September 1

 Hi again! Summer is almost over, you can really feel the change of temperature and the daylight is growing shorter. Another eventful 6 months here in Spokane. Started off with a plan, less time golfing more time working on my game. That didn’t go the way I wanted. While helping Jake purchase and move his new tv into his home I tore my distal bicep tendon which eventually required surgery. Not only no golf but it forced us to cancel our vacation to Banff and to Winnipeg. It was suppose to be my gift to Chris for her birthday! Cancelling all our reservations was a real pain and of course I had to cancel my golf lessons.

But it wasn’t all bad, we are having a great time watching Grace play softball, she has worked hard to become one of her teams best players. in fact she has just tried out for and made a 12yr old select team! Despite her busy schedule, we still get our Friday nights together, we play cards or Farkle and make dinner for her, we both really look forward to our special one on one time with her!

With Riley being gone, no boat to tow and taking less and less stuff down south,  we have been talking about downsizing from the truck. I enjoyed the process of looking for my next car. I decided on a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Jeep came out with an updated grand Cherokee this year and a few new colors. Of course I fell in love with the absolute hardest color combination to find. But after an exhausting search I found the color combo I wanted in Sunnyside. We weren’t necessarily looking for the top of the line but as it worked out, I felt like I got the best deal and the highest trade-in from this dealership, so we went for it. I really like it

Chris and I are working on shedding a few pounds we are both on GLP-1. I started just as we were leaving Borrego in the spring and Chris started along with Jake this summer. It has worked well for both of us (and Jake), we plan to continue. We have both reached weights we haven’t seen in years and we hope to keep it going here and in Borrego.

I really enjoy the changing of the seasons, it’s been quite hot here and now the evenings and mornings are cool. I’ve already made our reservations for our hotel stays for the trip back to Borrego. It’ll be good to get back down there to see our friends, play golf (I hope), and see Ben and Matt again.

On my last post I mentioned the boys selling their Mesquite street home in Palm Springs. They moved into a very cool neighborhood littered with old movie stars homes. Ben decided to stop his job search and instead has opened up his own business, a flower shop! I wish I had access to all my photos to include his new logo, it’s quite cool and he is off to a great start and it’s far from the busy season down in Palm Springs. And just a couple of days ago, he called with news that they bought another home in Palm Springs, it looks nice and is kind of a blank canvas for Ben to do his magic.

I’m still having some fallout from the PE last December. When we came back up to Spokane, we found out we had to find doctors all over again because of insurance. It’s a royal pain and I’m not sure I’m going to see a cardiologist or pulmonologist before we head back down south. As of this post I think I’ll be trying to establish medical help in the Palm Springs area, it’s just so much easier to find good quality care down there. More on that later.

That’s about it for now, Chris heads out on another trip on Saturday, this time to Amsterdam, Brussels and Luxembourg. When she returns it’ll be time to prep our Spokane home for winter, toss the plants, turn off the fountain, store the pump, put away hoses and outdoor furniture and get ready for our next season in Borrego, at least our 12th or 13th winter there.

January, 2026

 Happy New Year! 🥳

Greetings from Borrego! It’s been about 7 months since my last post. Looking back it seems like all I’ve done is go from one hospital to the next. This fall, after a nerve study, I had 4 more surgeries on my hands, wrists and elbow. Everything went well and I hope those nerve issues are all behind me. Counting the trigger finger surgery the fall of 2024, I’ve had 5 procedures, 2 trigger finger release surgeries, two carpal tunnel surgeries and a cupital (elbow) surgery. Things feel good, I went back to playing golf in Spokane before leaving for Borrego in October. 

We had a nice trip back down to Borrego, we have decided to wall in our screen porch, making a craft room for Chris. As I write this, construction is underway. A local carpenter was recommended and he’s doing a nice job. You learn to be patient here, we’ve been under construction now for nearly a month and there is still plenty to do. 

Back to my hospital stories, right after spending Thanksgiving with the boys, I started experiencing shortness of breath. It went on for about three weeks, not feeling right, overly sweaty and tired after golf. After a round, I bent down to change out of my golf shoes and wham! The world started spinning, I felt awful and I headed for home. All other shortness of breath episodes ended when I could sit down and relax. This time was different, I couldn’t recover. I had a friend (retired nurse) take my blood pressure and she recommended I go get checked out. Tried to take Murph for a walk the next morning and I almost didn’t make it back.

We went into Palm Springs, Eisenhower Urgency Care, after their evaluation, they immediately loaded me in an ambulance and took me to Desert Regional Medical Center. After another battery of tests, it was determined that I had a pulmonary embolism, a very serious condition, a blood clot from my right leg had worked its way into my lung and I had surgery to extract the blood clot. I was released after a 4 day stay and now I’m taking antibiotics and blood thinners to treat the clots still in my leg. I feel good and blessed that we went in when we did. Otherwise I might not be writing this post!

To catch up on other family happenings…The boys sold their Mesquite house and have moved into a wonderful new place in downtown Palm Springs. An older but larger home nestled in one of the finest communities in old Palm Springs, of course, Ben is busy updating and improving both the inside and outside of the home.

Jake and Em bought a new car and now Grace is riding in style. It was time, Em’s old car had its engine quit and even though they got a new engine on warranty, the rest of the car was still in rough shape. Jake’s been looking after our Spokane house, he likes using the hot tub and I like the fact that it looks like someone is there.

This is a big weekend for the Seahawks, surprisingly they have had an excellent year under a new coach and Sunday will play for the right to go to their 3rd Super Bowl! After an amazing Mariner season where they were just a few outs from making it to their first World Series. Pretty good sports year!! It’s now the middle of April, we are getting ready to go back to Spokane. An update from where I started this posting, the Seahawks WON the Super Bowl - Amazing!

Christals new sewing room is now complete, she really likes it. We’ve had an unusually hot start to spring down here, weeks of 100 + degree weather. It gets really hot in the new room so Chris hasn’t been able to use it as much as she would like. We might look into a portable air conditioner in the fall when we return.

I had trouble downloading photos. Need to complete this post. We are back in Spokane. Nice to be back, it’s not been a month yet but we’ve made good progress getting the yard and our planters ready for the spring. We’ve already been to three softball games and a volleyball game, how fun and Grace is really excelling. I just finished planning and making reservations for our July trip to Banff and Winnipeg, looking forward to that. I’ll cover that experience in my next post.