February 2015 is almost over and we will be heading back to Idaho soon.  I (Kay) found this picturre on Kim's camera that we took last summer.  Some friends had come from Canada to visit us.  Since they live on the Canadian plains, we were showing them our mountains.

Kim's dad was a masonery contractor and he built this masonery cabin in the mountains not too far from Idaho City, up Grimes Creek.  We had lots of great family outings here when all the kids were younger, actually when they were kids.  After Dad died, his Mom did not want to keep it, so it was sold.  But it brought back great memories. 

Dear family and friends,

We took a little trip in January.  Some of Kim's golfing buddies from Idaho invited him to a golf tournament in Southern Nevada sponsered by the Idaho Golf Association.  So we climbed on a plane and flew into Las Vegas.  Got a ride to Primm, Nevada which is right on the Nevada/California border.  The golf course is actually 5 miles south of Primm in California.  We then rented a car and drove to Quartzsite and spent the day with Mom and Farrell.  Went on down to Yuma for a few hours then drove to Oro Valley, just north of Tucson, to spend a couple of days with Steve and his wife Marsha.  Did another round of golf there. 

Here they are at Primm Golf Course.  Norm Jensen, Kim and Steve Blackhurst.  These guys have been so supportive of Kim with his ALS.  Kim developed a heel spur on the way and played three days of golf in pain.  We found his some crutches for the last day. But he is still smiling. California mountains in the background.  We miss mountains in Brownsville.  The highest mountain is a pile of dirt when someone is excavating.

This is a photo taken from a cross walk on the 4th floor of the resort we stayed in at Primm.  The building was built as a kind of hexigon and this is the center of the resort.  There is a pool hiding behind the big tree.  There is an outlet mall attached to the building (past the casino.  Of course, there is a casona, it is Nevada.)  What is interesting is that one side of the mall charges California tax and the other side of the mall charges Nevada tax becuase the state line runs right through the building.

Now for the rest of  Nevada.  I turned around from the last picture and took this one.  Desert, for sure.

These are Kim's Brownsville golfing buddies.  Gary Holmes in the yellow shirt and Harold in the green.  Gary joined the church when were were here last spring. The hat Kim has on was made in Peru.  Beautiful hat and given to him by Rosy, Gary's wife.

We went to the zoo here in Brownsville.  Although not a real large zoo, it is suppose to be one of the best in the country.  Here is a baby chimpanzee.  He put a thin little twig and then could not make it work, so he found a stick that was stiff enough for him to hang from. 

This is a red-backed lemur.  We had hever seen one before.

This Mama Rhino weighs about 4000 pounds. One big girl.

There were four tortoises in the cage, but only three together.  These big boys are slow, but they were moving. 

The flamingoes were way more colorful than the picures shows.  Their necks could bend every which way.  They  had a very funny way of getting water and mostly stood on just one legs.  Kim could not copy them on that.

It is the day after Christmas and Kim turns 67 tomorrow, a birthday we didn't think we would get to share.  We are enjoying the fruit in Brownsville, just not the wind. 

We found some huge delicious grapefruit, 2 for $1.   Oh yeah, we seem to only have one red shirt apiece.

We visited the Sable Palm Wildlife Sancturay.  We are here where they have bird feeders so you can see the birds.  Many birds in this area only come as far north as Brownsville.  This Sanctuary is 557 acres.  The Sabal Palm forest used to be 60,000 acres. 

This is a green jay at the feeder.  The photo does not do him justice.  They also put out oranges also to attract the birds.

A pretty butterfly at the same sanctuary. 

November 23, 2014

Kay says it is my turn to write this blog posting. 

It's hard to believe we have been in Texas over three weeks.  We have heard all about the snow and the cold back home.  We truly miss all our friends and family, but we are just fine with the weather we have here.

Last Friday, we celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary. We didn't do anything to fancy, just a nice dinner, and enjoying being with the sweetest girl in the world.  But perhaps the anniversary of more significance was the one we celebrated the next day, Saturday.  It was that day three years ago that we sat in the doctor's office and were given the standard ALS sentence.  We have not only left the 1 year prognosis in the dust, but we continue, not only to hold our own against this vicious desease, but are yet continuing to improve.  Life is good.  But we have much work to do, as our community of PALS (People with ALS) continues to expand.  We are making friends that will last a lifetime.

We are staying in a retirement park appropriately named Winter Haven, here in Brownsville, Texas.  We had a nice little bike ride around the park this afternoon.

There are water ways (called resacas) that run throughout the park.  I really wish we could swim in them, but not only are they quite shallow, they are inhabited with snakes, so we are told.  We will take their word for it.

Let us intnroduce you to a couple new freinds we made this afternoon.  We couldn't see any name tags, but Molly and Lucy sounds good.

This is King Trent, wishing us well at our early Thanksgiving Dinner last month.  It was just a bit non traditional, as Nanette made us gluten free pizza.  I highly recommend it.

King Trent again, with his Dad, after a hard day at work. Trent had just learned to crawl, and it was exhausting. My, he is changing and growing so quickly.

It is these kinds of new friends that have impacted our lives these past three years.  Scott Douglas and Tish Tamowski (husband and wife) spent a couple days with us the first of this week, as they continue their work on a documentary about those of us that have beaten ALS.  We are proud to be associated with this project, and appreciate so many of you close friends that have contributed to it.


At this Thanksgiving time of the year, we are truly grateful for so many blessings; not the least of these are the many friendships that we treasure.  We are greatful for family, and we are grateful for a loving Heavenly Father that plays such a crucial part in our lives.  We are especially grateful for the many new PALS that are also now part of our family.

May God bless you all until we see you again.

Much Love,

Kim & Kay

 

We were invited by this lovely, radiant young lady, Jessica LaRosa, to attend a football game in San Antonio Texas.  We were going to be in San Antonio that evening - Halloween.  She is with Round Rock Christian Academy and they were playing a team from San Antonio.  It was six man football.  We had never seen such a game.  But the best part was watching this lovely cheerleader at work.  Round Rock won the game about 54-0.

Jessica with Kim and Kay. Believe it or not, we were both that young once.  

Jessica at work.  She is the top one.  We are so priviledged to have had a chance to meet her.

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Dear Family and Friends

We made it to Brownsville!  The weather was nice and warm to greet us when we got here, in the 80s.  That was so thoughtful.  

We send our love to all family and friends.  We even send love to our enemies if we have any.  May God's blessing be with each of you. 

Kim and Kay

This photo is looking to the east up the canyon.  You can see the river in this photo.  Dinner was gluten free pasta, spinach salad, some special yellow tomatoes we grew and some of the applesauce Mother made just before we left home from her apple trees.  The owner of the RV park said we had quite a climb head of us going across I-70 toward Denver.  Boy was he right about that.  Kim chose to go I-70 because it is so much prettier than I-80.  He was right about that but getting our RV to climb those mouontain passes was quite a trick.  We were singing - I think I can, I think I can - to the motor home all the way across the mountains.

When we got to Glenwood Springs on the western slope of the Colorado Rockies, it was nice enough to eat dinner outside, but just barely nice enough.  This photo is taken looking west down the canyon.  The canyon was absolutely beautiful and just wide enough for a river, the railroad track and the freeway. 

Cute picture of Trent with his Mom, Pear. She had to cut her hair shorter because he loved to pull her hair.

Dad and Mom would not let us bring Trent with us to Brownsville, but they at least sent us a picture of him showing off his first tooth.