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Alaina and her big cake!

Mom and I took a trip to Ransom this weekend. Cousin Alaina's 50th Birthday was yesterday, so we went to church and then out to lunch to celebrate. Alaina is also a newly-minted grandmother to Rayland James who arrived earlier than expected. So technically she was a grandmother at 49! Mom made Alaina an apron, placemats and hot pad out of dog print material (for Ginger the dog).

Ransom (mom's hometown) is relatively the same. Population 400. The downtown pretty much consists of a couple of bars, the post office, war veteran memorial with a grain elevator at the end. My grandpa Glenn McCann built that grain elevator with an ungodly amount of concrete. Mom said she remembered when he was working on the job and mentioned how much grandma would worry about him working 24/7 to pour the concrete and get it done. And there it still stands.

The grain elevator.

We went out to the cemetery before church to check on grandma and grandpa's grave. We didn't stay very long because it was just too windy. As long as I can remember there have not been many still days in Ransom (and grandma and grandpa's farm outside of town) because it has always been windy. And now, energy companies have tapped into all of that flat farmland because wind turbines are surrounding the town - everywhere the eye can see. It's really bizarre.

Mom is getting her labs done this a.m. and then she has her monthly appointment with Dr. Porubcin next Monday. Hopefully the news will continue to be good news. We have had a run of bad news in the family lately - cousin Heather was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer a few months ago. She went through surgery and is now going through chemo. Heather is younger than I am - and her diagnosis has mom rethinking the genetic testing. Our family (mom's side) really hasn't had a lot of cancer (breast, gynecologic) so if there's something there now I guess we'll find out.

One thing we do know is that prayers do work wonders... it was nice to see mom's name in the Ransom church bulletin for prayers (as well as Heather's name) and that is the one constant that doesn't have anything to do with insurance, drugs or doctors visits but has had the most impact IMO.