We also left Regal 8 that year - Grandpa will go into the whys and wherefores of that. They did give us a big send off party and the advertising man for the company, and good friend, Bob Miller designed our logo for our newly formed company - Topper, Inc. At our farewell dinner, they had a cake made with the new logo. 
Another big event of the year was Taffy having puppies. That was an experience. First, I read all the books on 'how to prepare your dog for its first birthing, and how to prepare a suitable place for her to have her puppies'. The book said the latter was extremely important as dogs wanted privacy when the time came. Well Taffy's idea of privacy was between Dick and I on the bed in the middle of the night. I scurried her to her 'private place' and she followed me back, so I spent the night lying on the floor next to here while she delivered seven little puppies. I actually kept dozing off and she would lick my nose and wake me just before each birth. Things went well for about 2-1/2 weeks but then Taffy collapsed on me and almost died. We rushed her to the vet (late at night again of course!) and it turned out she was deplete of calcium. They saved Taffy, but ordered - no more Mommy feeding her babies. We had to wean the puppies. Fortunately Gordon and Irene had just arrived for a week's visit, so they were a huge help in getting the puppies fed. Our first attempt was funny, we had a cloth laid out over the table and each got a puppy and tried to teach it to eat the pablum out of a saucer. We ended up with pablum everywhere and all over the puppy, so we carefully cleaned the puppy before returning it to its bed and got another one. The only problem was after the first one, we couldn't tell which one we had bed and which we hadn't - so after that we got wise enough to leave them dirty until all were fed.
Katrina married Lynn Allred this year and they came to visit us with Suzanne and Becky. What a delight, we had a great time with them.
We ended the year with our first real vacation since moving back to the midwest. With Taffy we headed north and crossed into Canada visiting Calgary, Lake Louise and Banff. Saw our first bear in the wilds which was really funny. It was sitting on a table at a roadside rest area and didn't look that big squatted down. Dick drove closer, stopped the car and rolled down the window. Taffy was sitting on my lap looking out. She never moved and never made a sound.
We watched it for a while when it moved and started up (it looked a lot bigger then), so we slowly drove away closing the window as we went. When the window was fully closed and we had put a little distance between us, Taffy became the ferocious protector dog we always knew she was!!!
Our trip took us into British Columbia and then we headed down the Pacific Coast, ending up visiting family in California before returning home.
This has always been one of my favorite photos taken of Dick and Taffy - it really looks like they are sharing a joke doesn't it?As if 1976 hadn't been an eventful enough year, I ended it by having a hysterectomy when we returned from the trip. Even that gave me some wonderful memories. Dick actually had to be out of town the week I had the operation (they kept you in hospital for ten days back then), but he had a bouquet of flowers delivered to me every day I was in there. That plus the flowers I received from family, office personnel and BPW friends, made my room look a florist and they brought two extra carts in when I left just to wheel out all the plants. I have a very fond memory of my doctor/surgeon. I was operated on in the morning and some time that evening, I woke to see him watering my plants and flowers. How many doctors do you think would do that?
There was on more highlight for me that year too, but I'll share that in my next blog.
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