Vail, Colorado : June 27-29

We had the great pleasure of visiting Mia, Christian and Lily in Vail this summer. It was AMAZING and gorgeous and perfect. We drove, which was fun. (the Prius got 50 mpg coming out of the mountains! I freakin' love that car) :) Here are some highlights (sans any comments because I'm late posting this as it is...)
Enjoy!

Chip Woods

Last week, my buddy Chip lost his battle with cancer. He fought for five years - never asking why and never giving up - at least, not outwardly. I'm sure he had some questions in there for God. I know I would.

Since the funeral, I've been thinking about him a lot. Chip was 47. He was entirely too young and that cancer was incredibly ruthless. At his funeral, the eulogy included a quote by Mark Twain, "The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up." No wonder Chip was such a happy guy. He was constantly doing things for other people.

He was the guy who taught me how to ski moguls. We went to Winter Park every February for our church ski trip. I mentioned how I wanted to get better at moguls and he offered to take me out that afternoon and teach me. He picked a narrow black diamond trail in the trees. I had nowhere to go (my problem was turning too wide and losing my rhythm) and nobody was going to cut me off. Chip spent 4 hours cheering me on and coaching my every turn. He gave up an entire afternoon of skiing so he could stand on a cold mountain and scream encouraging things up the hill. I think about that now - how selfless that was. There was absolutely nothing in it for him, yet he didn't even hesitate. He didn't complain. He didn't rush me. He waited until I had it and then made sure I looked back up the mountain at what I'd just done.

To celebrate his life, I have chosen to do more for others, the way Chip taught me. And I will always put in an attempt at those moguls, though I lack the courage I seemed to possess in my 20s. I miss my buddy, Chip. And I'm sure I'll miss him every year we go back to Winter Park. That's two friends I've lost to cancer. Two friends who get a little nod every time we ride up those lifts.

I LOVE THIS MOVIE!!!!

If you haven't seen WALL-E, you NEED to see it! Ryan took me to dinner and a movie on Friday night (because he's the best husband in the whole world and also because I'd had a crappy day - attending a funeral and then working late). We'd already seen Dark Knight (actually, Ryan just saw it for the 4th time yesterday) so we decided to give this little Pixar movie a try.

WALL-E IS THE CUTEST MOVIE EVER MADE!! I'm not even kidding. I cried and cried - it completely broke my heart in places and made me want to hug that little robot. It's set in the future when all of the humans have made a huge garbage can out of the Earth (lots of green messages here) and WALL-E is left to clean up our mess. (We're all off on a big "space cruise" getting super-fat and drinking our meals out of big-gulp cups.) I don't know why this movie didn't do more publicity or make a bigger impact at the box office, but I'm going to promote the crap out of it. SO stinkin' cute!!!!! (plus, it will make you want to stop shopping at COSTCO...and maybe work out a little.)

Here are some more pictures...because I seriously can't stop thinking about how sweet it was.

pretty effing great...

Yup...that's Ryan with Russell Robinson. We were having dinner at Johnny's last night in KC and we heard Russell was inside, signing autographs. Before we knew it, the people in charge were bringing him over to our table to meet us. (Jason King and his wife, who is a volunteer with the Parkinson's Foundation). So we got to hang out and ask him questions and tell him all about our 3 generations of Jayhawks in the family. He's very sweet and was kind enough to let us take pictures with him.

GO HAWKS!!

appendix issues

I'm sorry I have been absent. And it's not like things haven't been happening. We went to Vail to see Mia and Christian. My friend Jason turned 30. We went to Houston to see Bev and Wayne. And I was trying to find time to put it all in the blog. Then I woke up on Thursday morning with horrible abdominal pain. It went on all morning until I finally called my mom to take me to the Emergency Room. (Ryan was out of town for work). We sat in the Emergency Room for 45 minutes while I frequently ran to the bathroom to throw up. Turns out, my stomach pain was appendicitis. Appendicitis is considered a medical emergency because your appendix can burst and spread infection throughout your body (which is WAY worse!) so I had laparoscopic surgery that night. They cut three holes in my abdomen to insert tools and a laparoscope and then I stayed in the hospital over-night. Ryan managed to get an earlier flight home (he was so frustrated that all of this was happening while he was out of town...he NEVER goes out of town for work!). Ryan slept in a horribly uncomfortable recliner all night so he could stay by my side. I got fantastic pain-killers and now I'm trying not to use them up too fast! The doctor told me to stay home for the next week...that a lot of people feel like going back to work but can't make it through a whole day. So now I'm staying home and taking it easy. At first, the hardest part was not being able to sit up or contract my stomach to help me. Now it's the fact that I can't lift anything too heavy or I'll tear my little stitches. (which is REALLY hard when you have a super cute niece who wants to be your buddy.)

So now that I have some time on my hands, I might finally get to post all of my pictures from our fabulous vacations! Until then, here's a picture of an appendix.