Our year end letter.....

 January 6, 2012

Dear Family and Friends,

Weather has been great for the end of 2011 and the start of 2012. I have been able to have the windows open on a number of days and that is a shock for the middle of winter. This year like many of the past has flown by. It seems like only a few months ago that Tom retired but it has been almost a year. We are now officially living in our ‘golden years’….. Meaning you better have some gold to enjoy these years! We have been lucky enough to make some of the right decisions, and hopefully with a little help from the economy, we will be able to do all the traveling and enjoying that we would like.

This is just a quick recap of our year as it went fast and furious. There was much going on and lots of comings and goings.

February 1st was Tom’s first official retired/not having a job/’being a bum’ day. I would love to say that it all went smoothly but the clash of things to do and things that need to be done at home sometimes got the better of me. But all things got done one way or the other. I am having to learn to divide some things out over a number of days rather than doing them all at once. Tom is having to learn to do errands on his own once in a while….. Slowly but surely it is getting better. We did spend the mornings trying to get used to Tom NOT getting up at the crack of dawn and going to work. The animals took longer than we did! Kat thought it was her job to get us up at 5:08am every morning for the first few months. We slowly got her to understand that she needed to wait until later in morning….but it never got too late because there were pills to be given and cat food for all. Tom spent most of his days running around getting things done that we otherwise would have waited until the weekend or one of his days off. It was amazing the number of things that came up over the months that needed attention.

We did make a few trips this last year, and had some ‘life-mark’ moments for our family. Tom’s retirement started the first few weeks with a dead washer, an accident in the big truck, and slicing his fingers with the table saw. And those are just the high points…..but it did get better as the year progressed

Starting in March, we made a small renovation project of turning the bath tub into a walk-in shower last a couple of months and grow to a main floor changing event. We did get the shower finished and we love the way it came out. We had a couple of walls moved that gave us room to enlarge the master closet. Tom cedar lined the new part of the closet and on the very last piece cut the ends of his first two fingers. A scoop out of the nail on one and a slice of the other proved that the saw is faster than the hand. It took a few months but now they are back to normal. We also had wood floors laid for almost all of the main floor and the stairway going up from the front door. All the rooms were painted and look as good as new. Of course, new paint and new floors required new furniture.

By May we had been to several Cardinals games and had tickets to several more. Our grandson, Mathew, graduated from high school, was preparing to go to college and take a trip to Australia to play American style football. He was one of a few selected in Missouri to go but had to get his own monies together. He got busy with fund drives and support from various businesses. In all too short a time, he was off on the adventure of a lifetime in early July. In August he moved to Fulton and started football for Westminster University.

Early summer we went to Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield in Springfield for the first time. It is so close but we had never been there. It was extremely interesting and with the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War it was a great time to go.

In July we took the 5th wheel to Table Rock. After a couple of days Tom and Shelby went home. It was too hot for them to hang around the lake. I spent two weeks with Lisa and our China girls. They have grown into such wonderful young ladies. It was Hot and Humid. But the lake was a great place to cool off. The ‘guys’ came back, we packed up the 5th wheel and I got home just in time to leave with Michelle and Melissa to go to Kauai for a week with just us girls. We stayed at a cottage right on the beach and had a great time. Sun, Sand, and Ocean. Every evening we would be back at the cottage to watch the sun set on the beach. Back home and a few days to get packed and it was off to Hot August Nights in Reno with Tom. Thousands of hot rods and only a couple of days to see them. Lake Tahoe/Reno is one of our favorite places. While we were there we went to a police/fireman destruction derby in Placerville, California and got to spend the day with our niece, Sara and nephew, Jesus and their families.

In the few weeks after we got home, Mathew started playing football for Westminster as a freshman. We got to see him play at several games before he suffered a concussion and had to sit out the rest of the season. His recovery took

some time but thankfully, he doesn’t have any problems now. At the same time, Melissa is a high school senior and started playing volleyball. So, we were driving to Fulton for football on Saturday, to Versailles for volleyball on differing week day evenings, and once to Sedalia to watch Travis coach. Travis is the offensive coach for Center High School in Kansas City and assistant Athletic Director.

Tom and Mike took off to Washington state to salmon fish in September. Good thing we got a (new to us) Navigator for them to drive in style and comfort. They drove out, stayed with our friend Gwen, smoked and froze a bunch of salmon, loaded up and drove back …. with a stop in Reno, where they got to see our nephew, Mario (that we haven’t seen in years!).

October brought the ‘boys of summer’ playing for all the marbles. St Louis was 10.5 games out of the mix in late August and just kept winning the games that mattered. They became the wildcard team, the division champs, the league champs and then World Series Champions. We sat, watched, yelled and held our breaths the whole time.

Fall brings deer season. The guys all gathered at the farm. They saw and shot lots of bucks but only saw four does. It was really unusual and turned out to be a really expensive season. The tale requires more room than I here. You will just have to ask about it as we see each one of you.

The end of the year was both a great and heartbreaking month. Tom and I went to Kauai by ourselves. No one but us. The beach cottage was wonderful. We were able to eat breakfast on the deck and watch the waves, eat lunch at various beaches around the island, and have dinner back at our cottage. We saw a double rainbow, a monk seal and watched whales our last morning at breakfast. Tom came back to a dermatologist appointment that found and completely removed a skin cancer from his temple. Unfortunately, Shelby did not do well at Camp Best Friends while we were gone. By the time we returned, he was not getting up or walking. He had to be carried to the truck to get him home. In the days that followed, we were able to get him walking on his own again but he had a severe infection in his back leg that was not going to heal. We had to say good-bye to our constant companion and friend of 15 years. He is greatly missed and loved by us and Kat.

We are more than ready and looking forward to the new year of 2012 and hope for a year filled with family and friends. Now that we have free time, we hope to be about the country to see a lot of you. May you have a healthy, prosperous and blessed New Year.

Love to you all……