2009 and 2019

I've been seeing posts on facebook of a pic from 2009 and 2019 to show the changes over a decade.

I decided to participate....its hard to believe these pictures are 10 years apart (I also had to laugh at some other photos I found that had me wearing the SAME shirt...time to update my wardrobe?)

For posterity, here again are the pics I chose:

2009 (during our trip to NYC)

2019 (holding our newest niece)

I chose photos of only me, but do think it could be fun to do 2009/2019 pics of myself and Kevin together, or other combinations of family and friends (I love that digging through pictures I found several outings with my sister that I'd forgotten about)

I did also see many time gaps with few pictures, or trips with nearly no photos of me.  I need to make sure I take more photos with me in it, and not keep waiting until I lose that weight that I may never lose to be in the picture.

Looking at pictures was also hard, as I came across many photos of or with my dad.  Its hard to believe he has been gone for almost a year.

I do have many wonderful memories with my dad and am thankful he was so central to my life for 40 years.

Smokey's gotcha day

July became a blur too....we had a great trip, and I am so glad we got home with me having a few more days off (we got home on the 4th, I'd taken off that Friday and the weekend), so we could get caught up a bit at the house before I headed back to work.   Work has kept me very busy, and I've also managed to make a couple more visits (with my mom) to see our new niece -- she is the CUTEST.

Today marks TWELVE years since we brought home our older furbaby, Smokey.  I cannot believe we've had him 12 years.....we know we are lucky to still have him with us, and he's overall very happy (though he still wonders why we ruined his 'retirement' years with a little sister).

We are going to celebrate with a special treat for him - he gobbles up the dog ice cream we found for him....

June blur

I feel like I blinked and June is gone.

We got to meet our brand new niece when we got home from DC, she is such a cutie!

I worked 2 weeks and then we left our on long in the works road trip --  Kevin has had this trip in mind ever since he first bought the Jeep. 

We are driving through New Mexico, Colorado and today we got into Wyoming ...2 new states for K! (NM and WY).   We are having a great time sightseeing and off-roading.  We are doing hotels rather than camping (I love my showers and AC!)

We are actually closer to the end of our trip by now, but the altitude wears me out so I've been too tired to do much updating.....I figure I can send updates when I'm back, better to fully enjoy the trip while I'm on it.

DC Trip

We just visited Washington, DC (first time ever for K; first time since the late 90's for me). The trip was primarily to see K's great uncle laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery, and we decided to add on a few extra days to get to see more of the area. We had a good visit with his parents, brother, grandmother and her husband; and we also got to see (and I got to meet) some of the extended family (great uncle's kids and grandkids) for the service. 

I hope my father-in-law didn't get tired of driving us all around -- they had gotten a rental car for the ceremony and we also made sure we saw things that took advantage of having a rental car (and let them see things that were new to them since they'd made trips to DC before).  We did well -- saw a Civil War sight and the Air & Space museum that is out in VA -- including seeing a space shuttle!   and they even had the type of plane that K's great uncle flew in WWII.

The ceremony was powerful and a bit amazing to realize that many Marines were there to honor one man.  I was lucky to get to know his great uncle a little bit - he was the BEST.  We knew him as J.R. but I didn't know much about his younger life -- nor did i know that he was in TWO wars (WWII and Korean).

The day after the ceremony the rest of the family flew home, and we stayed on to see the area.  We met up with a friend of mine from college to tour Mt Vernon, and another college friend met us for dinner (I am still bummed I forgot to take even ONE photo of us together)...still fun to catch up, and we tried crabs (crabs make crawfish seem easy to eat).

Our last full day was just K and me and we used the Metro (and scooters) to tour all around the National Mall.  While there are tons of museums we did not see we were able to see the original Constitution and Declaration of Independence (National Archives) and see the outdoor memorials that were 'must see' on the list.   We even took a detour off the mall so we could see the front of the White House. All in all it was a great trip.

I will admit on that last day I was distracted as I knew my sister had gone to the hospital to have her baby (our niece!).   That is another post entirely.

This is one of my favorite pics from our day in DC.  K really wanted to try these scooters, and they were a great way to get around! I had a good time on them too! We were safe, but sorry moms we didn't have helmets... We definitely had some issues with them - not 2 minutes after that photo was taken my app wouldn't cooperate to reload $ and his scooter's battery died.....we still had fun, and its part of the adventure. Kevin is my voice of calm after my freakout about the app telling me we were in a no parking zone.....didn't give much of a choice since neither scooter would move. and yes, we found other ones to try again

Smokey's surgery

Smokey's surgery went well - a large mass was removed from his neck/cheek area, and he's already starting to get his voice back, no barks yet but he can do his whine again.    Its funny to realize we pay a lot of $$ for him to get his whine back, we did and we are glad to hear it!  Recovery is going as well as can be expected.

The poor boy hates the cone, but has to wear it so he can heal properly - I thought 10 days, but found out yesterday probably 14 days before he gets his sutures out.  He did get a drain taken out yesterday, so that should help him be a little more comfortable.

We do love the vet we take him to, they kept him overnight after surgery even though he could've gone home -- with our AC being out, and also with a little, curious dog too it was the best decision to have him in the cooler, vet kennel for the night following surgery.

I was telling Kevin last night that a dog recovery may be worse than a person's, at least the person can know WHY the surgery happened.

Life as a Country song

Have you ever felt like your life is a country song (and by country song I mean the ones where everything goes wrong)? That is how I am feeling right now - believe me I know I have MANY things going right in my life, its just hard to not get stuck on the things going wrong.

the big ones:

Smokey needs to have surgery to get his bark back.   He has lumps that we've had looked at before and they are benign fatty tissue; but one looks to be growing on his neck and it may be pushing on his larynx -- it sounds more like he's wheezing (and he was mistaken for a PARROT) when he tries to bark, which is so odd since he usually has a ferocious bark.   He's our old guy (we've had him almost 12 years and he was about full grown when we got him) so there is some worry with having him sedated, but it should help him feel better, and if they can they'll remove some other lumps that may help him move better.

our AC broke on Friday night.....it runs, but doesn't cool.....this is the third house we've had AC issues, so we always knew it was likely to happen....I looked it up and it was late April last year we had the issues (and June...)    I guess we are lucky it didn't happen on a holiday weekend, especially since we'll have guests that same weekend!

In good news we do have water pressure in our kitchen sink again...that was fixed on Friday.

My dad passed away on December 1. I am still very sad about it, and also find...relief is not the right word, but something along that line.. that he is no longer battling dementia. The rest of December was a blur with trying to tell family and friends, make funeral arrangements, and get my mom ready for an already scheduled move. While we'd hoped to have her settled before my dad passed in a way it worked out for us to have something to work on while we were together and needed something to do. I know he is gone, and yet find myself forgetting from time to time. I am not ready to write much more about it, but am struggling with trying to deal with it and find my new 'normal'.