Living life….

 It has been way tooooooo long since I updated the blog and you’d think being retired I’d have all the time in the world 🤣. 

I’ll do a quick catch up:

•shoulder issue: argh! (Insert lots of cuss words here) humeral head is dead. D E A D. Loss of blood flow, all the good stuff. First surgeon wouldn’t even consider doing a shoulder replacement because I’m ‘terminal’. I mean, aren’t we all??? Don’t we all die??? Ahem. Second surgeon says sure-let’s do it. But….I’m busy and fall is my busy sign making season and my sister is getting married, etc etc. so it’s being scheduled next week for January. Then I get to recover in the warmth of my home with no painting to do. 

•MY BABY SIS GOT HITCHED! Congrats to Katie and Aaron and my niece(s). I got two new ones! And a wonderful new family and group of friends came with them. It was an incredible weekend of love and laughs with lots of distant family and only a little drama (ha ha!)

Katie and Aaron Eckerberg

Family

My two oldest 

  Beautiful bride 

Katie and the bald kid 

My sisters 

•Mexico!! 🇲🇽 Katie and Aaron planned a “Framilymoon” to Puerto Vallarta in late October for some friends of Aaron’s who couldn’t make it to the wedding and some other family and friends and we were thrilled to join them. 

Our resort was lovely-the beach was great, food was awesome and cocktails flowed freely. (Literally)

We relaxed and I read a whole book on the beach! All by myself with almost no interruptions!  We thoroughly enjoyed spending time with my niece Abi and her boyfriend Owen. Abi has grown into such an amazing young lady and we adore Owen.  I hit the spa for a much needed massage, Brian and the guys hit the ocean for a fishing trip, and then we went to swim with the dolphins and sea lions-which meant I checked something off my F*ck Cancer Bucket List ✅

The Eckerbergs 

Swimming with the dolphins 

In my muumuu headed to the beach 

My sis 

Colter and Stephanie and boys 

Dolphin swim 

Dinner at Blue Shrimp

On the beach 

Fishing in PV

 

Cassandra the Sea Lion

Angie and Gary

Goofballs 

Angie and Gary 

Me and the dolphin

My love 

•speaking of October….I made it through another one with Stage 4 Breast Cancer. If you followed my social media stories I shared my journey and lots of info on breast cancer and metastatic breast cancer. Other than that, I refuse to give it anymore of my time!  #nottodaycancer 

#FUcancer #dontignorestagefour 

•November: what can I say…. My husband got a phone call from a dear friend who had an awesome opportunity for us to check another bucket list item of mine off and asked us to go to Paris and Amsterdam with them!! After a frantic rush to ensure the bald kid was going to be taken care of and all that entails…..(you have NO idea unless you’re a part of this crazy ‘special’ club)  we said YES!  

And off we went. 

Paris: the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe (did you know there are stairs and a tunnel that takes you UNDER the insane traffic circle to get to the Arc? Yeah, us either 🤪) 

The Louvre, shopping, walking, dinner cruise, Jim Morrison’s grave, The Seine, lock bridge, Notre Dame, macaroons, crepes, and lots and lots of wine (and beer and mimosas…)

On our way 

Jim Morrison’s grave

Me and Mona 

Venus de Milo

Aperol spritz 

The Louvre 

Wine, of course 

The Eiffel Tower

Mimosas and crepes 

Lock bridge over the Seine

The Williams 

Notre Dame 

Me and Colette 

 Base of Eiffel Tower 

The Williams and Mona

Paris finest 

Arc de Triomphe

French macaroons

The Louvre

Arc de Triomphe 

The Eiffel Tower

Then we took a train ride to Amsterdam…we accidentally tried to go a day early and well….that ended in throwing our luggage off the train in a frantic hurry before we ended up getting kicked off in a random city(or country!)

But we made it to Amsterdam!  Ahhh, we LOVED Amsterdam! Walking the canals, canal boat tour, Anne Frank house, Heineken tour, The Red Light District, The Bulldog, lots of ‘coffee’ shops (they don’t sell coffee there FYI) beer, dinner with our Family from The Hague, more beer, bitterballen, making new friends from the UK and Italy,  clean trains and trams, and bikes, bikes and MORE bikes!

Beautiful church 

Cocktails on the train 

The canals

The gay bar we had a drink in

Yes, that’s MILES per hour 

Another drink 

Smokin in The Bulldog

The Bulldog 

Proost at Heineken

Ummm, Brian, need I say more? 

The secret annex the Frank family hid for two years 

Gorgeous canal 

Anne Frank house 

Train ride 

Williams on the canal 

Dinner with Olav and Marlene 

Beautiful 

The Anne Frank house-no photos allowed inside. A must see if you make it to Amsterdam. So hard to imagine and so tragic. We must NEVER let anything like this happen again. 

Red light district

Seven bridges canal 

Love the architecture along the canals

Heineken and bitterballen 

The canal 

Heineken Tour

Our friends from the UK on our boat canal tour 

Texels makes a great beer!

This was a once-in-a-lifetime trip for me, literally!  We had an absolutely fabulous time and I can’t thank Brian and Colette enough for thinking of us and asking us to go with them on this trip. And my husband for knowing what it would mean to me to go and making it happen. I 

won’t lie-it was hard for me to keep up some days. Damp, chilly weather, 16k step days, lots of stairs and bone mets don’t always mix well and there were a few moments my frustrations with this damn disease got the best of me. But if I was a burden to anyone, they never showed it and gave me all their grace. For that I am most appreciative and truly cherish the friendship we have with these guys. ❤️

December is almost upon us, and will be as busy as the last six months I’m sure. I can’t believe 2022 is almost over, and Christmas is almost here. I’m most looking forward to spending time with family over the holidays and hope you get to do the same. Sending all our love to you and yours!

And I PROMISE I will update this blog more….

Love and hugs, 

K