On July 2, 2025, Ron and I drove to Overland Park to watch Garrison and his team play basketball. Afterwards, we brought Bingo home with us to stay for 12 days while they went on an Alaskan Cruise.
Prior to the cruise, the family attended the Seattle Mariners vs. KC Royals MLBaseball game at T-Mobile Park in Seattle. Amanda was able to secure T-Mobile Suite Tickets to the game for the family. CTO John Saw, Amanda's previous boss, was asked to throw out the first pitch. He had no interest in doing so, so he offered the honor to Garrison - wow - what an opportunity. The whole family went to the area for him to practice throwing the ball at the distance he would need to be able to throw it from the mound to home and watched him from the field. They introduced him as a member of the T-Mobile family and put up his name and picture on the jumbo iron. He threw a strike.
The next day, they boarded a Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship for a 7 night cruise to Alaska. They had lots of fun excursions on the trip - panning for gold, hiking a glacier, waterfalls, holding puppies who will some day pull dog sleds. Their helicopter ride and dog sled ride were cancelled due to bad weather.
While they were gone, Bingo had a Clinton vacation with us. He loved his early morning walks and was a good boy. On Saturday, 7/5/2025, Ron had abdomen pain which resulted in a trip to the ER at GVMH. After 5 hours of tests, etc., it was determined he had a diseased gall bladder full of sludge and small stones which needed to come out. It was too late Saturday to call in the surgical team, but he was admitted to the hospital for observation. He didn't meet the criteria to have the surgery on Sunday either, so he just hung out in the hospital with a high BP and low oxygen levels.
The surgery took place on Monday at 8:30 a.m. I was blessed with good friends Deb Mills, Jennifer Kiely, Emma Anderson, Pastor Ben Aich and Lisa and Dan Wallace to sit with me while we waited for the surgery to be completed. He was in a lot of pain following the surgery with high BP, so he had to remain in the hospital another night before being discharged on Tuesday.
Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday morning, I spent lots of time at the hospital but also had to come home regularly to care for Bingo. He was such a good boy and had to stay in his kennel 4-5 hours at a time. We made it. God is good.
Saturday, 7/12/2025, Amanda, Chad, Peyton and Garrison drove to Clinton for lunch and to pick up Bingo. We enjoyed hearing tales of their trip and especially the "first pitch" experience.
Marnie and I played the gathering music and the service on Sunday, 7/13/2025. David Cummings and I played Great is the Lord and the Battle Hymn of the Republic as special music at the service on 7/6. I really enjoy playing with them to the Glory of the Lord at church.
Ron continues to have horrible headaches, high blood pressure etc. He has a sleep doctor appointment this week and an appointment with Dr. Brian Bellamy. Hopefully we get answers quickly.
We are blessed - God is good.
