A Salute to our Veterans!

Wow, it has been a hot minute since I have posted. It is all due to travel and being busy – all good things. Rich went to Florida for 12 days, met me in Houston for a long weekend of family fun and the baptism of our youngest niece, Emily Jo, where we were very honored and humbled to become her Godparents. Rich came home after that weekend and I stayed another week to spend time with my mom and dad and my brother and his family. My dad’s siblings were all visiting Houston and my dad, so that was nice to see them all together. When I finally flew home on October 30th, I brought my mom with me. We introduced her to our new home and our life in Montana. It was nice to show her some snow and some beautiful scenery as well. My mom was able to go to an afternoon at the oncology center with me for the first time. She got to meet my doctor and nurse and to see the infusion center where I go for treatment and blood draws every 4th week. My mom flew home on Sunday, Nov 5th and life just kept going here. We are active with the volunteer fire department here and try to go on most of the calls. Just got back from one, in fact. It is indeed a brotherhood/sisterhood of people who are just willing to go the extra mile to help their neighbors….even if it is in the middle of the night. I hope to be able to take the EMT classes in January- May at the local community college (30 minutes away). We shall see. I did have scans this past week. The local radiologist and the Mayo radiologist came to the same conclusion….still stable. I was a bit nervous about this set of scans. It had been 6 months since my last set of scans and a lot had gone on since the last set. I will be zooming with my sarcoma specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN on Dec 1st, but I have read the reports and it all should be good news. Shrinkage would be nice, but stability is a close second.

Rich and I have taken on a new franchise….but we JUST started….it is a company called Cruise Planners and we won’t just manage cruise vacations but any kind of vacations. More to come on that. We have a big business trip in January, so we will learn more at that point. We are still getting the website and business stuff going. So if you want to travel…think of us! We should know what we are doing soon!

So Veteran’s Day…..I spent my day mostly at the community college taking a bread making class. It was pretty fast and furious….we made all sorts of breads in a short period of time. I got home in time to head out to a volunteer fire department call. But the veterans in my life have been heavy on my heart today. My family is a military one…as is Rich’s. His brother is still active duty Army. Today is the day that I would have sent out Veteran’s Day cards (I usually send out about 24 of them each year – I just lost track of time this year). I am sorry I didn’t get to tell each of those veterans how much their service means to me. This is the day that I would have called my Joe and told him Happy Veteran’s Day and told him how proud I was of his service to our country….what it meant to me to have him continue that chain of military service to the next generation in our family. It died with him…that legacy of service, so today is kind of another one of those hard days missing Joe. Monday is his 29th birthday. That will be hard as well. There are so many wonderful people who God put on our life path over the years. People from my parent’s generation…to include my dad and my uncles. Then there was my Grandpa and Grandma Neitzke, who both served in WWII. They are gone but never forgotten. All the people who Rich and I served with…..so, so many people….men and women. Now we see so many photos and messages from our military friends that their children are also signing up for military service. We are not the only ones amongst our friends who has a father swearing in or getting saluted to by a son or daughter. My heart swells with pride as I see these photos now popping up on Facebook. You tend to surround yourself with like people. I have always just grown up with those in military service. It is a part of me and I am so very proud of that. So I salute all of you veterans….those who paved the way for us and are now gone, those who are retired, those who currently serve, and those who are preparing for military service. Thank you for the tireless service you have given to our country. Thank you for being willing to miss holidays and birthdays and anniversaries. Thanks for standing up for freedom and what is right. I salute you all. These photos are of my family who have served whom I have photos of. Love you all!