For a couple months we've been observing the new growth on our orchid. When we left for Birmingham 2 weeks ago, there was a bud; a flower clearly preparing to show itself. Last Friday, when we returned home, this is what greeted us. It made us both smile.

On Tuesday, Nancy and I paid a visit to Nancy's favorite orthopedic doctor. See last week's post if you missed the story of how Nancy broke her arm. She expected a cast, but they ended up putting her in a brace and told her it would be 6 weeks before she could permanently take it off. The good thing about a brace is one can take it off to shower. You can't do that with a cast.

We ended up going back to the doctor on Thursday because the brace appeared to be going out of its way to pinch or push on every sore spot on Nancy's left arm. They showed us how to adjust the brace, and as of today, things are getting much better. We just keep telling ourselves that it could have been a lot worse.

Last night our grandson Ian started at right offensive guard for his high school football team in the Under Armour sponsored Brothers in Arms Classic. His team, the Desert Ridge Jaguars from Mesa, Arizona, traveled to California to play Norco High School. Ian was elected the team captain for the game, and we were able to watch on our big-screen TV thanks to a live broadcast over the internet by the High School Sports Network. It was a good game, but the Jaguars came out on the short end of a 14-10 score. We thought it was really neat that, thanks to the Internet, we could "attend" the game from the confort of our living room.