18. September 2008 by Mike.

     Wow! Has it been over a month since I posted a journal? Apparently it has been?? I won’t try to catch up, but we have both been very busy!

• The living room is done and our furniture has been delivered.
• We went bowling for Parker’s 7th birthday party.
• We are traveling to Omaha this weekend to their German-American Society’s Oktoberfest.

    I’ve created more photo webpages from our summer vacation since my journal in July. I added photos from Brussels, our adventures on the Mosel and the beautiful cities of Alf, Zell, and Cochem, and then Erfurt. The index page to all the photos I posted so far is here.

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8. August 2008 by Mike.

Occasionally someone will ask, “How much is a trip to Germany?” Like any other question, first of all figure out who you’re talking to, and what are their priorities. How do they want to travel? Where do they want to stay? Then use the patented, “I don’t know?” That’s the safest answer, because everyone’s travel plans are different. Some people’s idea of ‘camping’ may be a 4-star hotel instead of their normal 5-star.

I do have some idea what Anne and I just spent for our 3 week stay in Holland, Belgium, and Germany, plus her extra 2 week family extension. We tried to keep every receipt and tab that we could. Basically it breaks down like this -

Transportation 44%
Hotel 30%
Food 21%
Tourism 4%
Fees 1%

• Transportation includes airfare, rental car, fuel, and parking. We flew US Airways, rented an Audi A3 from Thrifty, bought benzign whenever we needed it, and paid to park everywhere. We drove a total of 2000 miles, although it didn’t seem like that much at the time.
• Hotels were mostly 2-3 stars, with a few exceptions. We reserved the majority of our rooms ahead of time instead of finding the less expensive ‘zimmer frei’ rooms available throughout Europe. I didn’t want to spend time finding rooms when we arrived in a city, I just wanted to check in! Most of the rooms included breakfast, or at least it was available, so that would be included in the next category …
• Food includes meals and occasional refreshments. As enticing as they may be, we did not eat at any of the well known fast food restaurants. I highly recommend them if you are in search of clean restroom, and some do sell bier. Our closest adventure to fast food was a döner kebab on Rügen .
• Tourism was tours, toilets (don’t plan on peeing for free), souveniors and other stuff. This was a low priority for me, but Anne did a nice job of bring back gifts for family and friends.
• Fees is a very small category, but I included it just so you wouldn’t be shocked. Some were ATM fees when we withdrew cash, and some were charges from the credit card companies.

The main thing to remember is no matter how much it cost, the memories are priceless. I’ve uploaded photos of our drive from Brussels to the Mosel, and getting settled into the hotel in Alf -

Brussels to Alf

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5. August 2008 by Mike.

I had a commitment after work yesterday and didn’t get home until around 7:00pm. I decided on the way home it might be fun to go see the Royals play the Boston Red Sox. Anne hadn’t been to a game for a couple of seasons, and Christin had never been to a baseball game. When I got home I told the girls we were going out for ice cream, I just didn’t tell them where! We arrived at the stadium just as Alex Gordon hit a home run in the 2nd inning to make it a 2-1 game. We saw the fireworks from outside but didn’t really know what had happened.

In the third inning the Royals scored 3 more runs top make it a 4-3 game. The last third run was a freebie when the Red Sox pitcher Buchholz hit John Buck with a pitch when the bases were loaded to force in a run. Gil Meche pitched very well for the Royals and only gave up 4 hits and 2 runs in 6 innings on a very hot evening in Kansas City. Boston’s David Ortiz went 0-5 and didn’t provide much punch for the Sox.

The girls never did have ice cream, but I think they enjoyed the game anyway. It got really exciting in the 9th inning when the Red Sox scored a run and eventually loaded the bases before the Mexicutioner, Qukaim Soria, got the final out.

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2. August 2008 by Mike.

      I spoke with my doctor yesterday and got some great news. He says the tumor he removed was only into the lining of the bladder and did not get into the muscle. That would make it a low grade, stage 0 cancer. Since he removed the entire spot during the surgery, he expects everything will be back to normal soon. There is always a chance that it could return, so I will need to have a cystoscopy every 3 months for the next year. Other than that I should be OK

     I am starting to feel better. I mowed the yard and even worked on the living room today. Last night I went down to the Power & Light District in downtown to see Identity Crisis, one of my favorite local bands. They were playing in the KC Live area on a hot Friday night in Kansas City.

      It was a bummer for them that a lot of the crowd was there waiting for the Brad Paisley concert to start at the Sprint Center across the street. Originally they were supposed to play from 6-10:00pm, but just as they got ready to go on stage, they were informed there’s a new noise ordinance and no live bands can start playing until 7:00pm.

     Apparently the restaurants around the edge of the KC Live area complained. The Paisley concert began at 7:30pm so the crowd thinned out not long after they started. The big bonus was I got to watch the Royals game on the big screen while I listened to the band.

      Even the guys get to sing occasionally!

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31. July 2008 by Mike.

I went back to work yesterday, but only worked a 1/2 day today. I was so tired when I got home yesterday afternoon that I went straight to bed at 4:30pm and slept through the night until 6:00am this morning. I guess I needed the rest? I decided not to attempt that feat again today and left work at noon.

I have posted the last of the Brussels pictures and have started going through our time on the Moesel. It’s been fun re-living the good times of the vacation as I choose the pictures to put on the website.

Brussels Centrum

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28. July 2008 by Mike.

     This is my first post in 10 days. I haven’t been really busy, but have been pre-occupied with a few things. I was able to get some more vacation pictures together and uploaded. I have finished with some of the Brussels photos and have anothers day’s worth to go through. The Mosel will be next.

 Brussels B&B

The Atomium

2008 European Gallery

     Now for some catching up …. The Monday after I returned from Europe I went to KU Medical Center for a cystoscopy. I have occasionally had some blood in my urine over the past couple of years and figured it was time to get it checked out. The anticipation was worse than the actual procedure. I had some burning during urination for a couple of days, but it wasn’t too bad otherwise. The results showed a small growth inside my bladder near one of the uteters that connect the bladder to the kidney.

     I went in for surgery to remove the growth last Friday. I was scheduled for 1:00pm, but they called that morning and asked if I could come in earlier. We got there at 11:30 but ended up waiting until after 5:00pm before it happened. Needless to say I wasn’t a very cheerful patient. I told Anne around 2:45pm that if they didn’t come get me by 3:30pm we were leaving. I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since the previous evening. They took me back into the prep room about 30 minutes later.

     After another hour, I finally asked the nurse, “Which fool called and told me to come in so early?” She recommended I ask the doctor that question.

     Apparently the first few surgeries that morning went so smoothly the doctor had them call other patients to come in early. Unfortunately for me, the planned one hour surgery right before me lasted three hours because the patient had a really big stone that had to be removed. When the doctor finally arrived he was very apologetic about the wait. My guess is the nurse said something to him. I didn’t say anything and told him I understood about the wait, no problem. I figured there was no reason to piss off somebody that was getting ready to cut on me!

     I remember going into the operating room, but not much after that. The surgery lasted about an hour and I came out of the general anesthetia pretty smoothly with no lingering effects. It happened so quick Anne wasn’y even there when they wanted to realease me. She spoke to the doctor after the surgery and he assured her everything was OK and that it would be a couple of hours, so she went home. Thirty mintues later they called her.

     Luckily they did not need to insert a stent like he thought they might, but I did come home with a catheter and two bags. One was a leg bag attached with elastic straps that I wore during the day. The other was much larger for nighttime that we hung beside the bed. As you’ve probably guessed, I haven’t slept very well the last few nights. Anne has been a great help and can definitely become a  nurse if she ever decided she wanted to give up teaching.

     I went back to the doctor first thing this morning. The nurse removed the catheter and bag so I feel much better now. I spoke to the doctor and he feels very encouraged that the growth was benign. Since the surgery was late Friday afternoon, they didn’t have any biopsy results yet. He said it’ll be the end of this week or the first of next before he knows anything.  I have to go back in 3 months for another cytoscopy and re-exam. I still don’t feel great, so I probably won’t be back at work tomorrow. Hopefully by Wednesday things will be getting back to normal.

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18. July 2008 by Mike.

     Anne made it home safely last evening. I picked her up at the airport around 9:30pm and she was home in her own bed by 11:00pm. It had been a long day. She only slept until 9:00am this morning. I finally got up at 11:30am. We ran some errands today- Costco, Walmart, the bank, Werner’s, etc. We had an early dinner and she’s getting ready to go to bed, if she ever gets off the phone with my mom!

      Here are some more photos of the trip from Westmalle and Antwerp. I’m working on Brussels, but there are quite a few so I’m picking the best ones. Westmalle no longer offers tours, so we didn’t spend much time there. It was kind of a nice detour for lunch.

      We were pretty active in Antwerp, and it’s a really active city. We stayed near the train station, which is also part of the diamond area, and home to a large Hasidic Jewish population. We had dinner near the river on Monday evening, then took the bus tour on Tuesday morning. Eventually we went south toward Brussels.

Westmalle

Antwerp evening

Antwerp morning

European Photo Gallery

     Anne promises a new journal soon!

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