Basking still in the holiday spirit, taking down the last of our
Christmas lights on New Year’s Day, my "Year from Hell" began. My trusty ladder waited until I was unhooking the last light for
the end boot to slip off and drop itself out from under me. With
my right arm above the gutter scooping leaf debris off the roof
at the time, it was slammed back behind my head and then against
the side of the house on my way down. The outcome was a severe
shoulder dislocation resulting in my “first” ambulance ride of
the year to the Evergreen Hospital ER. I scheduled surgery for
it in late February. A week before the shoulder surgery, I had a
kidney stone drop resulting in yet another ambulance ride to the
ER. The paramedic team was the same crew from my January 1st
incident and they asked how my shoulder was doing:) The stone
wouldn't pass, so I had to have it laser blasted out 4 days
later, and, yes, that is just as nasty as it sounds. All the
meds I was on for that and the 4+ hour shoulder surgery that I
had a few days later threw my body chemistry completely out of
whack, and I’d end up in the ER 2 more times in the next 2 weeks
suffering from dehydration and depression. It’s never a good
thing when the admitting nurse and ER staff all know you by name
…
In June, during my yearly physical I found out that I
had a patch of skin cancer on my face that required removal (7
stitches later) and in August another on my back (only 5
stitches this time). I’ll be that pasty white guy out by the
pool in the shade with his SPF 70 and Gilligan hat watching all
the tan people slathering Baby Oil on themselves! After 6 months
of fairly painful physical therapy and half the progress
expected, I decided to have a follow-up MRI on my shoulder. During the consult with my orthopedic surgeon, it wasn’t much of
a shock to discover that I need another surgery to repair
several areas that didn’t heal properly to get back most of my
remaining shoulder functionality. This I’m putting off until
after ski season, so I at least get that in this year. 2014 was
the first season in 35 years that I didn’t ski.
Despite
my physical setbacks and all the care and nurturing that Nora
and the girls had to dish out, we still had a full year of
activities and fun. Nora and Hailey kept up our end of the Monte
Vista Ski Club skiing at Steven’s Pass this winter and the
entire crew ended up at our house (now known as “Seahawks
Central”) for the Super Bowl. None of us expected Seattle to
totally dominate the way they did with the 43-8 win over Denver.
Spring Break saw Nora and the girls visiting my Mother and
their Papa Denton in Appleton, WI and driving to Chicago for 4
days of sightseeing there before heading home. I had no vacation
time after taking 2 weeks for shoulder surgery recovery, so I
planned my visit with them for late September. I enjoyed 4 days
with my Mom and Denton, having lunch with all my Hooyman
cousins, playing lots of cards with my aunts and uncles, and
visiting neighboring Freedom, WI where most of my ancestors
started out in America. That time spent with my Mother is now
very precious to us as she had a heart attack and passed away
unexpectedly 2 weeks after my visit in mid-October at age 89,
with my brothers and I flying in to be at her side, as fate
would have it, a few hours too late. It was great to see
everyone at her funeral service and celebration of life
afterwards. She was kind, sweet, fun-loving, and quick to smile
and we all will miss her ... and her amazing Molasses cookies! We were especially blessed that Denton entered and became such
an integral part of her life making her last 8 years very happy
ones.
In late June we took a week long Caribbean “Group”
Cruise with 4 other families from our neighborhood. We had an
awesome time aboard the “Oasis of the Seas”, the world’s largest
cruise ship. With only 3 ports of call in the area with large
enough docks to accommodate it, we enjoyed visiting “Atlantis”
in Nassau and Magen’s Bay in St. Thomas together as a group, and
touring around St. Martin on our final shore excursion. With
“formal” nights, dozens of pools, restaurants and bars, on-deck
surf machines, an ice skating rink, and endless on-board
entertainment, before we knew it we were back in Fort Lauderdale
with lots of fond memories of our trip together. After
debarkation we rented a car and drove up to Orlando to spend a
few days visiting Dave and Nan and doing a single-day “Park
Hopper” pass at Disney World visiting Hollywood Studios, Animal
Kingdom, and Magic Kingdom starting out at 9am and heading back
at 1am … a very long fun-filled day.
My friend Scott and
I decided to take a float plane up to Victoria, B.C. over
Memorial Day weekend to see Bachman Turner (with no Overdrive)
for a different type of adventure. Both 70 years old now, they
put on an tremendous show that highlighted Randy Bachman’s
phenomenal guitar work and Turner’s strong vocals. As in years
past, concerts filled our annual social calendar. Shannon and
Nora saw Panic at the Disco at a small club downtown in
February. Nora, Shannon and I saw the Goo Goo Dolls, Daughtry
and the Plain White Ts at the Chateau St. Michelle Winery on an
overcast July evening running into our friends Sarah and Ash
there. In August, we saw Nickel Creek again at the winery, and
we joined Heather and Scott at the Tulalip Casino Amphitheater
to see Sammy Hagar who rocked the stage for hours covering songs
from his Montrose gig in the 70s, his solo career stuff in the
80s, and his Van Halen lead singer stint in the 90s. We finished
off the year seeing Fall Out Boy and New Politics at the WA
State Fair in September.
In mid-September we hosted the
“Ski to Die” 35th Reunion at our house. In the early 80s while
supporting 737 Flight Management System projects at Boeing, I
linked up with a unique group of friends there that worked hard,
played hard, and loved to ski. “Ski to Die” was born and was
strong throughout the 80s and 90s, having dozens of planned ski
trips and countless weekend parties and excursions together. About 20 “Ski to Diers” made it over and we were still going
strong at 2am at the firepit, catching up on each other’s lives
and remembering the reasons we all ended up together in the
first place.
Our projects this year included redoing our
deck adding a roof and skylights to it, and putting in steps and
a door to our 7’ tall crawl space under the house that covers
the entire length of it. The entrance to the crawl space used to
be under the deck and after bashing my head on the main deck
support beam a few dozen times hauling stuff in and out of
there, it finally dawned on me that I shouldn’t do that anymore. We added a sump pump for the steps to drain, overhead lights in
the “basement”, and power to our shed in the process.
Hailey celebrated her 10th birthday on the cruise as the wait
staff, our 2 tables, and many of the surrounding tables belted
out a rousing chorus of “Happy Birthday” to her at dinner that
night. She’s doing well in 5th grade at Maywood Hills and had a
long summer filled with sleepovers with many friends including
several with her BFFs Claudia and Sydney. Her fab rec soccer
team, the Lightning, had a tremendous season this year going
undefeated and dominating most games.
Shannon continues
in her love of reading, devouring a dozen books a month giving
Barnes & Noble, her library card, and her Kindle a weekly
workout. She finished off her Leota Junior High times with 3
straight years with a 4.0 GPA while taking AP classes in English
and Math. She is now getting acclimated to High School life in
10th grade at Woodinville High. Nora and I endured the whole
“learning to drive” thing with her over the summer … what an
adventure a few of those drives were! Shannon turns 16 in a few
days and is growing into a beautiful, intelligent young woman. How the years have flown by …
Ski season is almost upon
us and needing to burn some timeshare points, Nora and I are
heading out in a few weeks on our first real “just the 2 of us”
adventure in 16 years to Tahoe to sneak in some early winter
skiing. We are hoping that the snow starts to fall soon in
southern Nevada. At last check most of the resorts in that area
are still closed with very little snow yet at their base. Who
knew 5 months ago when we planned this, that the weather would
choose not to cooperate … guess we need to skim through the
Farmer’s Almanac first next time! Wishing you all a Merry
Christmas 2014 and hoping the next “Year from Hell” passes your
house by and that you have a Happy (and healthy) New Year in
2015!
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Love …
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 P.S.
– We updated the website Year in Pictures,
Vacations and Projects sections. Hundreds of
short bios, pictures, |
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obits
and dates were added to the Family Tree
section as well. Check it all out at
http://www.digital-vision.com/alan |
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