2011

We had two great events this year - our 46th anniversary, spent with Jerry and Bev.    This has become a ritual now ever since we moved to Arizona.     We take them out to dinner for their birthdays and anniversary, and then they do the same for us.     We've eaten in some great places doing this.

And of course the big event, was the birthday party put on for us by Louise in Fresno.    It was Dick's 80th and there were 80 people.    Among the highlights was Louise taking a photo of everyone who came, so we have a wonderful album of the event, and the book put together by Marie and Mindy depicting Dick's life.    Seeing all our friends, relatives and what Dick terms his 'downline' was a great event for us.     The 'downline' got together after the party and had a group photo taken:

Unfortunately though the 'bad stuff' continued this year.     Dick's health did improve with the two new medicines and the treatment we received from his cardiologist, Suzanne Sorof, who specialized in PAH, but we did have some scary moments during the year with drops in the oxygen level for one reason or another, and in the early winter, Dick became very ill with his breathing and ended up with ambulance and paramedics coming and taking him to the hospital for a couple of day.

Then I decided to 'get in the act', and through a routine check on my heart stents, the doctor noticed a spot on my lung.     A number of tests later revealed that it was cancer and in the October I had the upper right lobe removed.     On the day I was supposed to come home, I 'flat lined' twice, which resulted in yet another surgery to install a pacemaker.     The recovery was slow but steady and by catching it so early (thanks to God and Dr. Bell), I did not have to have any follow up treatment.

Our declining health did make us realize that it was getting increasingly difficult for us to keep up a three bedroom house and the garden, which by this point Dick had really turned into a show place:

So we made up our mind to put the house up for sale.     We had really enjoyed this house and were very proud of the garden, but we really felt we had to move on.     We knew that Scruffy would be disappointed too, as it was the first time he had had a doggy door and completely free access to his own yard.    He had a bad habit though of taking anything that was important to him and burying it in the yard - so we were always finding little toys buried out there.     We always knew when he been doing it, because he would come in with dirt all over his nose - looking innocent of course:

2010

2010 was filled with visitors - all of which were enjoyed and greatly appreciated.    It makes us feel special when people come to visit us.     Looking through my photos I couldn't find one of Suzanne and James who visited us either this year or the next, so I'm sorry if I have that out of sequence.\

Other visits were from cousins Phyllis and Janice:

Mindy, Marie, Kody and Kayden:

Mair and Kitty.     They stayed a month and we were able to take many side trips to various places of interest.    We had had a exceptionally wet winter and spring, and as a result we had a glorious desert to show off to them.    The cacti was in full bloom, as were the native wildflowers.

It was Mair's last trip with me.     She was unable to take many of the tours with Kitty and I and she stayed in the car with Dick.     It was sad to see her declining.

Debbie, Blake and Amber came in the summer (school vacation time) and braved our Arizona heat to see some local attraction:

The last of the year was Cody and Karen.     We always enjoy our time with them:

These wonderful visits helped to take our minds off the over-riding problems of the year.    Things at Falconhead had progressed to the point that we just couldn't handle it and with Dick's health declining could not go back and forth to Oklahoma to try to take care of the never ending problems of the tenants, so we made the very difficult decision to put an end to it all and contacted our two lenders on the townhouses and explained the problem to them and asked for a Deed in Lieu of Foreclosure.     Verbally they said they would work with us and the nightmare started.     At the same time we had to stop making payments to the Homeowner's Associations.     The right hands of the banks could never get together with what the left hands were doing, as a result we kept getting contradicting instructions on how they wanted to handle it and it dragged on and on, at the same time the collection departments were calling us day after day.     To add to what seemed like a nightmare, the person who was buying our condo suddenly wasn't making her payments.    With the turn in the overall economy, her place of business had shut down and at age 60 she was finding it impossible to find another job.    She finally forfeited on the loan and we had to go through the foreclosure on her.     In the meantime the market had crashed and the condo we had paid $38,000 for, we had to dump at $9,000.

As the months progressed Dick's health got worse and he started the year in the hospital with his oxygen level at 72%.    He was put on oxygen 24/7.    We had some very bad times when he basically would 'lose it' completely and not be able to do the simplest thing, and a couple of times collapsed.

Then later he discovered he had breast cancer and had to go through a complete masectomy.

Me?    Well physically I was doing fairly well except for chronic IBS, but my hair was falling out, my nerves were shot, my nails were splitting and I was more stressed than I can ever remember being.

The amazing thing was that through all this, Dick pulled off miracles in our yard, turning the pile of dirt to something really beautiful and all done, sitting on a chair!   Photos to follow in the next blog.

2009

The Hindus believe that one's life runs in cycles of seven years.     They say that there is a seven year period when no matter how many mistakes you make, things turn out well and you flourish;  this is followed by seven years, where you can do everything right, and nothing works.     I'm not saying this is my belief system, but in reflection it does seem to have worked that way in my life to a great degree.    A case in point is that in 2007 we had a big decline in our health and saw the beginning of the financial problems at Falconhead.    2008 culminated in our having to consider moving which we did in 2009.   It will be seen in the upcoming blogs that the 'cloud' continued, and as of this date (2013) we are still in the midst of added problems which some of you may be aware of.    But hey (!) this is the seventh year!!!!

There were good times of course with a good trip with Jerry and Bev to Sacramento for Hazel's 80th birthday.

It gave us a good opportunity to spend time with some of grandkids and great-grankids.

We enjoyed our new house and Dick immediately had great plans for the yard which was just a dustbowl with a couple of drooping trees.    

But the move did show how much Dick had weakened.    Thank goodness I was in pretty good shape then  as I basically had to do the packing and unpacking myself.    

The day we were moving, the front door was open at our home while the truck was being loaded and Scruffy ran into the road and was hit by a car.     His eyes were rolled back and blood was pouring out of his mouth and we really believed that this was the end of our beautiful little dog.     It was a Saturday and I couldn't find a vet open, but went to the kennels that had watched Scruffy for me when Dick was in the hospital and they called the vet that serviced their kennel and he opened up his office for me in Ardmore.     Scruffy had a broken left front leg, and severely damaged lungs.     Needless to say the journey to Arizona was not the easiest with Scruffy very much the invalid, and we had a delay in getting into our house because of a screwup on the paperwork.     But we made it in and slowly but surely Scruffy's leg healed.     But he never has regained his breathing ability - he tires easily if he runs at all.

Shortly after her birthday, we lost our beloved Hazel, and Jerry, Bev, Dick and I made another trip to Sacramento and stayed with Leslie and Elmer.

We were pleased that Marie and Mindy (with Kody) came and Debbie, Blake and Amber came up from Fresno.

Things continued to fall apart at our properties in Falconhead.     We had sold our condo and the buyer was making payments to us.     At this point she was very good and never missed.     But that wasn't the case for the two townhouses.     It was one disaster after each other.     We were the absent landlords and we were royally taken by everyone we rented to.     Our three bedroom home was badly destroyed and these people never paid a dime past the first rent.    We had a hard time getting them out and had to go back to clean the place up and try to rent it out again.    Either Dick and I were very bad judges of character or we were really on the bad vibes, for every renter took us, by not paying rent, not taking care of the property, and one even stealing our golf cart.     The net result was that by the end of the year we were down $10,000, as we had continued to pay the two mortgages, insurance, taxes and Association dues on both properties.    

On the way home, we stayed in a motel half way, and after a couple of days at home, both Dick and I had bites all over us - yes, you guessed it - bed bugs!     We called an exterminator.     The going rate was $3,500 (which we didn't have) and no guarantees that it would work.    I was fortunate to talk to one who was honest and told me that he wouldn't even give a bid, because the treatments almost never worked and he suggested I go on the internet and follow one of the recommendations there.     So I did.   Two bags of diatemaceous (have no idea if I spelled that correctly) earth sprinkled over the beds, couches, chairs and carpets, washed all the bedding and dried them on the highest heat, put all pillows and cushions in the dryer at top heat.     The cleanup was horrendous, BUT it worked.

Louise and Cheyenne came for Christmas and we had Christmas dinner at our house.    Jerry and Bev came, as did Tricia and Penny, and Doug with his two sons Justin and Ian.     It was very nice.    Debbie and Evan came after Christmas for a few days, so the year ended up on better note (except for Falconhead).   

By the end of the year, we were realizing that there was something definitely wrong with Dick - he could barely do anything without having to sit down and rest, we had to do something about it.

On a lighter note, I just had to add my favorite photo of the year:

2008

Well, we broke a record this year - we moved twice.    This wasn't the usual itchy feet motivation, but being on the 'inside' with events that were happening in the park.     A highly successful investment group had bought considerable land at Falconhead and were developing some very nice homes, especially around the golf course.    They had plans for condos near the golf course and at one end of the lake and had invested a huge amount on the upgrading of the golf course.    John Travolta was part of the group and was going to have media events to kick it off.    First Dick and I bought a second condo and moved into it, renting the other one out.

We made another investment on a two bedroom townhouse which had been repossessed by HUD.    It was quite a mess inside, but the price was right and Dick set to work to remodel it.     In the meantime another townhouse became available, a three bedroom corner unit and we bought it, and subsequently sold the condo at a profit.    We and others who were doing similar things were really excited about the future of the park and of the real estate prices which had been stagnant for a while, were beginning to rise somewhat and it was anticipated would explode when the big project was complete.

 This was the view from our new townhouse.     The one we were remodelling were just a little to the left of this.

But if you remember, Fall of 2008 brought the crash in the housing market.    The big investor company went bankrupt, the houses remained unfinished and the prices plummeted.    Dick and I had put all our hard earned money from the prior few years in remodeling and building and we were sitting with three properties, two of which were worth considerable less than what we had paid for and the HUD one looking as if it wouldn't even give us back the additional money we had spent on it.

We hadbad luck with the condo rental, lost some more money there, but did then get a good renter for it.     We also rented the HUD townhouse and it worked fine for a while, but then typically, we had trouble getting paid.    No wonder I had always been against rentals!!

The year did have its highlights though, with Uncle Ben's 100th birthday party.    One touching moment was when Aunt Lucille flew back with cousin Bob and Ben and Lucille reunited after many years:

There wasn't a dry eye in the room.

Dick had kidney failure that late summer.    He had been getting weaker and weaker and we went to the doctor.     Tests showed that he was dangerously close to a heart attack from the potassium in his system that wasn't being processed by his kidneys.     He had to take some very strong medicine and be tested every day for almost a week until they got the numbers to an acceptable level.     We saw a kidney specialist and he basically warned that Dick could be on dyalisis soon and in the meantime changed a pill and put him on a diet.    The result was that Dick being Dick and sticking to the diet, his numbers continued to go up and up and other than being re-tested twice a year, he is holding his own on this disease (as with the diabetes, again for sticking to the rules).

Come Fall, we took a trip I had wanted to take for a long time.    The plan was to go to the North East, into Canada and visit my nephews in Nova Scotia and Montreal, and do a lot of sightseeing and genealogy visits along the way.    The first change came with the slipping finances and we decided that we had to cut a couple of weeks out of the trip and not see my nephews, but would do the rest of it.     The night before we left, I got 'eaten alive' by a swarm of buffalo gnats, we got a speeding ticket twenty miles from home and had the car hit in the rear when we were in a restaurant, breaking the light!   What a start.     We visited with cousin Ruth and Larry in Indiana, went to Pennsylvania and saw where the Toppers had lived for many years outside Gettysburg, visited Gettysburg itself:

That visit was amazing and we encourage all who can to make this trip.    We went through the Amish country, to Rhode Island (more genealogy), to Cape Cod (history and genealogy), to Plymouth, on up into Vermont and New Hampshire going through the Adirondacks which would have been glorious this time of year, BUT AND IT IS A VERY LARGE BUT,  we had sunshine in Gettysburg and the one day in Cape Cod, the rest of the time we had rain, rain and more rain.    We saw nothing of the Amish - just a window washer slapping right and left.     We drove through the glorious Adirondacks with my saying "This is so beautiful out there, Dick, honestly it is!!".    By this time we had had about ten days of vacation and had seen little else but wet, wet.     We decided to call it quits and headed for home.    To add to the misery of the trip, my bites had progressed to the point that my face was swollen, I had open sores and hid my face from people and ended up in an emergency room and going on heavy duty cortizone!

We did some serious thinking on this trip and in the following month or so.    Finances now were tight.   We had two mortgages, were paying out Falconhead dues on three properties and they kept going up and there was no relief in sight.    Dick's health, although improved, was still not good - he was not able to do too much and after the experience with the buffalo gnats I was reluctant to continue living with the bug situation there and the humidity was making my breathing more difficult every year.
We had to do something, and started thinking seriously of moving closer to California and family - probably Arizona.......

2007

207 was a strange year and it appears that I did not take many meaniful pictures.     Dick and I did take two trips, one to California where we went to Debbies Masters graduation and Blake's graduation from 8th grade.    We also had  good visit in Sacramento with Karen and Cody, and the grandkids.

We spent a few days in Bryant Texas with cousin Margaret and visiting Uncle Ben - now 99.

It was a very sad year for Dick and I.     Brother Bill died after a long battle with althzeimers, and Irene died from brain cancer.    Both deaths struck us deeply.  

It was quite a monumental medical year too - I had two more stents (added to the seven I already had) - and really needed these, with an 85% blockage in my heart.     Dick's hip got worse and he was scheduled for hip surgery, but had to have a pacemaker installed before they would accept him for the surgery.    The surgery was not easy for him, because of the major accident he had in 1950, his body was twisted and the surgeon had to try three different replacement hips before one worked.    The result was that he was in surgery for five hours which made his recovery much longer.    It took a long time for him to get over the whole thing and actually his health has never been as good since.

Mair visited and Louise came and took care of Dick while Mair and I took a trip to the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Las Vegas and Phoenix.    

But we were enjoying our move to Falconhead and delighted in the view we had from the condo, both spring and winter:

The Canadian Geese were with us all summer and lived in the lake above.   

We also added the newest addition to our family in the spring of this year.    McScruffy:

After having quiet laid back dogs for so long, it was hard to get used to the high energy of this one.    But we just loved him and he and I took a long walk on the golf course each day, where he delighted in running as fast as he could and chasing the geese.    He was about 1-1/2 years old and had spent the majority of his life to date in a small cage, being let out in the morning, lunch time and evening to do his 'business' and for an hour or two each evening to play with the children.    The freedom he had at our house and on his walks was obviously a delight to him.  

2006

2006 was a fun year.   We started the year with a trip to Bryan, Texas, where Dick's cousin Margaret
was living.     We enjoyed being a part of Uncle Ben's 98th birthday party, and whereas we normally stayed with Margaret on these visits, there was so many relatives coming in for the party that Margaret and Ben had paid for us to all stay at the local Hampton Inn, which was VERY nice.

It was my turn to go to Britain again, and this time met up with Mair in London and spent a great time being shown some new sites again by our nephews that have always been so wonderful to us and so generous.     Among the highlights was Moltisfont Abbey:

A beautiful country home with magnificent gardens.    It is owned by the National Trust now and open to the public.

I had been to Hampton Court before (on the Thames), but it had been some time (actually when I went with Debbie in the early 1980's).     The magnificence of these rooms is amazing.

Martyn took us down the docks at Southhampton and wanted us to go up the new tower built there had has a glass-floored balcony at the top, but both Mair and I chickened out and finally convinced Martyn, that we would both be on our knees and he would have to carry us both down!!     I was really interested in the fact that our brother Gerald who was in the Royal Navy, did his submarine training here.    If you look at the picture just right of the middle you will see a square building.    That is a tall (deep) water tank where they trained how to escape from a sub under water.

Salisbury Cathedral was awesome and it was the first time I saw the original Magna Carta document that our legal system is based on.

The timing of this trip was so that Mair and I could attend the wedding of Ian and Liz.    It was a second marriage for Liz, but our nephew Ian in his late forties had never married.     Their wedding and reception was a spectacular affair held in one of the ancient manors.

Mair, Kitty and I thoroughly enjoyed being together and here we are singing a song from an old radio show,   "Enoch, Ramsbottom and Me".

40 years of marriage for us and we attended the wedding of Katrina's youngest, Joe and Debbie:

This year Dick started to really slow down and was experiencing a big problem with his hip.    Taking care of our property and acreage was quite a job, and he knew he would have problems building the house we had planned for the back of the property (to go with the garage already built), so we made the decision to follow up on something we had talked about for years and that was to 'retire to a condo on a golf course'.    I went on the web, we drove to a few that interested us and eventually settled on the Falconhead Golfing Community in southern Oklahoma, just 1/2 mile from the Texas border.    We made the deal, sold our single-wide and moved around New Year.

I'm sure these neighbors missed him terribly.    They had shown up at our house twice a day, to get their 'treats' from Dick and often just stayed hanging around with him:

   

2005

2005 started in one of the most difficult times we had gone through, in losing all four of our dogs in the space of about three months.    It was incredible.    First Willie (17) became totally 'lost' and 'confused' and as a result very afraid;  Samantha suddenly couldn't walk and was obviously miserable.    Emma became very ill, and finally Pedro died of a broken heart in losing all his friends.    He simply gave up and wouldn't move, eat or drink.

I hope you are able to read this poem.    It was sent to us by the vet who helped us pass them on to their next life.    Either Dick or I held them while they gently went to sleep.

Mair came again to visit us and she and I visited some of the local area, including the Spiro Mounds, where the ancient indians had lived.

Other than that, our whole year was devoted to building a spec house on the other part of our property.
We had the concrete poured, but Dick did ALL the carpenter work with the exception of the roof, and did all the electric and plumbing throughout.     I did the insulation, inside painting and some wallpapering.    We did have the sheetrock put up, but Dick did all the finishing.     He also laid the tile in the entry, kitchen and utility and bathrooms.     We had the carpet laid.     And hired the outside painting, the roof and brick outside.     The most amazing thing though is that Dick built this house WITHOUT any plans.     He simple did the whole thing from the plan he had in his head.

This was the front of the house.

The side of the house showing the deck coming out from the french doors in the dining area.

And the rear view of the house and deck.     It sold very quickly.    Actually it sold the morning after we gave the realtor the listing, but unfortunately they ended up not qualifiying for the loan, but nevertheless it was still a fast sale.