KASEY'S BIRTHDAY AND CHRISTMAS!!!

It has been awhile since we posted and we have been reminded by a few of you that we are slackers.  We hope to do better in 2012.  We have enjoyed our time back in Colorado, spending time with Kris, Amy and David plus those two special little guys - Kasey and Karsten!  It seems time has flown by and we are now getting ready for the New Year and firing up the motor home to head to warmer weather.   We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed this holiday with friends and family.  In Colorado we always hope for snow in December and we were not disappointed with about 9 inches of snow falling just before Christmas.

The motor home parked at the USAF Air Force Academy - a perfect Colorado postcard!

It never seems to get old watching the grandchildren and during December we managed to spend a lot of time with the "boys" with Kris and Amy attending the various Christmas parties, their hunting trips and the Bronco's home games.  

We also were fortunate to watch our grand dogs a few times as David adjust to a new life.   His wife decided that she could not be faithful and left David to live life as a single woman with no ties to a stable family life.  We know David will have a better life without her and time will heal his broken heart.  He has many things to build his new life on:  a good job, returning to college, many old and several new friends from his work, plus he has a caring family to lean on as he moves on with his life.  Time will help but he and our entire family has been hurt by his "wife's" betrayal.  We have moved on and have salvaged the holiday season; we are so fortunate to have a wonderful and loving family that has joined together to celebrate life, Kasey's birthday and the Christmas season.  Speaking of Kasey's birthday lets move on to better subjects.  On December 23rd,  Kasey William Cannode turned the Big Two Years Old!!!!!  Not the terrible twos but the "Watch me Grow Now" twos".  Amy and Kris make sure that Kasey's big day is special and not rolled into the Christmas celebration -  they are so right, he is special and deserves his special day!

I am two years old and the party starts now!

Karsten thinks the bag looks better on him than with presents in it!

Kasey's cake looked great! 

Christmas did come a couple of days later and we enjoyed it more than any other Christmas in recent memory.  We started the day with a few gifts for Kasey and Karsten in the morning, had blueberry pancakes for breakfast and started to get ready for the Christmas dinner and more presents.  We gathered together around 3:00 after allowing David to sleep for a few hours after his overnight workshift on Christmas Eve.  Although Christmas is a gift giving holiday, it is extra special when you have two grandchildren to enjoy throughout the holiday seasons!

Grandpa's nickname for Karsten is "Little Hoss" and now he has a 10 gallon hat just like Hoss on Bonanza! 

Uncle David and Kasey enjoying some time together

Amy, Grandma and Kasey seem to be enjoying unwrapping the presents, but remember someone has to clean up the Christmas paper!

How did Kasey know how to make snowballs and throw them at Grandpa!

 Grandma showing the boys how to make snowballs!  Now we know who is responsible for snowballs!

Sledding down the road --- Watch out for the "Super K's"!  O by the way, Nice hats boys!!!

What would Christmas be without a couple of Bronco helmets to help cheer on our favorite team!

What a blessing that our family was able to celebrate Kasey's birthday and the birth of our savior together.  Family means everything to Pat and I, we are so proud of David, Kris, Amy and our two wonderful grandchildren, Kasey and Karsten!  God has been good to us.   This is the time of year we should all count our blessings, be reminded of what is important in life, and to come together as family and friends.  We sincerely hope you enjoyed the Christmas season and look forward to the New Year with all of it's hope and promises!  We will be on the road with our friends, Bob and Donna again in 2012.  We hope to be able to see as many of you as we can but if not trust us that we will be thinking of you as we visit the backyards of America.  May God Bless You in 2012!!!!

Colorado and More

We have been back in Colorado for a couple of months now but have not posted for a while so we thought we had better catch up.  Colorado will be our home at least twice a year with George's chemo maintenance treatments taking up four consecutive weeks.  So you can count on us being here in April and October for at least the next two years.  When we arrived the weather was in the 70s but within a week we had our first snowfall of the season....bet it will not be the last we see before we leave Colorado just after Christmas. 

The first Colorado snow in early October...you got to love the Colorado weather in the fall!

What is great about being back in Colorado is that we get to watch a couple of little guys growing up.  In the fall, we get to celebrate with them on Halloween, Thanksgiving, Kasey's birthday, and Christmas.  Of course with Kris and Amy's penchants for packing 10 pounds of activity into a  5 pound bag we also get our time with the boys alone (that is without parental interference). 

Halloween is a special time for Karsten and Kasey.  They get to "color faces on the pumpkin". 

Kasey loves to slide down the "big slide"

After Halloween, Kris took Kasey to North Dakota with him on a hunting trip.  Amy was the brave mom and kept Karsten with her at home so we thought we could help her out by stealing Karsten a couple of times.  One of those times was to pick Dad up at the airport. 

Hey look at me I am facing forward in my car seat!  Karsten on the way to pick up Dad and Kasey at the airport.

This picture was not staged.  Karsten really missed his brother and ran up to him at the airport and gave him a big hug!  Of course on the way home it was a little different --- pick on my brother time!  Just like they had never been apart.   We celebrated Thanksgiving at Kris and Amy's.

Grandpa and Karsten on Thanksgiving.

Do you notice that Grandpa has work clothes on?  George always enjoys when he can do a little handyman work with Kris.  But he did change clothes for the Thanksgiving feast.

The next big events are Kasey's birthday and Christmas.  Hopefully, before that we will steal the boys while Kris and Amy go to their Christmas parties or other December events (remember the line from above --- 10 pounds of stuff in a 5 pound bag!!).

As we prepare for the year end activities and our trip to Florida we are saddened to report that we will be traveling without our friends and traveling partners, Bob and Donna.  They have decided to end their nomadic ways and take up roots in Colorado Springs.  Our motto has always been, "Everybody gets to do what they want to and when they want to do it".  We will continue our travels to the backyards of America and beyond. We wish them well and know they wish us happy trails.

As we all prepare for the Christmas holidays, Pat and I hope that we all hold our military men and women close to our hearts and prey for their safe return to their homes and love ones.  They sacrifice so much for this nation and when called upon to serve in the far reaches of the world go without complaint and without question---they are America's heroes.  God Bless them and keep them out of harms way!

We made it back to Colorado!!!!!

On the way back from Ohio we stopped off at Merrimack Caverns just west of St Louis.  It was more than we expected and the privately owned Caverns gave us another view of what is under this great land.  We have visited several caves and caverns throughout the USA and this one ranks up there with any of them, of course each has its own personality.  It is worth a side trip if you are in the St. Louis area.  Here are a few pictures from down under!

Stalagmites and Stalactites

Pat at an underground lake

No, this is not a picture of Jessie and Frank James although they used these caverns as a hideout...this is Bob and Donna acting like they are enjoying the caverns!!!

After we left the St. Louis area we headed west on I-70 toward the Rocky Mountains.  We are now sit up at the United States Air Force Academy famcamp where we will be until after Christmas.  Of course, we have George's follow on chemo treatments starting in mid October and ending in November.  We will spend Halloween with "the boys" and have a family dinner at Thanksgiving, enjoy the Christmas season with friends and family.  But for the first few days we wanted to see our son's families and of course "the boys"!!!!  The day after we arrived in Colorado we went to Denver and kidnapped Kasey and Karsten for the day.  Here are a few pics of the afternoon with "the boys".

We needed a wagon 'cause they got so big in the month we were gone.

Some things never change....Grandma's hogging both boys, Karsten on her lap and Kasey playing horsey on her leg!

This guy is always smiling!  The news is Karsten is walking everywhere now but I pinned him down for this picture.

Kasey is a ham, he took one of the coasters Grandma made and made a hat out of it!

 

The picture below was taken by Amy of their back deck because we left our camera at their house and did not want to drive through the snow to pick it up.  We waited until the afternoon, all the snow was gone and the sun was shinning before we headed north!!!!  That's how it is in Colorado, a few inches of snow overnight and sunny the next day to melt all the snow.

It is October in Colorado...go figure! 

We enjoyed our trip back to Ohio and was glad to visit with family and friends but nothing beats hugs and kisses from Kasey and Karsten.  Kasey's yelling "Gama and Gapa" is music for our ears.  It is always nice to see Kris, Amy, David, and Nikki but they are really old and don't kiss and hug us like Kasey and Karsten.

As noted above we are in Colorado until the end of the year but we will be busy.  Golf is on the agenda with Kris and David later this week and hopefully we will be able to steal "the boys" a few more times before we start to get cooler weather.  We also want to help Kris and Amy with some of their home projects.  Also. just to let everyone know we are also just starting to look for property here in Colorado, in fact, David started looking for us while we were in Ohio.  Hopefully, we will find something that we will eventually settle on --- when we decided to get off the road.  No, we are not ready yet but we are hoping that the prices are down to where we can pick up a bargain.  It would also give us a place to park our motor home when we are back here visiting...we will keep you posted on this little adventure .

So my friends, you now know as much as we do about our plans but remember --- plans are just plans and are subject to change.  We are all about flexibility so stay tune!  Enjoy the beautiful fall colors, the football games (the Broncos could use some help), and the upcoming holidays!  Take care of yourselves!!!!! 

Leaving Ohio and slowing heading back to Colorado

We left George's sister's house with rain trailing us all the way to Pat's brother's house in Mercer, Ohio.  It seems that rain followed us the entire month of September.  With just three rounds of golf for the entire month, (we slogged through wet fairways on all three days) we spent a very wet month in Ohio.  While at Clyde and Rose's house we did managed to fix our TV antenna, correct our fogged up headlights on the Motor home and Jeep, fix our rear bedroom slideout's switch and drink more than a few beers.  Thanks Clyde for all your help.

Relaxing with Clyde and Rose on their back patio

With all the rain you would expect a rainbow to appear if the sun ever came out - it did the day we left and we were rewarded with a double rainbow that seemed to end over Clyde and Rose's house.

A double rainbow over Clyde and Rose's house

One of our goals when we came back to Ohio was to stop off in Decatur, Indiana and have the Fleetwood people look at our motor home.  We have had a water leak on our rear slide causing us to always tilt the motor home about 1 degree off level to prevent water dripping into the coach.  We are happy to report the leak was fixed and we got some tips on other issues we had so we are now very happy campers.  The people at Fleetwood were very professional and took extra care to ensure we were satisfied.  We also hooked up with Bob and Donna (our very good friends and traveling companions).  They were able to park at the Fleetwood facility with us as we planned our return trip to Colorado.  We could not decided where we wanted to go next but decided to take I-70 back to Colorado and stop a few places on the way back.  Our first stop was Scott Air Force Base just outside St Louis.  We sit up the motor homes at Scott and decided to go into St Louis in the morning.  Union Station in St. Louis was renovated into a shopping center and if you know anything about us you know that we will look for a nice shopping experience.  After the Union Station visit we drove down to the Gateway to the West and the mighty Mississippi for lunch.  After lunch we took a riverboat trip on the Mississippi which proved to be a neat way to spend the afternoon.  Off we went for a paddle boat (the paddles did not move) ride on the Mississippi river aboard the Mark Twain.

St Louis Union Station

The Mark Twain Paddle boat on the Mississippi River

Traveling down the Mississippi on the Mark Twain

Gateway to the West

The Arch from a side view on the Mississippi - it looks like the Washington monument does it?

We are going to stay in the St Louis area for a few days.  Like so many backyards in the USA, middle America is beautiful!  We will explore the backyards in this area and let you know what we are up to.  As summer turns to fall bringing the beauty of the fall with trees turning their green leaves to the golden autumn colors we certainly appreciate the landscapes of America.  Stay tuned as we march back to Colorado, we will be of course visiting our doctors but more importantly we will get the chance to visit our son's family, the grand boys and our Colorado friends.  We will camp at the USAF Academy where again we will enjoy the sights of the beautiful Rocky Mountains.

In closing we want to thank all of our friends and family for their hospitality.  Because of each of you,  we enjoyed our brief visit back to our homeland (despite the horrible weather).  Thanks for the tomatoes, thanks for the drinks, thanks for getting together as family and friends - you all make life very special. 

Until next time,  take care of yourselves!

Family and Friends in Kenton, Ohio

We made it back to Ohio.  We stopped off at  Chas and Sharon's house for a few days, a few beers and some needed mechanical repairs.   We also got to visited with Kelsey and Adien.  It was really nice to spend some time to just relax with family.  Chas also helped us out again with his expertise and knowledge.  We had a engine problem in Northern Arizonia and had a mechanic look at it ....he charged us $120.00 and could not find anything wrong with the motorhome, Chas looked at it for less than 5 minutes and told us that we only needed to replace the battery and the motorhome was fixed!  He amazes us everytime he helps us out.  Thank you Chaz!!!!  Again !!!!

We left Chas and Sharon when they returned to work and we headed north to George's sister, Patsy's house.  We arrived in rain and the cruddy weather stayed with us for a few days.  The weather cleared up on just in time to have a family dinner.  Patsy cooked up a Cannode favorite meal, Beef Pot pie.  This is basically beef and rolled dough but it taste great. 

Relaxing and catching up after a great meal -- Thanks Patsy

We came back to celebrate with both family and friends.  Tonight, we got together with old friends,

George has known some of these friends for over 50 years.  We all got together at a resturant and had a great time.  We enjoyed catching up and even learning new things that we did not know about a few of them.  For instance, our friend Pam said "with a straight face", she did not drink very much even though she had a Margarita in her hand at the time, so for the rest of the night we all picked on her with every story being injected with the phrase "and of course Pam was drinking"?   So Pam tell us, does your grandchildren know about your drinking problem?

A rose between two thorns --  Bobbi, Pat and George

Jim and Jayma enjoying the night

Was it really that funny Jim and Pam?

A true rose between two old guys --- Mike, Pat and George

Steve and Bobbi seemed to be enjoying the gathering

See Pam, I told you that we would post this picture of your molar problem!

We had so much fun with our friends and we are not done yet.  We will have a chance to play some golf with a few of them tomorrow.  It does not matter who is low, it just matters that we will be together and share time together.  It is hard to believe that it has been over 45 years since we were all together, it seems that we picked up just as if we never left.

We will be leaving the Kenton area on Sept 19th to drive over to Pat's brother's house for more family time.  While we are in the Mercer area we will also be visiting more firends so stay tuned for another update on our celebrations with family and friends.

Karsten's birthday celebrations and THE RESULTS ARE IN !!!!!

Our youngest grandson is no longer a baby and has transitioned to toddler.  Karsten turned one year old on August 25th and we were there to celebrate with him.  Of course one day is not enough for a first birthday celebration so we kidnapped Karsten and Kasey for a fun filled day at the zoo with just the four of us!  We don't know about the super K's but Grandma and Grandpa had a great time.  Here our a few pics of the boys at the zoo!

Grandpa has his hands full!!!!

Karsten needs some Grandma help!!!

On Saturday the whole family gathered at Kris and Amy's for Karsten's official birthday party.  We took a few pictures of the celebration.

Grandpa blowing bubbles with Karsten

Kasey "helped" Karsten open his presents, apparently Mom and Grandma needed to help also

It was a hot day so a little pool time was in order for the boys!!

Karsten needed a little help to dry off --- Dad and Grandma helped him out!!

Amy and Karsten - a perfect picture of mom and son!

Uncle David and Aunt Nikki enjoying the party

Kris working the ribs on the grill after Amy slaved all day cooking the ribs - They were really great!!!

Karsten with a face full of cake on his boat and ready to go!

Your heard it first here!!!!   Karsten George Cannode may be known as" Little Hoss" in the future.  Why you may ask?  Do you remember the TV show "Bonanza", with Dan Blocker as Hoss Cartwright.  Well Karsten's mom and dad took a picture of Karsten with a ten gallon hat and he looks just like a miniture "Hoss".  If you look at Karsten, even without the hat, he resembles the gentle giant portrayed on Bonanza.  He also has a terrific personality just like Dan Blocker. 

THE PET SCAN RESULTS !!!!!!!

We promised you an answer on George's chemo treatments - the PET scan did not find any signs of cancer!!!!!  He is in remission!!!!!  That is the results we had hoped and prayed for, for the past six months.  George has a great medical team taking care of the cancer but your prayers, thoughts and good wishes gave us the mental strength and comfort needed to fight the cancer.  We knew he would beat this because of all of the support from you, our friends and family.  Anyone who has battled cancer knows that a strong support group is essential to beating cancer.  Thank you for being there for George, your compassion and encouragement were key to his remission.  We are now ready for the next phase of this battle - to make the remission permanent!  We will meet with Dr. Bergen to discuss the follow on maintenance program.  George will be on a two year chemo maintenance program but the schedule is flexible and consist only of a 45 minute treatment at an interval to be determined by our travel schedule.  It may be once every two months or three treatments in a week at a six month interval or something in between.  We will keep you posted!  Our next mission is to travel back to Ohio.  We will be enjoying a couple rounds of golf, maybe watch a little high school football, enjoy some of the best cooking in the world, and relax with family and old friends.

Many times we have ended this blog with a plea to go out and live life to the fullest ... George's cancer fight only reinforces that plea.  We retired after his first bout with cancer eight years ago in order to enjoy life and travel.  We did not think he would develop cancer again but were thankful that we had enjoyed the new lifestyle we had chosen.  Now that he is in remission we will continue to do those things that we enjoy and will continue to look forward not backward.  That may mean traveling for the next 10 years or maybe buying another stick home and playing with our grandchildren.  We do not know what our future holds, we only know that we will have fun.   We hope you will also live your lives to the fullest and have fun!!!! 

Pat's pictures of our journey back to Colorado!!

We knew our time in Northern Arizona had to end and drive back to Colorado for the doctor's visits.  We thought the beauty of Northern Arizona and Southern Utah would be in our rear view mirrors but the drive back proved us wrong.  We would like to share a few pitures Pat took from our motor home as George drove down the road.  Here are some of the over 100 pictures we kept (out of about two hundred she actually shot) on our two day drive back to Denver.  We drove through Monument Valley, Moab and the Green River valley in Utah, and turned east on I-70 along the Colorado River and over Vail and Eisnehower passes in Colorado on our way back to Denver.  Hope you enjoy these pictures as much as we enjoyed the view out of our windshield.

America's Backyards are really Beautiful --- Nuff said!!

Pat  did a pretty good job considering we did not stop for her to take any of these pictures.  George laughed out loud so many times as we drove down the road.  Wish we had a picture of her hanging out of the windows of the motor home, first one the driver's side and then on the passenger side--- that picture would be a keeper! 

Hope you are enjoying life and are happy, healthy and enjoying your backyards.  We will keep you posted on George's Pet scan results next week.