Day 1 - Getting settled

Well, on the drive down we read letters from Jan Junkin and their daughter Cher that were in a fantastic basket that Jan made for us. It had all kinds of goodies, lotion, drinks, paper, pens, a dinner gift card and much more! There was a letter to mom and Laurie from Cher that really choked us all up. Cher had a kidney transplant in 2004 and has been a true inspiration to me as I have seen how great she has done. She even has a 2 1/2 year old daughter! The letters were so touching about how faithful God was during that time and still is. We were crying so hard that we kept having to pass the letters back and forth to one another to read! Jan has been a BIG help to me as I have been learning about what to expect, where to stay, what it will be like, etc...THANKS JAN for being such a wonderful friend.

We are settled in at the hotel in Gainesville. We went out for a fun dinner and then came back and talked over the schedule for tomorrow. We have to have mom at Shands at 8:00 am for a day of testing and meetings with the surgery team. Then we laughed alot. Mom would not let me get any pictures of her -- here is Laurie with her stuffed animal Scottie dog we gave her. Outside our door is a lake -- and as I talked with Doug and the girls on the phone tonight a large alligator stared at me the whole time. I tried to get a picture of him - but it was a bit dark.

More to come tomorrow...