought, and wore his mask. After ten days, Denisa is starting to forget what he looks like. Mark's mask was made out of material printed with lots of mustaches. The way it fits his face, that black mustache looks like a doggy nose, while the white mustache looks like buck teeth.

Mark is getting quite practiced at wearing his mask. In his first attempt at masking up, he was getting eye protection as well.

Besides wanting to be here for Easter, the main reason for the timing of this trip is some very special birthday plans. Months ago, Denisa and her sisters began planning for a big 90th birthday celebration for their Mother. We had reserved the location, and sent "save the date" notifications. All of Betty's children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren had asked off work and made plans to travel to the panhandle of Oklahoma for the big birthday party. We were planning to take family pictures and were inviting the whole county for birthday cake. But then Covid-19 happened and we had to cancel everything! So we at least wanted to be here, to help her celebrate such a momentous birthday! Denisa made her mother's favorite sugar-free dessert, and the twin daughters of a dear friend made apple cake. We forgot to take a picture of the desserts until after some sampling.

The twin "angels" that brought the apple cake yesterday, also brought a couple meals to be sure that Mother had some food while quarantined.

We put an ad in the local newspaper, explaining that her party had been changed to a birthday card celebration.

By the day of her birthday, she had a big stack of birthday cards to open. She was also busy with birthday texts and phone calls that started early in the morning. Many of her grandchildren were planning to face-time, so we had a table set up with a computer screen and decorations.

It was fun for Denisa to get to see her two sons' families, as well as nieces and nephews and sisters while they were face-timing for the 90th birthday.

Mark joined us for the special day because it's also his birthday--he's just a few years younger! He wore his mask to do some face-timing with our son and daughter-in-law and their golden retriever. Our other son's family had already face-timed him that morning, and his sister baked him a chocolate meringue pie, so he was also well-loved on his birthday.

Mark stayed for the birthday meal--Betty's favorite--Oriental Cashew Chicken, rice, and stir-fry vegetables. We were glad that Mark arrived with his face mask to help us celebrate both of their birthdays!

Mother and Denisa finished the evening as we did all of the ten that we have been isolating here together--playing cards and games. It has been an unusual spring for this travel blog, but this was a stop that we had planned for months. This 90th birthday celebration just turned out a lot different than we had planned before the corona virus changed our world.