Vince's Journey

I am a couple days late but I did want to post a birthday wish to Abbey, who celebrated her 17th birthday on Monday. Last year her birthday took a back seat to the hurricane which blew through September 14 of 2008. This year, with the boys at school and the weather being perfect, she received all the attention. We took her to PF Changs for dinner on Sunday and then I prepared her favorite, baked potato baked soup, for dinner Monday night. She received numerous cakes, cookies and treats from her friends at school and uncle Steve brought her a pint of hand dipped Cookies and Cream ice cream after I had baked her a chocolate chip cookie cake, as well. Julie took her on a shopping spree on Sunday - I'm not sure what she got but she's also lobbying for a free tank of gas for her birthday, as well!

Hope all is well with everyone. We went to the Ohio State/USC game Saturday night. Ohio Stadium was rocking like I've never seen and despite the loss, it was a fantastic college football game - I just wish it would have ended about 70 seconds earlier than it did. At least they didn't lose on an absolute fluke like the Bengals did; how do you recover from that?!

I'm heading down to Norris Lake for my annual male bonding weekend; play a little golf, watch some football and movies and lay on the couch while everyone else is on the lake boating. This will be my 7th year at the lake and I have yet to step foot on the dock, much less get in the water - I have every intention of keeping this streak in tact this weekend.

We'll be heading to St. Louis the following weekend. It is family weekend at St. Louis University plus Abbey is playing in a field hockey tournament at a local high school. It will be great to see Aaron (God, I hope he's stating focused on his school work) and also watch Abbey play some teams from outside Ohio.

I also will be having some medical tests done next week - I'm scheduled for a PET scan on Sept. 23 and my follow-up visit with Dr. Leming is set for Sept. 30. It has been 6 months since my last visit; I feel good andI've actually lost over 30 pounds since March. I'm optomistic that everything will be fine but if you're inclined to life up a prayer for me I'm sure that wouldn't hurt.

I'll let everyone know how the visits go - it's coming up on the 4th anniversary of my diagnosis, hard to believe it was that long ago. Thanks to everyone for your continued support!

Vince

As a follow-up to my last post, it was quite emotional leaving Aaron behind in St. Louis. Julie and I did our best to prolong the event but when I found myself unwrapping Aaron's new toothbrush, I realized it was time to go. He was pretty much ready for us to go and when the reality of the moment hit, I couldn't help but tear up. Now it's been two weeks; I haven't had to straighten the boys room once and we have a heckuva lot less laundry to do. The house doesn't get quite as messy and its pretty quiet most of the time. Still, I really miss the boys and the energy they provide to our humble homestead.

We never did meet Aaron's room mate. He is directly from China but he wasn't around when we moved Aaron in. Aaron said he's a nice kid but he doesn't speak English very well. I don't think they've been hanging out together; there is another boy from Moeller High School and I think Aaron has been spending more time with him and the kids that live on his floor - maybe they'll wind up living together next year. The good news is, Aaron says he likes it there, he's getting settled in and he wants to stay! Now lets hope he's staying on top of his homework and won't have any issues when the grades start to get posted.

Abbey's field hockey team opened the season in fine fashion with a 6-0 win - they outshot the opponent, Oxford Talawanda, 36 - 0. For those of you not familiar with field hockey, it's almost impossible to keep a team from getting off at least one shot - then consider that Abbey's team actually got off 36 shots; it was quite a mismatch. Her team should have a strong season; last year they made it to the state semi-finals; maybe this year they'll get to the championship game.

I'm coaching football again this year - I was asked to be the head coach for the 5th grade team at St. Susanna. We won our first game 18-0; I'd like to say it was all coaching but the boys really played well. This is a fun group of kids and their parents are also very nice. They went 3-5-1 last year but we've already avenged one of those losses so maybe this will be their year.

Not much more to report. We've settled in to the school routine without the boys. Abbey is happy to have the car to herself and with her at practice following school, we hardly see her. We do have a couple road trips coming up for field hockey including a weekend in St. Louis at the end of the month - obviously that will also give us a chance to visit with Aaron. (Did I mention how much I miss him?)

Stay tuned for more updates; now that school is back in I have a feeling I'll be more active on the old blog.

Oh, and in case you didn't know - college football begins tonight! That can only mean one thing...GO BUCKS!!!!!