A Year of Change

Hard to believe it’s December 10th. 2 weeks from today is Christmas Eve. We haven’t even thought about this much less done any shopping. Lori is hurting a bit today. We think the plane flights with all the bumps and turbulence irritated her neck. She has her CAT Scan on Monday.

Today Jag is going skiing and Ty snow boarding. Lori is going to a Christmas Tea with Sarah from work at the church down in Edwards. I’ll run kids around and make some ribs and sauerkraut. I’ll need to call my Mom to get a reminder on how to cook it. It’s nice outside but lots of fresh snow on the mountain. The Christmas Market is also going on again this weekend up here in Minturn.

Last night we went to the Four Seasons bar as our friends who moved to Washington D.C. came for a long weekend. Warner who is Ty’s friend and a couple other boys all ran around playing and then they all stayed at Max’s house. Jagger and Harmon and two buddy’s hung out and will ski today. Bret and Rebecca, the parents, and about 3 or 4 other couples, and us, all visited for a while. At one point the girls all walked up the street to a store that was having a huge sale which is out of character for Vail. Every lady came back with a bag in tow including Lori who found a nice sweater at 70% off. She was having buyers remorse when we got home but I told her how nice it was and to enjoy it. She never asks for anything.

Guess I’ll run as today we’re celebrating Mojo’s birthday which was 3 days ago. He has a big new bone and will get a long walk today. Time to run so I can get to the gym and then get the boys to the mountain, GB

Today is my dads birthday. Simply put, he was one of the greatest guys anyone could ever know. I won’t go into all his great qualities but let’s just say, I haven’t run into anyone like him in a long time. Hopefully I can pass on some of the things I learned from him to our boys. Not sure how old he’d be, my Mom would know.

I picked up Lori at the airport yesterday and we had to rush up the hill to pick up the boys. It was coming down pretty good and this morning we have probably about a foot of new snow. We need to get moving as we slept in.

Better get moving as we need to leave in an hour and I haven’t even warmed up the car. GB

Today Lori comes home. I think she’ll need some rest as she was pretty tired when we talked yesterday. I thought she’d be getting some rest hanging by the pool in California with her margarita! (there is no pool)

I’m off to Denver once I drop the boys and then have a meeting before I pick up some wine and return the rental car. Once I get our car back, then I have one or two more errands and I’ll stop at my Moms before picking Lori up around 2 in the afternoon. We then need to get up the hill before too much snow closes the pass. It’s cold but not that cold. For people in Denver, with the temps at zero, it’s cold. I think it’s supposed to warm up the next few days. It’ll have to up here or it won’t snow. It can be too cold to snow if you didn’t know that!

It’s 6 am and time to run as I need to get the boys out the door by 7:20. First up though I need to vacuum and make the bed. Mojo also wants breakfast and needs a walk as he’ll be in the house all day. I’d take him with me but just don’t have the room. Hope everyone is well, GB.

Yup, we have snow, a good 6 inches on top of the 5 or 6 from yesterday. We’re thrilled as that’s great for skiing. Now come the cold temperatures, somewhere around 20 below tonight, so they say.

Yesterday I picked Ty up around 3:30 as he had a make up test. We then headed to Wally World (Walmart) for some supplies for his science project. After finishing up some homework, like “Religion in Syria and the Geopolitical implications of current events and how they affect Russia, surrounding countries and those in the West” for Ty’s history, we settled in until I had to go get Jag at 7 pm. We hung out until about 9:15 or 9:30 before heading to bed.

It’s so cold outside my truck won’t start using the auto start on my key. I need to get out there and start both cars to warm them up.

Lori is doing ok, so we think. We all can’t wait for her to come home tomorrow as it’s just not the same with her gone. I’m in Denver most of tomorrow and should get back up here with her by 5 or so. The boys have a basketball clinic with Christian Laettner who is a former great college and pro basketball player. It goes from 3 until 5pm.

Today is the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. It was 75 years ago today. Obama is bringing the Japanese Prime Minister there which is the first time since the attack that any leader from Japan has gone there. Many veterans are understandably upset. Yesterday the administration told them they need to get over it, what? It’d be one thing if Japan would apologize but unbeknownst to most, they never have. Not my place to complain as I wasn’t there but the shameless disregard for our vets by this Pres is unbelievable. You could have put it a different way instead of telling them, and I use their words, “to get over it”. Wow, be glad when he’s gone.

I need to take a break and warm up the cars and shovel some snow……… there, I’m back, the snow sure is heavy, good for the mountain. I think we’re done with snow for a bit, just cold now.

Guess I’ll run, stay warm if you’re in Colorado or wherever you are. If you’re cold, go shovel some snow or exercise, that’ll warm ya up! 10 days until Jagger’s birthday and 18 until Christmas! GB.

Yesterday we drove down to the airport to get Lori to her flight through blowing snow. Turns out her flight was then delayed a good hour. I skipped my meeting in Park Meadows and moved it until Thursday when I pick Lori up just in case the snow kept blowing in the mountains.  I made it home fine but by late in the afternoon, the snow began to fall. Around 7 pm when I had to pick up Jag from basketball, we had 5 inches or so and it was coming down fast. Not much more snow this morning, maybe another inch or two. I guess we’re supposed to just have colder temperatures over the next few days.

Today I’m putting a roast in the crock pot. Lori’s not big on roast but the boys like it. I did swap my rental car yesterday from a small Chevy to a Ford Expedition. Lucky I did with the weather. We of course miss the misses and wish she was home. Hope she’s doing well in California. The boys are still hoping maybe Grandma Dixie can come back for Christmas but I don’t think that’s very likely. Not sure what we’re doing, probably going to California.

Here’s a picture of Mojo from when we walked up the mountain before the snow along with some carolers from the Winter Market last weekend. Guess I’ll run so I can get the boys up, fed and moving and I also need to clean off the car. Have a good day. GB

This morning we have lots going on. First, it looks like Lori will now not have surgery until January. This is due to partial relief, plus not being able to get our insurance number to schedule the CAT Scan last week and Dr. C just being really overbooked and overtired. We’re hoping she continues to get better.

It also looks like Dixie now probably won’t be able to come here for Christmas as she needs to be close to her doctors. We’ll know more later this week after Lori gets back there to find out exactly what’s going on. Hope she’s doing ok.

The boys have lots of work this week as do I. It’s 5:40 am and we need to leave by 7:30 at the latest. It’s not snowing yet and I hope it holds off until I get back up the hill after dropping Lori at the airport and my meeting.

So there’s three “hopes” I mentioned in the first three paragraphs so you can see we need a few things to go our way, ha. Throw in a payment to the I R S, I just remembered, and here we go again. The boys are out of school in 2 weeks, even though for all practical purposes their work is over a week from Wednesday. Once they’re out, then, if you can call it this, it’s vacation. Don’t know about you all but we’d just like to crawl in bed for about 10 days and watch tv, ha. The boys are planning on being on the mountain every day. We’ll let you all know our schedule as soon as we know our schedule.

Time to run, have a great week and if you’re in Colorado, stay warm! God Bless.

Well, one side of Lori’s head appears to be better. Not all the way, but 90% better. The other side though, it’s still a problem. At this point, any relief is welcome. Tomorrow she goes to California and when back later this week, will have a CAT Scan on Friday. This is a big week for the kids at school as it’s Jag’s last week before finals and Ty’s most important week for his grades this semester. It’s also going to be freezing and I only need to get in about $1.6 Million dollars worth of orders. Throw in all the end of the year surgeries at her work and it’s not a good week for her to be gone, but it is what it is. Hopefully she’ll get a lot accomplished with Dixie and get her all together so she can come back here.

The boys want to ski today and that means I need to go get Ty who spent the night at Sonny’s. After the Bronco’s game, which we need to win, we need to run to Costco to prepare for the week. Tomorrow we’ll need to get up early and drop the boys early so I can get Lori to the airport in time for her flight. I’m hoping I can get back up here before they close the pass. If it snows really hard, as forecast starting at 4 am, we hope we can get down to get Lori to the airport which isn’t a sure thing in itself! Did you know you can fly just about anywhere in the World cheaper than flying to Sacramento on short notice? Pick your destination, Australia, Japan, Fiji, Europe, even South Africa! The airlines sure get you when you don’t plan ahead. Oh well, it is what it is.

We did get our tree yesterday. Tomorrow, with the snow starting up, along with Lori leaving, we had to get it. This year we went with a lodgepole pine which is different from the traditional tree we usually get. Guess I’d better run, have a great Sunday, GB (which means God Bless and Go Broncos!) Look how tall Jagger is! Hard to get those boys to smile, ha ha.

Lori had her mini surgery yesterday afternoon and was done by about 6:30 pm. All went well but we’re not sure how well it worked. Guess we need to wait a bit. It was a tricky procedure and on the left side while an injection was going in, she temporarily lost her hearing on one side and her eye went from fuzzy to dark. This shows you how much our spinal cord is the lifeline to everything in our bodies. She was awake the whole time so she could hear Dr Evans talking through the procedure.

Of course due to that great program called Obama Care, we had to switch insurance again as we do every year. With it being December 2nd, even though we have insurance, we don’t yet have our new cards and numbers. We had to cancel the CT Scan unless we wanted to pay $4000. The procedure she had was actually $17,000 and any other person would have had to pay that out of pocket but they let us slide. We finally found someone at the insurance company that said they’re 90% sure we’re covered. We’d better be, otherwise we’re out $17K and that’s with Dr Evans not charging us his fees! Let’s hope it worked as you might remember we paid $3K two weeks ago for the facet injections. (you’re all probably getting homemade gifts for Christmas, ha)

Dixie will be coming here for Christmas as long as her doctor says it’s ok, maybe even this week. Lori and her will have to figure things out next week when she’s in California. I talked with her yesterday and she sounded ok. With Lori going in for surgery (assuming the CT Scan next Friday shows Dr C what he needs to see), it’ll be good to have Dixie here.

The boys want to go skiing today but first need to clean their rooms and we need to get a tree. I’d like to go to the gym as Lori and I have both been stress eating as Lori calls it. Cold weather and temperatures are coming. We’re used to it and fine with it but it’ll be cold. We’re more worried about my Mom in Denver as she doesn’t like the cold like we do. Ty needs a new ski coat and ski pants bad as he’s grown out of his outfit from last year. Here’s a chance for one of you to get him something he needs for Christmas!

Guess I’ll run, glad we’re not in Sin City (Vegas) as we were supposed to be, have a good weekend. GB

Ok, in 13 days, Lori goes in for surgery. She’ll have a minimum of three, probably four, levels of her neck fused. This will create limited mobility for her forever but needs to be done. We don’t/won’t know if this will make her headache go away but as I said, with her crappy bones, needs to be fixed regardless. After this, it could be six months or it could be never that a slipped disc that all this hardware will be sitting on top of, could fail too. If so, it’ll mean more surgery. We’re praying the the root of her headache isn’t C1 which is at the base of her brain as that requires a neurosurgeon as Dr C doesn’t even operate that high. Lori just received a text from Dr. Evans telling her that he managed to get her in today for an epidural. Hopefully this will provide her some relief and numb her up taking away the constant pain. Not sure what that’ll cost us but that’s the least of my worries. So, that’s what we have going. This is a big big surgery being 3 or 4 levels and Don (Dr C) said she won’t be able to swallow well for sometime. Lori’s excited as she knows she’ll get all skinny not being able to eat solid food for a month or so! Ha

Now for the real reason we need help. We’re worried about Dixie. Lori is flying out Monday but she said she didn’t sound too good last night. She wants to call and wake her now but I told her to let her sleep. We’re praying her heart recovers from whatever it was that has caused the current problems. I made Lori take her pain pills last night so she feels all drugged this morning so I’ll drive her to work.

I made it down to Denver to drop the car at the body shop and picked up the rental and after stopping to have a quick chicken sandwich with my Mom, made it back up the hill. The boys are sleeping and it’s almost 7 so I need to get them up and moving. I haven’t even mentioned all going on at work, Lori’s or mine. That’s a whole different story, but we’ll tough our way through it. So time to cowboy and cowgirl up around here. We need to put our big boy pants on and tackle everything head on as that’s how you handle challenges. No point in running, hiding or ignoring them as that only makes them worse as they never go away on their own. Thankfully Lori has the ability to schedule herself within 2 weeks. She would have gone in earlier but it takes time for insurance authorization and stuff. She has moved a few patients off the schedule so she can go in around noon that day instead of 6 or 7 at night as it’s a 5 hour surgery. Anyhow, here we go. It’ll be fun! May God help, look out, protect and bless us all….Happy December and Merry Christmas!

Today is a shocker in so many ways. The kids are out of school in a matter of weeks, I have about 25 days to bring in $2 Million dollars or so in sales, Lori is off to CA on Monday to check on her Mom, and somehow has to have surgery before the 18th when her surgeon goes to Australia for vacation. And of course, our financial plans were blown to hell last week when we had to unexpectedly send all our savings to the tax man. So, we’re off to a pretty good start!

Today I’m running Lori’s car down to get fixed, almost forgot about that bit of great news. I’m going to get a quick haircut and then head back up the hill. I’m slowly getting better but Lori is about the same.

Time to run as I’m already late. Take care, GB.