Dear Family and Friends:
Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for a Very Happy New Year are extended to you and your family. Thank you very much for connecting to our Blog to read this Christmas letter. Stan and I have been very blessed this year to be able to spend so much time with family and friends.
We began the year in January with a number of my Premier Jewelry home shows, and the Premier Regional Rally in Columbus, Ohio which took place January 14 and 15. (You can read more about that by visiting our Premier Website located here). Username is judybarnes (no space) and password is gems. We attended the Rally with Seth and Amanda (our grandson and his wife who was a Jeweler at that time) and it was great fun. The next week, was not so much fun – Stan had rotator cuff surgery on January 19th. It was a tough recovery that took many weeks and lots of therapy and surgeon visits.
The fourth Monday of each month, Stan and I babysit our great-grandson Cameron usually from 7:30 a.m. till 6:00 p.m. and we have a great time with him. Amanda is still in school and she and Seth pay for the day care three or four days a week. The Mondays of each month are covered by Amanda’s Dad one week, Deb the second week, Mindy Walter the third week, and us the fourth week. It works out really well and we all have fun with Cameron, who will be 4 years old the end of December.
On April 18th, my Dad passed away in Phoenix, AZ, at age 91. He was healthy nearly all of his life and was only in the hospital for a week to have a pace maker and defibulator installed in his chest. He had just come home from the hospital when he died suddenly. I, of course, immediately flew to Phoenix to be with my half-brother Don and his wife Amy and their son Joe, and LaVonne, who was engaged to my Dad for ten years. We met with attorneys, bankers, Realtors, etc. to begin working with Dad’s will and estate. We planned for his funeral to be three weeks later. LaVonne and I were appointed Executors of Dad’s estate and then the work really began. I returned home on April 22nd.
I flew back to Phoenix on May 9th to work with LaVonne on all the details we needed to finalize, which included having an auction of all of my Dad’s household belongings and putting the house up for sale and handling all the details for Dad’s memorial service, which took place on May 14th. Marilyn and Josh Ellis (my sister-in-law and nephew) flew in on Thursday and Stan and Debbie flew in on Friday. Stan and I took Dad’s brand new leased Cadillac as part of my inheritance and Stan decided to drive it back to Grand Rapids, leaving on Saturday night. Marilyn, Josh, Deb and I flew back home on Monday. Stan arrived on Tuesday in Grand Rapids with the car after driving 2,005 miles in three days.
We put our beloved rescue cat, Tabitha to sleep on May 25th. We think she had gotten into something outside. She could no longer run or walk very well. We had her for over three years and didn’t want her to suffer.
We went camping for the last time on May 26-30 in our trailer at White River Campground. Stan could no longer lift things after his rotator cuff surgery, and that made camping for us very difficult. I had continued to get stronger, because I had to lift all the heavy things, but that wasn’t going to work long term. We decided to give our trailer to Seth so that he and his family could continue to enjoy camping.
My 50th high school reunion in St. Louis was on June 11th. We drove there on June 9th and had a fantastic time visiting with old friends (especially Karen Roberts DeRienzo and John and Alice VanVliet Spuller) and relatives, returning home on June 14th. Before and after this reunion, I continued to do Premier home shows and trainings.
We visited Chicago the weekend of June 17th and met up with LaVonne there, while she was visiting her daughter in Winnetka. We spent two nights at the Hilton Hotel and were completely charmed by the tent theatre-in-the-round for “ Peter Pan”, which was very well done. We arrived back home in time to celebrate Father’s Day night at Jim and Lora’s house in Middleville with Mindy, Deb and Kirk, Seth, Amanda, and Cameron.
Two days later, we suddenly learned that Stan had quite a large melanoma in the center of his back, and that he would have to have surgery to remove it on Friday, June 24th. I really appreciated my good friend, Wendy Zuidema, coming to sit with me during Stan’s surgery. We had a good time together and she kept me calm. When we met with the surgeon, he told us he had gotten all of the cancer and that Stan would be fine. That was good news. However, the surgery was very complex and we went to doctors very often to double check on the wound.
In January, we had planned a 50th anniversary trip to Prague and a river cruise from Nuremburg to Budapest. The surgeon was sure we would still be able to go because we weren’t leaving until July 26 – to be back on August 7th. However, just a few days before we were to depart, Stan’s wound opened up wide and deep. He had to have a wound vacuum on his wound and wear the 9 pound piece of equipment around his neck for over a month. I got good at changing out his bandages and equipment and I have had no nursing training. We are now working with the travel insurance company, trying to get our money back for the trip that we weren’t able to take after all.
We had planned for a great deal of remodeling on the house for much of the summer, hoping to have it all finished in time for our 50th Wedding Anniversary party which was going to take place the end of August. We began by cutting down the cottonwood tree in our back yard that was such a pesky tree, dropping cotton all over the neighborhood. We had the roof replaced, all the windows in the house replaced, our living room, dining room, kitchen and bath had the flooring replaced with ceramic tile.
On August 12-14 we rented a trailer at White River Campground so that we could continue to participate in our annual progressive dinner that we enjoy every year with our friends, the Brinks and the Johnsons. It was awesome as usual. We began with hors d’oerves at our rented trailer, and then to the Johnsons cabin on Blue Lake for the main course, and then to the Brinks home on White Lake for a boat ride and homemade carrot cake. We always have a great time together!
We found we couldn’t stay at the house during all of the remodeling work, so we stayed at a variety of hotels, where the visiting nurses would come to change out Stan’s wound vac on Monday’s, Wednesday‘s and Friday’s. It was quite an ordeal, as I’m sure you can imagine.
Our anniversary party was awesome with lots of people helping us celebrate. Kim’s family came in from Mechanicsburg, PA, and two sisters-in-law and two nephews also helped us celebrate. We were so glad that Marilyn (my brother John’s widow from Illinois) and their son, Josh, as well as Vicki (Stan’s sister) from Fredericktown and nephew, Steven (from St. Louis) were able to be there. My Maid-of-Honor, Karen (Roberts) DeRienzo was planning to be present, too, but the hurricane (Irene) stopped all planes flying from New Jersey. We missed her, but know her heart was with us – even after 50 years. The photo on this card shows that our whole immediate family was together and we have the portrait hanging in our dining room.
Our high school in St. Louis had an MRH Decade Reunion 1960-69 September 22-24 which we decided to attend and add three days before it and two days after it to visit with friends and relatives. Stan was class of ’60 and I was class of ’61. We also visited Columbia, MO where we lived for four years while in college (at the University of Missouri) to visit with dear friends and neighbors, John and Sandy Smith. We hadn’t seen them in over 35 years and we enjoyed every moment of our time together.
The first week of November, we drove to Mechanicsburg, PA to visit with Kim’s family. We had a great time with all of them: Kim, Nate, Joe and Anna. We usually only get to see them once or twice a year, and this trip was our second one this year. We had a great time as always.
We celebrated Thanksgiving at our home with Deb and Kirk Patton, Seth, Amanda and Cameron Walter, Mindy Walter and Jim and Lora Walter. We were very thankful that our Michigan family could all be together and the food was awesome, as usual!
May God bless and keep you all.
With Love,
Judy and Stan Barnes
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