Dear Family, Friends, and PALS;

We are at the Long Island Village resort here in Port Isabel, Texas.  The weather is lovely, and it is actually blowing very little today.  But we are told that is an abnormality.  Guess we can't have everything.

We took a Christmas Lights Tour to Hidalgo, Texas, about an hours bus ride to the west.  It was nice, but for some reason, just does not seem like Christmas in Idaho.

This was actually a rock band made up of prehistoric (dinosaurs) band members.  Not super original, but there were certainly thousands of lights involved.

The Christmas Tree was all lights.  They don't grow them anywhere down here, so you don't see live ones of any size.

These were all at the grounds around City Hall in Hidalgo

Kay didn't blend too well with the "Angry Bees", thank Heavens.

As it started to get darker, these "dragons" and all their friends started to come to life.

Cinderella is alive and well here in Texas

This is Cinderella at the Castle.   Prince Charming is turned sideways so you don't see him.

This is looking out our rear window, up the canal that heads out to the Gulf.  It is as pretty as it looks.  There are generally Pelicans swimming in the canal right behind us.

Christmas Morning just behind our RV.  She still takes unbelievably good care of me whether I like it or not.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Just checking in to let you know we made it to Port Isabel. 

This was taken on  December 14, 2013, the day we arrived at Long Island Village in Port Isabel, Texas.  It's taken from the back window of our motor home. 

Hello, Friends and Family;

This is the 8th day of December, 2013.  We are presently still in Tennessee, spending a little time with my Brother, Brent, and his family. We will be on the road again, and on our way to Port Isabel, Texas in a couple days.

This a a picture of a very pretty girl standing by a basil plant in front of the old Arkansas State House in LIttle Rock.  Kay noticed the scent when we first walked up before a tour of the old Capital building.

This is Yours, truly, standing in front of the old Capital.  It was built in 1836, about the time Arkansas was admitted to the union, and served as the State Capital Building until 1912.  The Union Army occupied the building during the Civil War.  It is now a museum, and we enjoyed a brief tour.  This was on the 21st of November, our 44th wedding anniverary.

For our Wedding Anniversary "Date", we attended the Murray Dinner Playhouse, in Little Rock.  We enjoyed a delightful buffet, and an entertaining play entitled "Run For Your Wife".  It was about a guy trying to handle and hide from eveyone, epecially the wives, that he had two wives. It was much more than I would ever care to take on, but an enjoyable evening.

We are having a little work done on our  Motor Home, and decided to take the week of our anniversary and spend it in an Extendod Stay Hotel.  This evening has some special significance.  The 22nd of November marked our 2nd anniversary since the dreaded diagnosis of my ALS.  We were told at that time that we maybe could expect a year, but we would never see two.  So it is with much joy and satisfaction that we not only survived our first two years, but are flurishing, and well on our way to many more, with my health continuing to improve.

We wish all our many friends and loved ones a very special Holiday Season.  We are especially grateful for the many great friends we have made through our ALS journey, and pray for and love all our PALS (People with ALS)

October, 28 2013

We are getting ready to find warmer weather very soon.  On October 14th, I took a picture of our Pin Oak tree.  The red had just started on the top.  Then on Oct 25th, I took another photo with the tree almost completely red.  The photos are below.

September 24.2013

We have had a good summer and now it is headling toward fall.  In mid September, we made a trip to Salt Lake City.  Kim's brother Brent (in the white shirt) and wife Sandy and daughter Kelsey came to Salt Lake City so Kelsey could go on a mission to France.  They are from Tennessee so it was good to spend a little time with them. 

We have been back in Idaho for almost three months now.  It has been nice to be home, and we will continue to enjoy it until the cold weather starts to threaten.  We made a trip up to Starlight Mountain Theater with my sister, LaNae and Neice ,Magan.  The theater is in the background,and we enjoyed a nice pre-show dinner..

We took another trip to the McCall area with some good friends, Steve and Marcha Blackhurst.  This shot is a view overlooking Payette Lake, on the north end.  This area is truly a another treasure of Idaho. The mountain tourist town of McCall is over Kim's shoulder beyond that pine tree on the other side of the lake.

Steve and I are switching off on the photography work.  We also played a couple of the mountain golf courses in the area.  They have a way of humbling a hacker like me.  But we enjoyed the montain air, and especially the cool nights.

We finally made it home to Idaho.  We only had one further adventure on the way home.  It is good to be home.  We realize that we really missed our good friends here and will miss the dear friends we made in Texas.  There is always next year.

So the trick with the motor home is that the windshield was about to fall off in the middle of New Mexico.  But the clever Kim Cherry was able to patch it up for the ride home. 

Finally, the mountains of the west.  I always feel like I am almost home when I can see the mountains even if we have a few hundred miles to go.

And it is still standing, our home in Star, Idaho.

Dear Friends, Family, and PALS0,

Kim here.

We are finally on our way home.  It is hard to believe that it has been 7 months since we turned the RV away from Star and started on this journey.

One of the greatest fears I had those seven months ago, was that would I be able to maintain the strength in my right leg, which was still very tenous back then, to be able to safely operate the brakes on our RV.  I was touched by offers to come drive us home by some of you, should the need arise.  And I know there are many of you that would do that for us in the drop of a hat.  I love you all, and we are so very greatful for the friends we have. God bless you all, but the offer is not necessary, in that I still continue to improve.

We do have one minor issue.  It seems that Texas has come to love us as much as we have come to love her.  She has chosen to delay our exit as much as possible.  By that, I mean that we have been stuck here in Amarillo, Texas, of the last 30 hours with an engine problem in our RV.  We spent last night, and will again tonight, in the beautiful "Cummins RV Park".  That is "Cummins" as in the Cummins engine that sits on the back of the RV, and is keeping us temporarily grounded.  And the Cummins Service Facility that is trying to get us back on the road.

The next couple photos will depict our adventure:

We started this little side track when we lost power about 15 miles out of Amarillo.  I was more than jsut a bit nervous when I found our little truck  we tow behind the RV completely coated in oil (Ended up being diesel fuel).  This started about 3 p.m. yesterday, the 13th of May.  It took aboiut 5 hours before we finally got the towing service out, got hooked up, and back in to Amarillo.

They couldn't get it figured out today, but hopefully, they are close.  We just pulled it back out of the shop, and we are pretending like we were in a first class RV park.  We had a nice supper, and will have an enjoyable evening.  And we have washed the pickup twice now, and still have a nice deisel residue we will have to continue to work on.  You see the pretty girl on the door step?  She says she is on the ride for the duration.  Its crazy what some of these women will do for some of us guys.  It just never ceases to amaze me.  How lucky we are.

Hello, all our friends both new and old, family, and PALS.

We are keeping tabs on the national weather forecasts, and it is almost the same temperature in Texas as it is in Idaho.  We are scheduled to work a big Softball Tournament in Dallas on Mother's Day Weekend, and then will be heading home.

We are still very active, and are actually working more than we are playing. But we are finding life to be very good and fulfilling.  We are spending more time all the time with our new PALS via internet and email connections in many parts of the country.  It has become a very rewarding and fruitful experience.  Truly, this "terminal" disease I was diagnosed with some 18 months ago has turned out to be a blessing in our lives, and hopefully, in the lives of many others.

Please enjoy the following photo entourage. 

Moody Mansion in Galveston, built in 1895. We are always intrigued by history.  We were too late to get to take a tour of the mansion.  Maybe next time.

Old church in Galveston, Texas.  Kay loves cool architecture, flowers and birds. And Kim.

Galveston is an Island off the coast of Texas south of Houston.  North east of Galveston is a peninsula called Bolivar Peninsula.  This photo is taken along the Gulf Coast of Mexico on the Peninsula with the elevated houses on the right just over the berm. 

On the Bolivar Peninsula, the water can evidently get quite high.  But it is teh sea waves taht can do the damage.  All of the houses are elevated.

The only way to get to and from Galveston and Port Bolivar is by Ferry.  It takes about 13 minutes to get across the channel.  We are just loading the ferry here for the return trip to Galveston.

We ate lunch in Port Bolivar at a place called Down Under.  It is along the inter coastal waterway which you can see in the background.  We saw more than one barge to by.  We planned to eat at a place called Stingaree Restaurant but it was closed, so we ate at Down Under, just under the restaurant.    The oysters were good enough to almost compete with Genevieves'.

This is the peer right outside the Down Under.  You can see that yellow house in the distance.

This picture is for our granddaughter, Tracy.  She loves purple and this is a purple house. 

A couple of goofballs at the fountain at Rayford Crossing RV Resort How about these tans??!!

More flowers at Rayford Crossing.

April 26, 2013

So I have to brag a little about how well Kim is doing.  Note the guy on the ladder is the same guy that could barely climb a flight of stairs a little over a year ago. Kim put up this batting cage by himself for a softball tournament in Cypress, Texas to promote the Sling Pitcher. 

April 4, 2013

So much for our plans to update this blog every couple of weeks.  I guess this is a couple of couple of weeks.  The temperature in the Houston area has not always been in the 70s, sometimes higher and sometimes lower, but definitely warmer than Idaho.   We still have good control of our suntans.

Dining elegance in Texas?  I think there is actually a place to eat by those two posts on the right.

Now let's see.  Is this Kim's poor balance or his silly wife?

This is the pool and clubhouse at Rayford Crossing RV Resort in Spring, Texas.  That handsome guy is wearing his new golf hat that he got at Augusta Pines Golf course.

The boots are big in Texas.

Rayford Crossing RV Resort is carved out of the forest that you can see in the background.

From Kim:  Hello Again, our dear family, friends new and old, and any of our PALS (People with ALS) that may be tuning in now and then.  We would love to hear from any of you that may be reading our blog.  We would love to be corresponding with each of you individually, but there is not the abundance of time we thought we would have.

We left Brownsville, Tx on February 16 and headed to Louisiana.  We loved the weather there.  We can count the "cool days" on our fingers.  It was rather funny to watch the Texans bundle up whenever the temperatures dropped below 60°. 
 
We headed to Louisiana to keep a meeting with Dr. Paul Harch, a hyperbarics specialist MD that has been following our ALS battle with keen interest.  He blocked two hours for us, but the "visit" went a full four.  He was excited about our fight.  He reviewed the key test results that brought the dreaded ALS diagnosis.  He also did his own "examination" and is amazed with what has happened to us.  He told us it has, to his knowledge, never been done before, someone not only halting the progression of the disease, but reversing it.  He is sending the neurological tests (EMG & NCS) to a nationally acclaimed ALS clinic in Houston, and has asked them to review the case, and even bring us in for further evaluation.  We don't know if they will do it, but he and we are hopeful this will lead to possible treatments for others with ALS.  We will let you all know.

We have now moved over to Houston, where baseball and softball are KING.  And you can guess, we are promoting the Sling Pitcher.

The following pictures are a bit delayed. We will try to do better next time.

We love you all.  We are planning to return to Idaho in early May.

We went across the Border into Progreso, Mexico for dinner.  It is not often we get the chance to be in two countries at once.  We went across with new friends, Bob and Carmela Vernieuw from Brownsville.  The food was great and more than reasonable, and the people were friendly and interesting, but there is no place like the good old US of A.

We had all the grapefruit we wanted from an orchard right behind our RV while we were at the River Bend Resort in Brownsville.  We have become completely spoiled by wonderful oranges, grapefruit, pecan nuts and avocados.  They have been the staple of our diet.

We were a couple of kids at a Valentine Party at River Bend.

Yes, she is still my Valentine.

We spent a night at a Lakeside Resort, Poches RV Park coming up out of Texas.  There is nothing quite like a lakeside blow on the harmonica at the end of a beautiful day. You need to watch out for these mature photographers that sneak up on a guy when he is trying to relax. You can see our RV and truck in the background, bikes and all.

We stayed at the Abita Springs Resort in Louisiana, just north of New Orleans, where we met with Dr. Paul Harch.  He is excited enough about our success, he is going to place our story on his website. He also mentioned adding a chapter in his next book, "New Miracle Cure for ALS". (The name of the chapter is my doing.)  I am not sure how you prescribe everything involved in our miracle, especially Priesthood Powers and the prayers and love of family and friends.

This is a little friend Kay met in a resort in Livingston, Texas, just before we got to Houston.  Her name is Snowflake.  They say she enjoys looking at her reflection in the shiny RV hubcaps around the park.

We met our special long time friends in Houston, Bonnie and Norm Jensen, and also Norm's brother, Greg, and his family, who live in Houston.  We attended the Houston Rodeo, a 21 day extravaganza.  We guys also got in a couple great rounds of golf on some  beautiful courses, while the gals took in a movie and did some other "girl" things I haven't yet figured out.  But after 43 years with her, I aught to be close to figuring them out.  FAT CHANCE!!!  Have any of you guys ever figured out why our wives enjoy grocery shopping and reading the labels on every can before they put it in the grocery cart???