Happy New Year, dear family and friends! It's okay to wish everyone happy new year since it's still January, right? ;) We hope everyone had a lovely 2016 and a joyous Christmas season. I fully intended to get a real letter in the mail again this year, but clearly we’re a little (okay, a lot) behind with our holiday greetings! I barely got all of the Christmas shopping and wrapping done and only completed a portion of the decorating, so I finally decided that an online letter would have to suffice for 2016. Thanks to all of you who sent us such lovely holiday greetings--you guys are way more on top of life than I am!
Overall, our family is doing pretty well and we feel incredibly blessed. As I start composing this update on a chilly New Year's Day (yes, I started this weeks ago), Mom is sitting next to me working on an iPad puzzle and Chad is in front of the fireplace reading with Flower and Fresco nearby. I was careful to say as I START composing, because I knew full well that I wouldn't finish this post in one sitting. My brain is all over the place these days and I have such a difficult time focusing and composing a coherent thought! Hopefully this is all due to the unique stress of caring for my mom, which is pretty much what our lives revolved around in 2016.
While Mom is still living in her own home (with our help and the help of nighttime caregivers), we are usually together about 10 hours a day--except for on the weekends when my amazing husband gives me some much needed breaks. She is still pretty physically active and looks amazing for being 70, but as with any degenerative disease, her dementia has progressed significantly in the past year. I try to keep her busy with activities and outings, but there is less and less that she enjoys and can engage in. I treasure this time with her and am so thankful that Chad’s amazing support allows me to be her primary caregiver, but to be completely honest, the emotional exhaustion is overwhelming at times. I certainly wouldn’t have survived this far without Chad--did I mention how amazing he is? :)
With all that said, we’re really managing pretty well and enjoying life as much as possible. We had a lot of great moments during 2016, including two pretty wonderful vacations. In May we took Mom to Las Vegas, where we met up with Eric and Jiffy (and their dogs). We didn't do any gambling, but we enjoyed lounging by the pool during the day and going to shows on The Strip in the evenings. After a few days in Vegas, we road-tripped a few hours to the Grand Canyon, where we spent a couple of nights in a beautiful cabin and a whole day hiking the rim.
In October, Chad and I took Mom to Seattle, where we were able to visit two of Mom's best friends from our years in Salina. We did a little hiking at nearby Mt. Rainier, took a ferry to a quaint island in Puget Sound, spent a day seeing some of the famous sites in downtown, and even briefly visited some friends from Lawrence who'd moved there. We also took mom down to Houston for a visit with her sister in early March, which was a lovely vacation for us since for 10 days we only had to take care of her cats!
Mom and I also took lots of little day trips, exploring all the little towns within an hour or so of Lawrence. We spent as much time as possible outside, walking every nature trail we could find in city and county parks, around Clinton and Perry Lakes and at the Baker Wetlands. When it was too hot to walk, we spent many hours swimming at the pools in Mom's neighborhood. In addition to our walking and swimming, Mom and I attended musicals at Theatre Lawrence, went to a few museums, went to the library every couple of weeks, started a weekly yoga class, and even went horseback riding at a nearby ranch (which we hope to be able to do again soon)! We went to every parade and every festival featuring art, music, food, animals, nature or buskers in our area--we even dragged Chad along to some of them! Most of the time though, Chad's entertainment consisted of his new favorite stress-buster: disc golf! When not playing disc or traditional golf, his weekends were filled with KU football games, which mom and I usually enjoyed right along with him!
Speaking of Chad's stress level, it was a little higher than normal this year--he was promoted in April after his boss Terry's retirement (yay!), and found out in May his company was being acquired (boo!). The year consisted of him trying to do his new job but also serving on the team trying to figure out how to integrate the two companies. The sale should be complete this spring (assuming it goes through), and we are super thankful that Chad will most likely still have a job (though not his current job) when the dust settles.
In less stressful news, we enjoyed several visits from family members this year--my brother and Jiffy in April, September and November, my dad in July, my Aunt Merry in December, and Chad's mom Joanie a few times in the fall. Mom's cousin Janet also came to stay at Mom's over the summer, which enabled us to keep our string of annual Old 97's shows alive with one in KC (that one was our 20th, if you're keeping score at home). We got to visit with Chad's Grandma (as well as aunts, uncles and cousins) at the Luce family reunion in June, and on Thanksgiving we saw all of them again in Salina along with Chad's parents Mark and Ginny. The day after Christmas we spent a lovely afternoon in central Kansas celebrating the holiday with Mark, Ginny, Chad's brother Mark and wife Jen, his brother Matt and wife Julie, all of our nieces and nephews--and of course Mom! It was great having everyone together for the first time ever!
Chad and I scaled back on our volunteering in 2016--partially because of our duties with Mom and partially because the church we had called home for the last 5+ years closed its doors in April. It was very bittersweet--we were ready for a break from leadership and yet super sad about losing the close-knit community we had at EastLake. The good news is that a) our church family still continues to be our Church family even though we no longer meet with them regularly, and b) after many months of visiting at least 15 different churches in town, we found a new church home all three of us enjoy! We certainly miss the irreplaceable worship band from EastLake, but we're excited to see what God is going to do at our new church--a very small and fairly young church called Relevate!
So that's the year 2016 in a very large nutshell. The year certainly wasn't always pretty, but we are super thankful we survived and made it to 2017. Hopefully the update hasn't put you all to sleep and the pictures and links helped to keep you entertained! For more entertainment in the upcoming year, feel free to follow our adventures via Instagram--my username is kluce99.
We hope that everyone is having a fantastic start to 2017 and we pray the year is full of blessings and joy for all of you!
Overall, our family is doing pretty well and we feel incredibly blessed. As I start composing this update on a chilly New Year's Day (yes, I started this weeks ago), Mom is sitting next to me working on an iPad puzzle and Chad is in front of the fireplace reading with Flower and Fresco nearby. I was careful to say as I START composing, because I knew full well that I wouldn't finish this post in one sitting. My brain is all over the place these days and I have such a difficult time focusing and composing a coherent thought! Hopefully this is all due to the unique stress of caring for my mom, which is pretty much what our lives revolved around in 2016.
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| Celebrating Mom's 70th birthday in March |
While Mom is still living in her own home (with our help and the help of nighttime caregivers), we are usually together about 10 hours a day--except for on the weekends when my amazing husband gives me some much needed breaks. She is still pretty physically active and looks amazing for being 70, but as with any degenerative disease, her dementia has progressed significantly in the past year. I try to keep her busy with activities and outings, but there is less and less that she enjoys and can engage in. I treasure this time with her and am so thankful that Chad’s amazing support allows me to be her primary caregiver, but to be completely honest, the emotional exhaustion is overwhelming at times. I certainly wouldn’t have survived this far without Chad--did I mention how amazing he is? :)
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| Us at Hoover Dam |
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| Us with our friend Linda in Mt. Rainier National Park |
In October, Chad and I took Mom to Seattle, where we were able to visit two of Mom's best friends from our years in Salina. We did a little hiking at nearby Mt. Rainier, took a ferry to a quaint island in Puget Sound, spent a day seeing some of the famous sites in downtown, and even briefly visited some friends from Lawrence who'd moved there. We also took mom down to Houston for a visit with her sister in early March, which was a lovely vacation for us since for 10 days we only had to take care of her cats!
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| Horseback riding with Mom |
Mom and I also took lots of little day trips, exploring all the little towns within an hour or so of Lawrence. We spent as much time as possible outside, walking every nature trail we could find in city and county parks, around Clinton and Perry Lakes and at the Baker Wetlands. When it was too hot to walk, we spent many hours swimming at the pools in Mom's neighborhood. In addition to our walking and swimming, Mom and I attended musicals at Theatre Lawrence, went to a few museums, went to the library every couple of weeks, started a weekly yoga class, and even went horseback riding at a nearby ranch (which we hope to be able to do again soon)! We went to every parade and every festival featuring art, music, food, animals, nature or buskers in our area--we even dragged Chad along to some of them! Most of the time though, Chad's entertainment consisted of his new favorite stress-buster: disc golf! When not playing disc or traditional golf, his weekends were filled with KU football games, which mom and I usually enjoyed right along with him!
Speaking of Chad's stress level, it was a little higher than normal this year--he was promoted in April after his boss Terry's retirement (yay!), and found out in May his company was being acquired (boo!). The year consisted of him trying to do his new job but also serving on the team trying to figure out how to integrate the two companies. The sale should be complete this spring (assuming it goes through), and we are super thankful that Chad will most likely still have a job (though not his current job) when the dust settles.
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| Thanksgiving with Joanie, Mark, Jen and family |
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| Thanksgiving with Chad's family-- Mark and Ginny and Grandma Luce |
Chad and I scaled back on our volunteering in 2016--partially because of our duties with Mom and partially because the church we had called home for the last 5+ years closed its doors in April. It was very bittersweet--we were ready for a break from leadership and yet super sad about losing the close-knit community we had at EastLake. The good news is that a) our church family still continues to be our Church family even though we no longer meet with them regularly, and b) after many months of visiting at least 15 different churches in town, we found a new church home all three of us enjoy! We certainly miss the irreplaceable worship band from EastLake, but we're excited to see what God is going to do at our new church--a very small and fairly young church called Relevate!
So that's the year 2016 in a very large nutshell. The year certainly wasn't always pretty, but we are super thankful we survived and made it to 2017. Hopefully the update hasn't put you all to sleep and the pictures and links helped to keep you entertained! For more entertainment in the upcoming year, feel free to follow our adventures via Instagram--my username is kluce99.
We hope that everyone is having a fantastic start to 2017 and we pray the year is full of blessings and joy for all of you!
