Visitors

Dad has had many visitors the last few months. This is great Jon, Terri, His brother Bill and his wife Jeanie, His sister Elizabeth (Betsy) and her husband Dan. Dad enjoys the visits but as most of you know who have seen him recently he does not remember the next day ever seeing anyone.

Dad has been in good spirits lately and eating a little better. if he stops loosing weight he will graduate from hospice care.

As for me any my little family we are moving right along. Don lost his job with Varsity last month and so we took everything we had and opened a pizza takeout place. it is new york style and very yummy. We have great desserts and pasta as well.

Bethany was in the hospital and had surgery she is doing great now and all recovered.
I got to watch Jessica and Miriam for a night luck grandma.
like I minded.

We are gearing up for summer and all the activities involved. Guests coming and going as well as a few little trips one or two of us have to go on.

other than that life is going along.

until next time my love to all of you.
Jo Ellen

In Memeory of our Mother this Mothers day 2009

I think back on my Primary days when we would work so Hard on the songs we would sing in sacrament for our moms.

Mother I love you
Mother I do
Father in Heaven has sent me to you.
When I am near you
I love to hear you
singing so softly that you love me to.
Mother I love you , I love you I do.


I often go walking in meadows of clover.
and I gather arm fulls of blossoms of blue.
I gather the flowers the whole meadow over
dear Mother all flowers remind me of you.


Mom I Love you
I miss you
I look forward to the Day when I will see you again.

Love Jo Ellen

March and April

Wow March and April and spring is coming. Life changes and many more happenings in the Ziegler Family.

First of all the family picture is the first picture we have had done as a family since Nichole and Peter's wedding. Far to Long.

The end of March Brought on a new change in our house. Mariah and Diana Moved To Salt Lake City Utah. This is a fun and exiting adventure for them and a sad time back here in Illinois. The house feels empty with just one at home. Eric is loving his being an only child and the fact that he gets the big room. After it is painted of course.

Dad (Jerome) is not doing very well his Alzheimer's is progressing and he is in the final stages of the terrible disease. He is under hospice care now. I visit several days a week and stay for several hours. sometimes reading, sometimes holding his hand and other times feeding him so he will eat something.

He is down to 176 pound to thin for a man that is 6 foot tall. He talks the last few days about how these people he does not know are asking him for something he cant give them and how others are asking him to go with him but he cant go till he finds what the others are asking him for. I feel his time is short.

The picture of him above is from April 8, 2009 he is listening to Ravel's - Bolero.

Well that is all for now. Keep smiling My Love to all Jo Ellen

Life at the Ziegler home

Life Here at our house is busy. with work, School, going to see Dad and running errands. I wake at 6:00am every morning and fall into bed about 11:00pm

Eric is busy at school, play practice, young man's, Scouting and Tong so do. Eric had a play the other day and did a good job playing a chicago Mayor he even did a great job holding his accent the whole time. he has a talent to voices.

Diana working and getting ready to move with Mariah in April. Mariah is working and also getting ready to move. She has been accepted to attend LDS Business Collage summer semester. So she is Off to Salt Lake City Utah. Diana will be attending Cosmotology school in salt lake as well.

Don and I are doing ok We are getting ready to start a new adventure business wise and are very exited. Don will still be doing his photography but only part time. he is also still working as an area manager for Varsity Contractors.

As for me I keep myself busiy being a mom, a wife and taking care of Dad. I go and visit him whenever posible it usualy turnes out to be 3-4 days per week. The Veterans home is 42 miles from my house and so when I go visit him I usualy stay 3-4 hours. it is nice. some days we laugh alott and others we just sit and he holds my hand just about the whole time. He is fun as you can see in the pictures he has lost a lot of weight. but that was to be exspected with Alzheimer's .

Don and I attended a celebration for Abraham Lincoln's 200th Birthday. It was so much fun. The town of Carthage held it in the Historic county courthouse. it was nice it is only 5 blocks from our house. how fun to spend time with the grand kids at something fun and educational.

We are all hopeing it will stop snowing soon we are so ready for spring. I want to get my garden planted. mmmmmm fresh vegies right off the vine yum.

I truly hope you are all well I love you all
Jo Ellen

memories of June 2007 - Dec. 2008

Visiting Grandpa

This is a post from my blog back on the 19th of January. I thought I would take a minute and transfer it over to here so that all of you could have a chance to read it.

~Nichole



Visiting my Grandpa back in July

Today being a holiday we decided to take a trip down to Quincy in the morning to visit my Grandpa. He is in the Veteran's home there with the late stages of Alzheimer's. At this point he is not here much. We were there for about half and hour and he had his eyes open for about 10 minutes. Of course, I forgot my camera. Oh, well. While we were there I played my violin for him. He and my Grandma Westergren gave me my very first violin. The first song that I played for him was, "I am a Child of God." He smiled as much as he can at this stage in his life and for a minute it even looked like he was trying to conduct me. I enjoyed playing for him. The girls enjoyed getting to see him, I haven't meet kids before (besides myself) that like to visit dying people. Anyway, it was good to get to spend some time with him today. I hope it is a memory that I will be able to keep forever. That is why I am sharing it with you. If I write it down to share with friends and family I will have written it down. I guess this is kind of like my journal. Thank you for letting me share.My Grandpa in August.

My Grandpa and part of his posterity in December.

I LOVE YOU GRANDPA!

I hope some of you are reading this blog. You can leave comments if you would like. down at the bottem of each post you will see a spot that says comments and then have a number if you click on that a comment page will appear and you type whatever you would like.

Keep smiling. everyone Lots of love Jo Ellen