A Year With Mindy

About a year or so ago, I reconnected with a friend from high school.  In high school it was Stephanie, Mindy and me.

Stephanie has been my best friend since 7th grade.  We met Mindy our junior year when she moved here from Minnesota.

We'd lost connection with Mindy until about a year and a half ago.  Since then, I've had the pleasure of being Mindy's date to several events.  She does consulting, MCing and marketing.

I've been to a couple of gala's and a couple of NASCAR World Truck Series.

My first NASCAR event I was in the pits, on the track for the National Anthem, walked through the garage and got to meet and eat lunch with driver Jennifer Jo Cobb.  The only thing better would have actually driving ON the track!!!

Here are some photo's with my "Year With Mindy":

At Wyandott County Park for "Race For Domestic Violance"

First NASCAR Event!!

First gala, "American Kidney Foundation"

Second gala, "Stop Human Trafficking"  We met KC Wolf and former Chiefs Anthony Davis, (who called me beautiful) and Neil Smith!!!

Countdown To The Oscars!!

Well, as usual, I have started my annual "watch every movie up for best picture" in preparation for Amy and my annual "sit in her basement in our pajamas, wearing tiaras while eating Chinese food" Oscar viewing.

So far I've seen "American Sinper", "Boyhood" and "The Theory of Everything".

Out of these, I think my favorite so far has been "American Sniper".  I, personally, felt that Bradly Cooper did an amazing job pulling me into the film.  I find it sad that our troops are expected to just pick up their lives and move on after the experiences they've had.  I guess I should preface this with the fact that I'm kind of bias when it comes to military movies.  Since my dad served in Vietnam and returned home, (I count myself very lucky), I tend to be very tenderhearted regarding films like this.

I felt the performance of Eddie Redmayne in "The Theory of Everything" was beyond outstanding.  I felt that he TRULY morphed himself into Stephen Hawking.  While I may not believe in his theory, the story was moving and it reminded me of my uncle.  Like Mr. Hawking, my uncle has lived long beyond the time frame he was given.

I liked "Boyhood" and the fact that the actors committed to a 12 year project.  As a mom, my heart broke many times for Mason, the young boy at the center of the story.

I still have five movies to see, "Birdman", "The Grand Budapest Hotel", "The Imitation Game", "Selma" and "Whiplash".  Sean wants to see "Birdman" but not "The Grand Budapest Hotel" because he says; "I've heard mixed reviews and you made me sit through "District 9", so I'm passing".  While I can't say I blame him, (after watching that I felt like "I will never get 112 minutes of my life back"), I think he'd probably like it.

Holy Crap I Logged Back On!!

I have tried, and tried, AND TRIED for the last forever and a day to figure out how to log on to here because I forgot the password.

So, I have A LOT to catch up on...

Noelle graduated from high school and is attending a community college here in town.
She worked at JC Penny during Christmas.  She still works some at the shop and is currently looking for a new job.  She also is on independent winter guard.  She loves it and is super excited.  She is going to school to become a Special Ed Teacher.  She spent two weeks this past summer at two different special needs camps.  She'd like to one of them for three weeks this summer.  Sadly, her dog, Daisy died unexpectedly a week before her 5th birthday.  Something similar to what Molly had.  She now has a new puppy named Chloe that is a Cairnoodle, a cairn terrier/poodle mix.  Dasiy was a Schnoodle, a schnauzer/poodle mix.  Daisy looked like a poodle and Chloe looks like a cairn terrier, almost identical to Toto, which was the kind of dog he was.

Here are some of my favorite from her Senior Photo Session:

Michael is now a Jr in high school and has a drivers license...eekk
He works at Papa John's and seems to like it, most days.  He thinks he's the most mature person there and since Michael is a 30 year old trapped in the body of a 16 year old, I have no doubt that's true.  He's now taller than me and almost taller than Sean.  He still loves playing the guitar.  In fact, he got an 12 string electric/acoustic guitar Christmas 2012 and another electric guitar this Christmas.  I think he now has somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 guitars, plus a bass, plus a keyboard and a drum set.

Michael, the "selfie king" has grown up a little as these photos show:

 In 2013 I had a full hysterectomy in June, had a FAI-Hip procedure in October on my left side, and then my right side in December.  (I had excess bone and the doctor had to go in and shave off the extra.)  That was not a fun last 6 months of the year.  The hysterectomy was harder on me physically and mentally then I ever thought it would be.  I had the hip surgeries 8 weeks apart, he usually likes to wait 6-8 months.  However, thanks to my German side, I pushed through physical therapy (which caused more damage on my right side) and since we had met our deductible, I figured let's do it.

2014 started off with me continuing physical therapy, Noelle getting ready to graduate and discovering that Michael started having syncopal episodes.  We discovered he has a PFO that never closed completely, but they don't believe it has anything to do with the episodes.

As 2014 went on, we realized our dream of expanding our business to a second location.  We now have our main location in Liberty where we offer all services and a new location in Gladstone that offers sales and leasing.

As 2014 continued, I realized that after about 10 years, I could no longer deal with my right shoulder pain, so November 4, I had rotator cuff repair.  NO ONE told me before hand that it would take a full year for recovery.  I didn't help that my tear was a shred by the time of surgery.  So, I'm back for physical therapy for the third time, just a different body part.

In December, I was able for the first time to travel to Chicago with our youth group.  It was so much fun to bond with the girls in my group.  There were five of them able to go.
Here are a couple of photos from Chicago and one of the shirt Amy and I made for my "ugly sweater" contest at Bunco, (I won):

2015 started off with me in physical therapy, a family photo session and trying to get Michael into Children's Mercy to determine what is causing him to have seizure or epileptic type episodes.  We were hoping to have a year without meeting our deductible three years in a row, but it looks like that won't be happening.

Sean is still the same hard working and fantastic person he is.  He has changed a lot this last year and is much more positive and realizes that sometimes there's a grey area and things are not always black and white.

Here are some photos from our family session: