Catching Up: Life Outside the Hospital

I just posed about my AML post treatment (Catching Up: AML). Since I had not posted since September, I have some catching up to do. I'll step back a bit and start when I left the hospital.

After I was released from the hospital July 2nd. I was on the golf course with the Wicks' July 4th. (I wrote about that before) The following weekend we were in the Hills for our Grann reunion. It was great to see everyone and for the extended family to see how well I was doing.

I flew from Rapid City to Kansas City that sunday for our IDEA conference. It's one of my biggest shows of the year and though it is work, it's with a great bunch of people and tends to be a lot of fun. Though Andy hates hearing about my trips if there is any "fun" involved.

After Kansas City, the next weekend we loaded up the kids and headed down to Omaha to the zoo. It was a great weekend (HOT). We had only planned on going on Saturday, but on our out of town Sunday morning, we decided to spend a few more hours there seeing the things we missed.

Then schools starts. Alivia and Nevaeh are in school. Nevaeh was much more excited about it then Alivia.

Over Labor Day, we had our Mexico vacation. It has been on my to do list for quite some time to post about that. I'll do so shortly, but there is so much to tell. It was a great time and a necessary escape. Unfortunately we got word that Grandpa Dick had passed while on vacation. My parents, who were with us, had to hurry home. Andy and I finished the vacation as planned, but had flight problems on the way home. In the end, we had to fly into Omaha and rent a car, drive all night so that we would make it back for the funeral. Visits to the farm are a lot different without him.

Life returned to "normal" after our trip. The kids were in school. I started traveling quite a bit for work. Except for trips to the doctor for checkups, things were pretty much back to pre AML days. All is good.

The weather this fall has been unusually dry. No snow at all. A brown Christmas. Christmas was so different this year since we did not go to the farm. But we had friends, family and a pretty awesome prime rib. So all was good.

On Dec 26th, my niece, Ava was born. So the year, full of ups and downs seems to be ending on a high note. It is amazing how all the hospital stays seem so long ago... On to the new year.