A Drop in IQ

What happens when you mention "I would like to try that". You end up actually doing it one day. In my case this was playing goalie. I had never strapped on the gear before nor given up my body as purposeful equipment for stopping a hard rubber object flying at me. So to say I was in my right mind could definitely be questioned. My night started with what took almost an hour to get dressed and ended taking just as long. Special thanks to Nick our regular goalie for making sure I did not look like a dolt by going out with my gear on backwards (which had occurred on my test dressing earlier in the day). In between the dressing there was shaky nerves, relief, desperation, and a small but controlled panic attack. Now as I write this I am feeling sore in parts of my body I did not expect to feel sore in.
I felt this picture best portrayed me as a giant in the net.

Becky felt this was better as I appeared to be a goalie lining up his putt on the green.

I enjoyed my night in net as I faced 28 shots and stopped 20 of them. We lost 8-6 but my team stayed close and in the game most of the night. The best part of the game was playing against my friends and former teammates on the Silverwings. Many of them thought I was quite daring in trying to stick handle the puck but it just felt natural to get involved in the action. So I hope the next time you think twice when you say "I would like to try that". As it may actually come true. Here is to hoping that someone is not trying to impale you with a smaller rubber disk. (Please note no Stephen's were hurt in the playing of this game, but joint and muscle soreness will be his payback for allowing such a decision to occur.)

Great news!! Becky can now bear weight. The Doctor cleared her on Thursday to start advancing to weight bearing. She has worked up to 25% of her body weight and is continuing to get more movement back in her ankle. Hopefully in about 2 weeks she will be able to start physical therapy and get back to a normal life. Though I think I will miss driving her to work and helping her with her crutches. Well I guess as long as she has me around she will always have her "crutch".

Important item to note, this Sunday (7/26) marks 35 years of Pastor Eddie being at our church. Wow that's dedication! I thought I did good being at the same company for 10 years. I guess I was only a drop in the bucket compared to his tenure at our church. I hope that I will be able to have this dedication in all of my future endeavors. I hope this finds everyone doing well and I send you our love.

One final picture of me laying down on the job again.

On the Mend

Sorry for taking so long to post, but taking care of Becky is more of a full time job than I expected. Surgery went well and she only stayed one night in the hospital. The good news they gave her a nerve block to take care of the pain. The bad news they had to put her back under anesthesia to do it after surgery and when it wore off she really felt the pain then. Her Doctor is pleased with how everything went and says she will be non-weight bearing for 4-6 weeks depending on how the healing is progressing. She is returning back to work on Wed (7/8).

We went to my parents house for the 4th of July to get Becky out of the house, it also gave Divine a chance to meet Coco and Pepper (my parents dogs). Lets just say Divine put on a running show that proved why she ran so many races (sorry Pepper maybe next time you can come close to catching her). We watched the fireworks from the city's around us and then we headed home for the night. It made for a great weekend as David and Ed were able to join us for our celebration lunch.

Special thanks to Jean, Roy, Judy, and Eddy for helping us out after Becky's surgery. Their special deliveries helped out so tremendously (especially me with my new role as chauffeur, chef, and personal assistant for Becky). Also thanks to all of our friends and family members who stopped by to cheer Becky up.

Isn't it Divine

Well last weekend was the craziest. On Saturday we got a desperate call from the greyhound adoption organization. They needed us to foster a dog named Divine that we were looking at because their kennels were full and they had received a bunch of new dogs. Since they were taking care of everything all we needed to provide was love and a home. So we agreed to it.

Then we went to play hockey. Our game was a late one set for 11pm, but when we got to the rink we found the schedule was running a half hour behind. The game went well, a tight affair ending in a 2-0 loss for us. Both Becky and I played well. I had 3 strong shots on goal and Becky took down our friend on the other team (though by accident it could not have looked more perfectly executed). After the game Becky and her friend Jenn on the other team went to give each other a congrulatory hug. Becky stumbled lost her balance and fell into her Jenn. This caused Jenn to be pulled down on top of Becky. During all of this Becky's leg became tangled underneath her and it twisted around until she broke her fibula.

We had an ambulance take her to the hospital for treatment. They put her in a walking cast and told her to stay off of it. She then went to the Orthopedic surgeon on Monday. He diagnosed her with an unstable ankle and tendon damage on top of the break. He has scheduled her for surgery tomorrow (6/26) at 4pm to put in a metal plate to stabilize the break and the ankle. He will also do tendon repair if the damage is severe enough. This will put her non-weight bearing on her ankle for about 6 weeks. The surgery will be done at Baylor Medical Center of Trophy Club.

Some good news is that Divine has passed through the adoption process and is now part of our family. She has happily taken over our bedroom as it is her favorite room in the house. She quit racing in March and had raced over 100 races. Divine is 4 years old and only has been in a house for about a month (she was in the kennels prior to that). With Becky limited by her injury I have been taking an active role in training Divine. I would like to say we had one incident with Divine trying to test her boundaries but thanks to Supergirl (who I am not sure if she is as fast as a speeding bullet, but I do know she is as fast as a greyhound) and Pastor Eddie being able to corral the situation and bring Divine back home nothing serious came from it. Just remember when you come to our house that Divine is quick, slippery, and very much in racing shape.

Please keep us in your prayers this week as Becky's injury has definitely been more work for the both of us and we could use all of the strength we can get.

The last Chapter

After 2 days of uploading pictures to my flickr account I now have the pictures posted from our trip. Here is the link to view those pictures. http://www.flickr.com/photos/27447108@NO2/sets/72157619601260428/

Here is the final reports from our travels.

Oslo, Norway

Well I found a place for me to get a job making $30/hr. with no experience required. All I have to do is make sure the fries do not burn. Yes that's right at the McDonald's in Oslo the starting pay is $30/hr. Just remember one thing the Happy Meal is $26. Oslo is the 3rd most expensive city in the world ( I guess I should feel solace in knowing that we were not in #1). So what do you do when your in the 3rd most expensive city? You shop of course. You shop for small cheap souvenirs. In our case we walked the whole city to end up at the first store we started at and bought our keepsakes there.

Another thing to do in Oslo is take pictures of all of the naked people. That's right they have more detailed naked statues in this place than I have ever seen. To make it worse Becky wanted to go to a park that had even more of these statues. I had to draw the line. One can only see so much nakedness before they get tired of that (I probably just lost my man card for saying that).

Copenhagen, Denmark

Being back in Denmark only signaled one thing to me . . . vacation was almost over. Getting off the boat was a little scary. I was scared to think that from now on I would have to pay for my food and it was not going to be a five course meal. To make it worse no one would be turning my bed down at night and leaving me chocolates on my pillows. (Hint, hint Becky. This could lead to our marriage being perfect. Ummm does anybody have a doghouse I can borrow after that comment.) We arrived at the airport but could not secure ourselves on an earlier flight so we went back to our favorite meeting place, the Marriott hotel. We met up with my parents and decided to tour the local 7 Eleven. Let me just say the bacon wrapped hot dogs at 7 Eleven looked really good. I did not get a chance to try one, but I hope they start selling them here soon so that I can try them. Finally we left for Amsterdam.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Let me just say up front this city gets a bad wrap. Many people picture it as a dope smoking and prostitute riddled city. We found that this only exists on one street for about two blocks. What you don't hear about as much is all of the canals that exist here and how much people just sail up and down the canals enjoying the day. Another great item of interest here is the Anne Frank House. This is the same house that Anne and her family hid in during the German occupation of the city made famous by her writings in "The Diary of Anne Frank". So much of what occurred to the Jewish population of this time period can be seen in this house. After going through the house it was quite an eye opening experience. It really is true you never know what someone goes through until you are in their shoes. Being in the house and seeing the close quarters and only imagining how scared they were of being found was a tough experience. It makes you more sensitive to others and to the persecutions that still go on in our world today.

I would like to go back to Amsterdam some day and tour one of the old windmills, see the Hermitage (a smaller branch of the Hermitage museum located in St. Petersburg, Russia), and tour the Heineken brewery. This is why we tour on cruises like this and spent a day in a city. It gives you a great taste and lets you know if it is somewhere you might want to go back to again someday. I would say overall I would include Stockholm, Helsinki, and Gdansk on that list.

Oh by the way I did find one picture I wanted to share with you from Estonia. Not sure how you pronounce it, but no matter how I said it it came across as being painful and bad.

In Memory of Haven

Haven

January 1996 - June 8, 2009

"A champion runner, faithful companion, and the center of attention."

In observance of the passing of Haven I will not post anything today regarding our trip, only to say that upon our return we learned that on Saturday June 6 Haven developed a limp in her left front leg. The next day Becky's cousin Dorothy and her friend Spud kept Haven comfortable and iced here swollen leg. As soon as we arrived we took her to the vet for an x-ray. The vet determined that the ulna in the leg had fractured from bone cancer in her wrist area. The cancer had eaten at the bones and would cause the fracture to not heal. They splinted the leg and medicated her for the pain so that we could take her home. At 3pm today Haven's regular vet concurred with the previous vets diagnosis. The only treatment would be amputation of her leg. With a degenerative nerve condition in her back legs and given her advanced age she was not a candidate for this procedure. We made the determination to have her euthanized instead of leading a painful life. She was put to rest at 3:55pm. We will greatly miss her but we are happy that her final days were spent with Dorothy, Spud, and Gracie (their Labrador). They made her last couple of weeks some of her most happiest. She will always be our "little pup".

Are We Russian Along??

St. Petersburg, Russia
Day 1

The only way to go ashore in Russia is to have a Russian visa or a booked tour. Unfortunately we could not get in on a tour for the first day in Russia. We spent the day hanging out on the boat doing laundry and getting some sun. Yes that's right we lounged in the Russian sun. The expected weather was to be cold, but the weather in St. Petersburg is notorious for changing and just our luck it changed for the good.

Day 2

We attended a tour that visited Catherine the Greats Palace and Peter the Greats Palace. Can I say by the end of the day we were all Palaced out. Sick of tacky gold trim work that decorated every room too the point of making you sick. How did one ever live with such a gaudy architecture. It's not all bad, but it is too much. We also shopped in the markets that were outside of the palace grounds. We enjoyed the many deals we were able to negotiate here.

We were able to travel by a Russian Navy base when our ship was navigating out into the Gulf of Finland. A few years ago you were not allowed to take pictures of this base. Now you can and I have many wonderful pictures to share when I get back home. By my estimate I think between Becky's, my Dad's, and my camera we will have over 1000 pictures to look at. Coming soon will be the picture donation fund to pay for developing. I hope to post these pictures on my flikr.com account for everyone to see.

Tallinn, Estonia

What a quaint city this is. We enjoyed walking it's many cobblestone streets and seeing the city. We found shopping to be decent here and several of the churches were very ornate. The town was a throwback to an old era rich in history from 1635 to 1800. This city did us all in as we walked every little knick and cranny we could find. Funny thing about this country they just want to be left alone and at one time were under Russian control. Today they are a separate nation but they do not like Russia too much. Yet the Russian influence can be seen everywhere.

Gdynia, Poland

What a dump! Ever been to a shipping yard for tankers complete with a metal scrap yard? Then you have seen the port of Gdynia. Now for the fun part. If you walk off the boat and work a deal with the Polish taxi driver to take you to the train station, you can take a 35 minute train ride to Gdansk (or formerly known as Danzig when it was occupied by Germany). Gdansk was the starting place for World War II. A beautiful city that bombed to pieces by the Germans. After all of these years you can visit the old town and see the reconstruction that has been done and the buildings that still remain damaged from the war. The Polish economy has been one of the strongest compared to the other economies during the world economic downturn. The price of goods there was excellent and we were able to land many wonderful deals.

One of our best finds was in underground markets that feed the train stations and street crossing areas (they are tunnels that run under major streets so you don't have to cross at the corners). They sell everything from lingerie to electronics here. Dad was able to find a bakery that had the best pastry I have ever had. I need to stop typing about it because it is causing me to drool on my keyboard. After shopping we toured the Church of Our Lady. This church is the largest brick church in the world and holds 25,000 people. It was built in 1343. It was unimaginable to see a church this old and this big.

Finally we jumped back on the train and headed back to the ship. Our ship comedian made a good joke about Poland. He said every 20 years someone takes them over. First it was the Germans then the Russians followed by the Germans again. It happens every 20 years or so. It's been 18 years since the last occupation and so the country is getting concerned. He also pointed out that the Polish language was created to upset the Germans since it sounds like gibberish. Anyways thought I would share those funny viewpoints on the country.

Tomorrow is a sea day as we travel to Oslo, Norway. I will post something after we finish in Oslo.

Cruising the Big Cities

Stockholm, Sweden

I finally found where Becky came from. Judging by the citizens of Stockholm she fits in well with her blond hair and blues eyes. Imagine a city where everyone looks like Becky, that would mean its a city where everything could lead to greatness with moments of silliness (or being air-headed).

It was fun to tour the Vasa warship. It was built and sailed in 1627. A grand and wonderful warship with over 50 cannons and the tallest grandest warship of its time. So just as stated above it was built for greatness, it's blond moment came 20 minutes into it's maiden voyage when it rolled over and sank. A design default from making it too tall for its size.
Our next stop was the Palace and some shopping. We toured the city via boat and by foot. We even immersed our self into their culture by visiting a local grocery store and buying some candy bars and Coca Cola.

Upon returning to the ship Becky and I made our impact felt in the casino. I drew a crowd to the quarter flipping machine that tries to knock more quarters out for everyone you feed it. You know the suckers bet in the casino. Unfortunately for the casino this sucker did not lose! I walked away 10 minutes later with my same dollar I started with. So ha, casino who thinks it will take my money, take that! Becky took on a blackjack tournament. In the first round she finished 3rd to qualify for the championship. After 6 long rounds of back and forth action it came down to 3 players hands. The first player hit to a 20. The second scored a blackjack. It all came down to the dealer who was initially dealt a 13. With the next card drawn the dealer ended up with 18. Had the first hand been beat by the dealer with a dealt 21 then Becky would have won with her blackjack. Instead she finished second in chips to the first player making her 2nd place in the tournament (or as I informed Becky she was the first loser).

Helsinki, Finland

Walking on cobblestone sidewalks is horrible on your feet no matter what kind of shoes you are wearing. We trudged on walking to Temppeliaukio Church (we called it the “Rock Church”). In Helsinki 70% of the population is Lutheran, 29% is Orthodox (Russian Orthodox but they prefer to not call it Russian), and 1% is other. The Rock Church is the other. When a group wanted to build a new church the city at first said no they had enough churches. Finally the city thought the best way of getting rid of these people who kept bothering them was by giving them the only land in town with a big rock on it. So what do you do when the only land your given is filled with a rock? You blow a hole in it and build a church in it. So now you know why we called it the “Rock Church”. While there we were able to hear a symphony orchestra that was performing for a Finnish radio station.

We continued to tour the other large Lutheran and Orthodox churches, but none of the these beat the Rock Church. Along the way we shopped and enjoyed the wonderful atmosphere of this bustling but relaxing city. At the end of the day I only wished I could have sat in the park with the locals and read a book with them. (Something to save for another day.)

We are now back on the boat and heading to St. Petersburg, Russian. I should have another post up on Sunday. By the way we have added another time zone and will get a second one in St. Petersburg (this puts us 9 hours ahead of our home time). This is making my sleeping pattern get really screwed up (that plus only 5 hours of darkness).