Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

And boy do I feel especially thankful this Thanksgiving for the staff at the Mayo Clinic hospital.

This was my third stay at the hospital and all three have been good experiences thanks to the nursing staff.

I especially want to thank Nurse Paula who had to prep me for my colonoscopy. She kept having me sip the yellow liquid throughout the night that cleans out your system. She then had to keep coming into my room to get the results that the lemon-tasting liquid was supposed to produce.

It seems like I had to use her services every five minutes when it really took hold. I kept apologizing for calling her so much and she said, “That’s not necessary, that’s what I’m here for.

I’ll bet she was glad when the end of her shift came at 7:30 a.m.

The nurse in the surgery room said she knew me and regularly read my column. I remember her saying she was related to Fountain Hills pioneer Marge Brown but the anesthesia took hold right after that and I passed out before I could finish our conversation. Earlier, I said I was feeling old. It was because of the nature of my illnesses.

When I came home from the hospital, I had a stack of newspapers to go through. I really felt old when I read they are planning to tear down the building that houses the store where I had my first job. They are going to close the Bashas’ on the corner of 7th Avenue and Osborn Road and build an apartment complex on the site.

The store has been located there since the late 1950s. It is the oldest of the Phoenix-area Bashas’ stores.

We’ve had a lot of time with our grandkids this past summer and fall. We went to New Jersey in July.

There we saw 17-year-old Hunter, who had just started driving and bought his first vehicle. I talked to him and he was proud to tell me he had finished first in his high school in scoring on the military version of the SAT exam.

His guidance counselor told him the score he recorded should allow him to choose just about any occupation he could desire in any branch of the military.

Brandon is eight years old now. He and seven-year-old Brody are still taking taekwondo and up to the blue belt level. Five-year-old Brylee is doing well in school and is very art oriented.

And then there’s Brielle, 2 ½. She has the curliest hair you’ll ever see, a vocabulary way beyond her years and she hasn’t met a meal she doesn’t like.

All but Hunter came out to stay with us for a week while our daughter Tammy celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary driving through and experiencing the Napa Valley wine country with husband, Brandon.

They had a wonderful time, enjoying the various restaurants and wineries along the way.

The sound level certainly dropped when the kids left. Other than a few skirmishes, they were well behaved, though.

Also coming for a visit while they were here were our daughter, Toni, who lives in Las Vegas, and her son, Camden. He is the baby who was born with heart defects. You’d never know it to see him now. He has completed his surgeries and he runs everywhere he goes. He is now 2 1/2.

We got to visit with our west coast grandkids in October.

Diane and I rented a beach house in Carlsbad, Calif., the town in which daughter Holly and her husband, Bruce, live. Their two daughters, Brooke, 8, and Addy, who turned 6 while we were there, have become involved in competitive swimming.

They had their first competition the week before we got there, and Brooke won a second-place ribbon in the backstroke. I think Addy is still more interested in dance like her mother.

Holly’s photography business is still doing well.

Well, that’s an update on our family. Enjoy your family this week, and again, Happy Thanksgiving.