A Year of Change

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.

Well we know Jag has grown into a good b ball player, but Ty, last night, well, let’s just say it was his night. He single handily won the game for his team and they now are hopefully in the playoffs! I drove down to Gypsum (about 30 miles west) for his game that had started moments before I arrived. Ty was a monster. He played defense with such aggressiveness that the guy he was guarding became so frustrated, he elbowed Ty right in the head. Not to be deterred, Ty still was fighting and scrambling for the ball on every possession. Trying to save the ball on one rebound, he went flying out of bounds and landed on his side. They had one kid on the other team that must have weighed over 200 pounds and was so tall, he just stood there with his arms above everyone else and waited for the rebounds to land in his outstretched hands that were about a foot higher than anyone else, even when they jumped. On one critical possession, Ty jumped up from behind this kid and swatted the ball out of his hands to one of our team members who scored the winning basket. After the game the coach came up to me and asked me if Ty had got a tutor as apparently he had swished two long range three point jump shots in warm ups. He didn’t score in the game but that’s not unusual in 7th grade basketball where scores can end up in single digits. Anyhow, he played great and we had to stay as the coach had him play in the 8th grade game as well. Today we have games in Summit which is basically Breckenridge which is about 30 miles east over the pass. Hope we win! The tournament is Saturday and Ty’s excited which is great. Glad we’re not going to Vegas after all.

Meanwhile Jag was at practice as usual which ends around 7. Tonight is movie night at school though so they’ll probably finish up around 9 after practice. It’s my turn to pick up so it’ll be a late one. Lori is hard at work at work. Yesterday on top of all this, I sold over $300K worth of wine including 1000 cases of high end Bocelli wine we needed to move for $180K. This was a real coup as this is extremely expensive and hard to move wine. Sometimes I amaze myself, ha. My partners said I should be sick more often! We still have lots of work to do at work where our battle cry is “Close Strong”, meaning finish out the year strong. We have a bunch of other stuff to do on a family level as well as at work and school, like getting our tree!

On top of all this, Dixie is not feeling well. After she got back from Los Angeles her numbers were spiked as she forgot her medicine for a few days, uggh. Looks like no more L.A. for her. Apparently her doctor thought she might be bleeding internally so they sent her to ER but thankfully, after lots of tests, she wasn’t. They did send her home at 5:30 in the morning though even though she didn’t feel like going. She should have refused to leave as they’ll just send you home whenever they feel like it. Obviously she was super tired and not doing well yesterday with no sleep and having been up all night. Lori is going to have to get out there soon and see what’s going on. More to come as we learn more, but everyone say a prayer. Oh yea, Lori’s freakin head is still pounding too, great.

Oh, The Donald has convinced or worked out a deal for another U.S. Company (Carrier A/C) to stay in the U.S. and not move their plant to Mexico! That’s like the third time he’s saved real jobs and he’s not even in office yet. And then you have the cry baby dems trying to stage recounts to delegitimize him as there’s no way the numbers will change enough to change anything. In fact, in the last election the numbers were closer but you didn’t see the republicans asking for a recount. We hope he prosecutes Hill once he gets in, losers.

So, guess that’s it for us. Tomorrow Lori’s car goes in to be fixed and another snow storm arrives. Looks like our next break is the middle of next week. Take care and God Bless.