Saturday, October 31, 2009

Surgery Details & Recovery OR SLAP Tear Fixed!

Oct 6 at 10a I had surgery to repair the torn cartilage in my right shoulder from a fall earlier in the year at work. Here I am being wheeled out of the hospital to the vehicle - obviously all bright eyed and bushy tailed! :) Making sure to bring my bag that has my footies in it I had to wear to surgery! Actually, the surgical table was very nice. I walked into the room and when I laid down on the table it was all toasty warm! Ahhhh! :)









This is what the Doctor saw when he first got inside. Where the bottom arrow is you can see the torn cartilage - it's kinda an upside down 'V.'










Here you can see the tear fixed, well at least you can see where the nice bow is he left all tied up in my arm! :)











Here's about 3 days post op with the dressing still over the surgical site. I was supposed to see him then, get the dressing removed and stitches pulled, but he came down with the flu. So I didn't see him for another 3 days! Boy that thing was getting itchy.






You can see two of the three sites he used to go into my shoulder laprascopically (don't think I spelled that correctly) to repair the damage. Love the design drawn on the top and the funky skin below the stitches where the tape from the dressing was. The front cut had 3 stitches and the side and back only had two. This is one week post op.





Here's the 'scars' almost 3 weeks post op. Thinking about getting a "Bronco" logo tattoo to cover it! **GRIN**













Here's the sling and pillow I had to wear for one week at all times and then to bed! What an uncomfortable thing! :)

















Of course my precious girls wanted to try it on! Awwww - Joelle!
















and Natalie giving it a go! :)

Friday, October 30, 2009

Cinderella at the Tivoli Theater

The Tivoli Theater in Downtown had a local group put on the story of Cinderella. One of my father-in-law's voice students, Lisa, was the 'backup' for the Fairy Godmother and her son, Tyler, was in it as well. So Larry got us tickets!












Just had to take this pic of my Pumpkin standing next to a pumpkin.











The girls LOVED the story and it was fun to see them react to the different scenes! A great experience!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Adventurer Leadership Weekend

The weekend after my reunion, I got to spend at Camp Cohutta Springs for an Adventurer Leadership weekend with my 'fellow' Adventurer Leaders at the Ooltewah SDA church. Here's a pic of me and Dale, the Busy Bee Counselor.








I slept there Friday night instead of driving the hour home and then back Sabbath AM. I was in cabin 8A. A nice place to sleep!













Of course, I always love camp/cafeteria food! Yummy!












We also learned some good ideas for our Adventurer clubs and families to help us all learn how to be better Christians. It was a weekend of LOTS of meetings, tons of information and good fellowship!!!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

B-17 OR Build & Fly Award

I had decided to teach my Adventurer group the Build & Fly Award. Then I found out that the following week a B-17 Flying Fortress was going to come spend a couple of days at the Collegedale airport. So I invited my Adventurer Builders and families to go with us to see it - just an extra exciting thing to do for the award!




For a buck each, we got to go tour the inside. Amazing how those men made those long trips in those very cold, very cramped quarters!








Photos of Joelle & Natalie in the nose of the plane where the Navigator and Nose Gunner sat.













Here's a pic of Doreen standing in the Radio room at the back of the Bomb Bay. Talk about antiquated equipment. And to think during WW2 this was top of the line technology! It's amazing we won! :)















Here I am coming into the Bomb Bay from the front. Look at that little 'isle' where the men had to walk across to get from one section to the other!
















My little gunner, Joelle!












Natalie taking a try at being a side gunner too!












I just love this pic of us standing in front of the symbol of all the US Air Force planes at the time! Awesome Stuff!!!

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Church Campout

While I was in Colorado the last weekend in Sept for my 20th reunion, Doreen, cousin Teri and the girls went on the church campout at Harrison Bay. Part of the activities included the Induction of the Adventurer club, which was really nice, because the church would be able to witness it more than if it were just an extra Friday evening event.




They had some good time to sit around the fire and relax...











...they also were extremely thankful that everyone was in cabins and they had this big meeting/dining hall to hang out in when it was raining like crazy. They enjoyed singing, games, talking - a good weekend was had by all!









Although the kids still played outside quite a bit and some 'clean-up' was required before bedtime! :)

Monday, October 26, 2009

Third Cousins

This weekend has been fun visiting with some of Doreen's cousins from Larry's side. Since it's fall break some of Teri's nieces came to visit. My girls just LOVED playing with Brianna & Sydney. And Brianna and Sydney are so good at giving my girls some attention, Joelle & Natalie are eating it up and just LOVE Brianna & Sydney. (Let's see if I can get this right... L to R - Brianna, Natalie, Doreen, Teri, Sydney & Joelle)



After brunch, they had some fun playing with a camera - enjoy! :) Sydney & Joelle










Sydney & Natalie










Brianna & Joelle













Brianna & Natalie














3rd Cousins. This is actually pretty special - Both Doreen and I don't remember being around 3rd cousins very much!

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Sabbath Walk

A while back we had rain, rain and MORE rain! One Sabbath afternoon, we decided to just get out. So with umbrellas in hand we headed out to the Wolftever Greenway in Collegedale for a short walk. The girls found a great rock on which to stand to pose for a pic!







This cool bench is along the greenway and my two very cute little girls!














We've got lots of Kutzu in the area and as we were walking along the girls were pointing it all out. Then we saw this tree with kutzu growing on it and Joelle pointed out in looks just like a Giraffe! Cool!














My precious Doreen and precious Joelle!












Me and my precious Natalie!

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Sammy & Family

While I was in Colorado for my reunion, my folks and sister Cynthia and family came over to see me, and to share my newest niece, Samantha, with me. She was about 2 weeks old and SO very precious! That was so very, VERY nice of them to come over the mountains to visit! I was so excited - yet tired from all the events around my Alumni weekend!










See - even little Sammy was tired, but with a little help, she was grinning ear to ear to see her Uncle Steve! :)












The Pitz family all scrunched together for a photo op, while we were waiting for breakfast at Cracker Barrel












Me and my folks. I always enjoy anytime I get with my family and even more so after the health scare we had with my dad earlier in the year. It was nice to visit, just for the sake of visiting!

Thanks y'all for going WAY out of your way to come visit me. That was so sweet and thoughtful and I'll always cherish that visit!!!

20 Years - Campion Academy Graduating Class of 1989

The last weekend of September had me in an airplane flying to Colorado for the Reunion of my graduating class of 1989 from Campion Academy in Loveland, CO. I got into Denver early enough to get my rental car and to have a chance to see the hospital where I was born and the house where I spent some of my early years, and of course I HAD to stop by and walk around the New Mile High Stadium! Oh yeah! I hope to be able to see a game there someday!




Well, I finally broke myself away from Mile High and headed up to Loveland and to Campion Academy. As I was headed to the campus, I saw the beautiful Rocky Mountains in the background. They were calling to me. I almost blew off the whole weekend and went to spend it up there, but decided not to!





Back to the scene of the crime, 20 years later, Campion Academy.











The photo montage of all my classmates hanging in the hall of our old school. Boy we were a good looking, young group of kids then, big hair and all! :)









I've got so many pics, I don't know where or how to post them all. This one of Tammy Caldwell Smith (L) and Kim Carle Brown cracked me up. Most all of us blew off Friday night vespers and just talked, and then we stood outside the gym during the church service and did more talking. (These two were ready for their Sabbath afternoon naps.) but we couldn't stop.






We paused for lunch then headed over to the fellowship hall of the church for an afternoon get together and more talking. Here's a pic of me with with some cousins, also graduates of Campion Academy.









We took a number of group pics every time a bunch of us got together. It was fun! We had 41 or 42 of the 65 we graduated return. That's a pretty respectable return! :)










Of course we didn't end there, we headed out to a nice restaurant, where we had a whole room to ourselves, and did more talking - in between bites of food of course! Here's my roommate all three years at Campion Billy and his wife Paula.











Then, as I was leaving, I once again looked back, longingly, at the mountains. Can't wait until I get to spend some time in them again!

It's been a good 20 years. Everyone has changed so much, yet everyone still has stayed the same. My how time flies!!! :)