A Year of Change

Today is my little brothers birthday, so Happy Birthday! He must be 56 today. Yesterday was busy and the game flat out sucked. I sort of hope we lose the next two games to get a better draft choice in next years draft. Lori has work and more PT today and the boys who cleaned their rooms a bit have some more work to do. I have lots of work and all of us need a haircut. 6 days until Christmas so we’d better get busy.

Today electors will confirm Donald Trump as the next Pres of the U.S. Meanwhile angry celebs and dems who can’t get over their crushing loss, have been doing anything to try to stop them including sending death threats to electors. Death threats? Are you kidding me? Let’s get this straight, 3007 counties in the United States voted for Trump and 67 counties, yes that’s right, 67 total, voted for Hillary! But the butt hurt dems and celebs aren’t happy with the results so they think they have the right to over rule the rest of us. And if the election was about the popular vote, campaigns would have run different campaigns! Oh and that 5 fold increase of people that applied for permits to move to Canada that the dems keep talking about, well, are you ready for this (and by the way, all those celebrities who said they’d move, well none of them are leaving) jumped from 5 to 28 applications in November. Yes, you read it right, 28 freakin people! So the dems run around saying, “oh no, people are leaving in droves,  5 times as many people want to move to Canada” like it’s a huge number when in truth, you could fit them all in a small bus. I wish those celebs would move, good riddance. If you think about it, we like and enjoy celebs for the characters they portray, not for who they really are as people, as most of them are pretty stupid, and if they’re not playing a part, they’re just like you and me, or in my opinion, so detached from reality that they’re less qualified to give any advice on just about anything! Oh well, have a great day and congrats to President Trump! GB.

Yesterday was a busy one, a bit busier than usual with the big birthday and all. I managed to get Jag to the mountain by about 9:30. Then I had to rush home to get Lori and Ty. After getting Ty to the mountain for a few hours, he called as it was too cold up top with the wind blowing. Then Ty and I drove over to Silverthorne to get Jagger’s cake. We were stuck behind snow plows going both up and down Vail Pass on our trip which turned our trip into twice as long as it should have been. Finally at 4 or so we made it home. Lori was drifting in and out of sleep and decided to skip her afternoon PT as she was so tired. She was also understandably sore after working for the past two days. Here’s a few photos for fun, The first is obviously Lori and Amy who is the VP of Clinical Operations and I think you all know who the next two good looking guys are! The girls are of course at the party and if you look close you can see how tired Lori is and from yesterday morning, Jag is just about to get dropped off for skiing. I was going to stay home from the game but Lori says she’s fine so looks like I get to go to Denver where I think it’s actually colder than up here. I told Tommy I wasn’t sure whether or not to go as I hate to go through all the trouble of going if we lose! Sure hope we win. Jag took 3 buddies to dinner last night for his birthday. They had a lot of fun just being “the guys”. He has an American Express card in his name for emergencies on school trips and this was the first time he actually got to use it. He of course is very responsible and made sure the guys didn’t order the $80 Kobe Beef!

A week from today is Christmas! We literally have only bought one present and it was Aunt Robi’s! I think we’ll go to Denver for a day next week to knock it all out as they don’t have a Dollar Store up here, ha ha. Tomorrow is Tommy’s birthday and on it goes. Not sure what the boys are doing today but Lori has PT at 8am which is in exactly 36 minutes. So have a good day, the whirlwind continues, God Bless.

Today Jagger turns 15 years old! It’s really hard to believe how old he is but looking back, we’ve done a lot in 15 years. It went too fast as life always does but has been a really enjoyable ride. We can’t wait to see what the next 15 years brings! As you all know, both boys are great young men and make us look like Parents of the Century. Now we can’t take all the credit as some of it came from just good genes. Oh wait! That’s us! I guess we can take the credit, ha!

Yesterday, as you’d expect, Lori went to work. I had my long conference call and picked the boys up at noon. We then stopped by the hospital to drop a birthday cake and balloons for one of Lori’s PA’s. As far as her former employee, there’s been no contact. The clinic changed all the lock codes on the keypads on the internal doors and locked her out of her email and all the other stuff you need to do to secure medical records. All this over the person being upset over $1000 or a few dollars an hour, Lori’s not even sure which one. Lori feels bad for her but this was all her own doing. Oh well, time to move on.

Finally I picked her up around 2:30 and she was dead tired. We put her right in bed and had planned on having her stay there until this morning. About 5pm though, she decided to rally and said we’re going to the Company Christmas Party. So we got dressed up and headed over to the restaurant where the party was. Every one was amazed she was even there. Dr. Millet who did her surgery says she’s a machine! We visited and hung out for about 90 minutes and then I convinced her it was time to go. We stopped at the store for a birthday card for Jag and were home by about 8:30. She was glad though that she showed up.

It’s 8am now and the boys are still sleeping. Lot’s of snow up here and still coming down. I need to head to the gym so I’d better get moving. Jagger and 3 buddies are going skiing today and then will go straight to Matsushista ( a great sushi restaurant) for dinner. That’s where he wanted to go so we said we’d pay for him and his buddies. When we were kids my parents always let us choose where we wanted to go for our birthday dinner. The only difference was, the parents went along! Times have changed. Ty is going skiing too, maybe with Jag or else with his buddies. Guess I’ll run. Lori has PT at 10:30 and 4 today. She’s icing now and now I need to go shovel the white stuff, then do some laundry, then clean the kitchen, then walk the dog, then take the boys to the hill, then take Lori to PT, then start thinking about dinner and on it goes. God Bless you all and Happy Birthday to Jagger!

I arrived at the hospital around 6:40 to get Lori. By 7:15 we went down two floors to PT where they started working on her shoulder. I then left, went home, grabbed the boys and took them to school. By the time I arrived back at the hospital, she was almost done. We went up to her office and noticed she was down one girl. It seems one of the girls just picked up and left! We weren’t sure what happened and Dr. C had no idea either but was not happy. By the time we almost made it home, Lori found out the missing girl left unexpectedly as she wasn’t happy with her raise and bonus! Now it’s fine to not be happy if you didn’t get what you want (and by the way she got what she got last year, a 3% raise and a $3K bonus) but to walk out on the team and the doctor a week before Christmas, leaving them short handed, is not cool.

So, Lori, being Lori, said, “I need to change and go back to work”. So, again, not arguing with her, I turned around and took her back to the hospital. She stayed all day and finally at 3 pm, the missing girl came back in. Apparently it was not a comfortable scene as she blamed, of all people, Lori for not getting a larger bonus! Now this girls work has always been a little spotty and Lori has always tried to defend her to the Doc and his wife who wanted her gone a long time ago. So after a pretty much useless conversation where this girl made no sense, she gathered up her stuff and walked out. So, we think she quit, meaning no unemployment, but in any case she’s gone. I don’t expect this to be the end of it though a she’s kind of bi-polar and will probably try to get another job or make some shit up about Lori and the Practice as to why she left. By the time we were home from PT, she had already sent Lori a text, sort of apologizing. We’re not sure if she’ll show up today or come to the Christmas party tonight, or what. I told Lori though that when you’re in charge, you always get the blame and just have to roll with it. It’ll all be for the best in the long run but how nice is it that Lori got to deal with all that 12 hours after getting out of surgery instead of being home in bed where she should have been.

Now today, the boys have a half of day of school and then are all done. Lori has PT at 9:20 and I have a Company wide conference call from 9 to 11, teeing up 2017. No snow yet but they say a foot or more is coming. Time to run, GB

After having her MRI reviewed, it turned out that Lori had a massive tear in her left rotator cuff. Apparently there was a bone spur that had been slowly cutting through her tendon every time she moved her arm. On Monday, as luck would have it, it finally gave way and tore all the way through. So, thanks to the great team of Dr. Millet and Dr. Millet himself, they made room for Lori and took her back at 5pm last night. An hour later she was all done and in recovery. We sure are lucky as if she was just a patient off the street, the next opening with Dr. Millet is in April of next year. He arranged for an extra OR (operating room) and then Dr. Millet went back and forth between two surgeries, in separate OR’s at the same time to fix Lori. He prefers to get this type of injury fixed when it’s in the acute (early) stage as it can get worse the longer you put it off. He even closed (did her stitches) himself which is pretty much unheard of as most all surgeons have PA’s (physician assistants) or Fellows, (guest doctors in training) who assist, close up after the surgery. So she’s all fixed up and in good spirits. They did give her a nerve block so her whole arm, hand, fingers and all, were totally limp with no feeling after surgery. She did stay the night so they could keep an eye on her. Here’s a picture below for fun although she doesn’t like the way she looked after surgery, surprise surprise. Not sure what she expected herself to look like!

This morning she has PT (physical therapy) first thing at 7:30. They get right after it with the rehab. Then she wants to go to work for a bit as she says she has lots to do and Dr. C. only has today and tomorrow left before he’s off to Australia for 2 weeks. She also says we’re going to the Christmas party on Friday night. I learned a long time ago not to argue with or doubt her when she has her mind set on something. Basically the key to a happy marriage is to pick your battles and whether or not we go to her company Christmas party is not one I care enough about to contest. If she’s tired or hurting, we’ll just come home.

Both boys are essentially done with school even though they go through noon tomorrow. Tests wrapped up yesterday and they’re looking forward to their break. Jag’s birthday is Saturday and I was planning on going to the football game on Sunday but will have to see how the misses is doing. Time to run as I need to check Lori out at 7 am and take her down to PT, then drive home, get the boys and take them to school. It’s been snowing for a good 24 hours too! Glad she’s all fixed up! Thank God for watching over her and on top of everything, her headache is gone! Woo hoo.

Today at 8am Lori has another MRI this time looking at her rotator cuff. After trying everything, she had the shoulder doc look at her last night before leaving work and they think she has a massive tear in her shoulder. We’ll know more this morning. If so, she’ll probably have surgery this afternoon or tomorrow at the latest. In a way, it’ll be a good thing if that is it as then we’ll know what it is. We’ll keep you posted.

On top of all this, I am slammed. Lori also had a confrontational meeting with her doc’s wife yesterday who sticks her nose in business she has no business in sticking her nose in. Follow that? In the end, Lori ended up with what she wanted for her team and all is good. Sometimes when people go through rough patches and then make up the relationship is even better. That’s what we’re hoping for here.

Today is basically Jag’s last day of finals and the same with Ty. Ty has a test at 7:45 and that’s it for him. Jag has been studying a bunch and we pretty much have been leaving him alone. That’s it, time to run as we have to complete a science experiment where we put coffee stains on 3 shirts and then wash them in three different detergents to see which is best. Lucky for us we get to do that this morning too! And oh yea, it’s snowing hard! Gotta go, GB.

Yesterday about 3 hours after Lori arrived at work, all of a sudden a debilitating pain shot down her left arm and was also in her chest. Now this was no ordinary pain, this was big time pain. Dr. C was so concerned that he sent her right over to Dr. Greenberg, our top cardiologist to make sure she wasn’t having a heart attack! She called me and told me she was fine but I knew better, as she always says that, and headed right over. I made it there right when they called her back. After getting Dr. Greenberg from the hospital and doing a complete workup, we’re happy to report her heart is fine. In fact, it’s super strong and one of the best hearts he has ever seen! So, knowing this, it has to be a nerve shooting down from her neck. She made it home after going back to work, around 6pm. She was in such pain that there was nothing she or I could do for the pain. She took pain pills and managed to get a little sleep, as did I, before we both woke at 5 am.

This morning she has a meeting a 7 and I’ll need to drive her as she really only has one functioning arm. She’s doing better but still in pain. Good news is she says it’s nothing like last night. I think she might have somehow have a broken arm or collar bone and she’ll get an x-ray this morning. That’s the only thing all the doctors didn’t check. We don’t know what she did and it’s probably a nerve from her neck but we need to rule all else out. Wouldn’t that be funny, hmm. Thank God she works where she works as Dr. Greenberg didn’t even do any paperwork or charge us. He’s also my cardiologist.

Both boys did great on their tests yesterday and have more today. Time to run as I need to help Lori and shower myself as I have a dentist appointment at 8:30 after I drop the boys. Take care, GB. Oh and thankfully, no trip to New York!

Here comes the last week of school. Jag has finals all week while Ty has a test here and there but nothing like Jag in High School. Lori has a tough week of surgeries and I only need to get in about $1.4 Million dollars worth of orders. Not much else going on. Oh wait, Jag’s birthday is this coming Saturday. I think we’re also supposed to Christmas shop or something this time of year. Guess we’ll start that a week from today or so.

No new snow up here and it’s not that cold. I’ll know today if I have to go to New York on Wednesday. Hope not but it is what it is. We also need to deep clean around here as it’s awful dusty and dirty. Time to run as I need to try to get the kids up and moving, GB!

We have some snow, actually lots of snow. Should be great skiing. I think Ty is going up today but Jag, who skied all day yesterday, is going to study for finals.

So, let’s look at the day. Ty woke up at Max’s and then they all went to play basketball at the Vail Cascade (a resort). I finally picked him up around 2:30 to bring him home for a quick shower and change of clothes before he headed to the movies and then ended up at the Four Seasons playing in their game room. Jag meanwhile skied all day long until about 4 pm. Then he too decided to go to a different movie with 3 friends. He too ended up at the Four Seasons as Warner and Harmon’s parents were there again last night. They all leave today for the airport in Denver to fly back to Washington D.C. So both boys had fun with their friends for the last 3 days.

Lori went to the 8th Annual Ladies Christmas Tea at the Calvary Church, which is the one we sometimes go to and that also has the big Cowboy Christmas Eve celebration at a local ranch each year. There must have been 300 women there yesterday, actually 24 table of 12 ladies each, which is 288! She had fun even with a headache. Meanwhile I cleaned up a bit and did some things around the house.

I just found out I might have to go to dinner with Andrea and Veronica in New York next Wednesday about a new restaurant concept. Hopefully I’ll know by later today so I can plan. Hope everyone is well, GB

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