Entry 592: Weeknight Date

Last night we decided to mix it up a little bit and go catch a movie.  Lance recently received an email that said since we are AMC Stub card holders that every Tuesday we can go and see a movie for half price.  Yesterday being the hottest day all year we decided to take advantage of this.  Lance picked Julie up and we went and grabbed an early dinner at Dickey's BBQ and then went to see Paper Towns.  Julie had been wanting to see this movie for awhile and Lance was just kind of lukewarm on the idea if seeing it.  Julie won out and in the end we both decided that it was a good movie up until the end where it was just confusing.  In the end we both decided that we were glad that we didn't have to pay full price to see it.

Entry 591: Me, My Mom, And The Royals

Lance's mom passed away from brain cancer a little over four years ago and every day there are little things that Lance will see that bring back memories of his mom and remind him of what a great woman she was.  Today was one of those days.

The year was 2003.  For the past year Lance had to have a heart operation to repair a leaky aortic valve.  It was a difficult year because he was also told that he had a genetic disorder and that if they did the operation there was a greater than 50/50 chance that he would die on the operating table.  He was also told that he would not live to be 35 and that he would be in a wheelchair within the next 3 years, but that he still had to have the operation.  Lance went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and his life completely changed.  He discovered that the genetic disorder he was diagnosed with what incorrect and that they were extremely confident that they could perform the operation successfully.

Well the operation was a success, but unfortunately Lance really couldn't do anything for a month (driving, lifting anything over 10 pounds, and walking for long periods of time uphill).  It was decided that Lance's mom would move in with him for a month to help take care of him.  They eventually fell into a routine of walking, going to see a movie, and watching the Kansas City Royals.  The Royals had been terrible for many, many years but in that year that were making a run at the playoffs.  Lance remembers many nights where he and his mom would sit and yell at the TV and celebrate the wins together.

One of his greatest memories of his mom was when she decided to get him a birthday present and bought him and his friends tickets to the Royals/Cardinals game.  Now Lance's mom had no idea where the seats were and when we got there we showed the usher our tickets and he pointed all the way up to the top.  They were cracking up because Lance wasn't supposed to walk long distances uphill and lo and behold our seats were 4 rows from the very top (we counted a little over 80 steps to get to our seats) and it was extremely hot that day.  What made it even a little funnier was that one of the friends they brought was pregnant.  We made it through the game and it is a memory that Lance will always fondly remember.

Now lets fast forward to today.  We were doing our normal thing of going to get our free drink coupon when we walked by a table for the Head for the Cure Foundation.  This is a group that is close to our heart because of what Lance's mom went through, so Lance stopped and talked to them for awhile.  Lance noticed the shirt that you saw up above and it made him cry a little bit because it reminded him of that summer of 2003 where it was just him, his mom, and the Royals.

Entry 590: Southpaw

Lance found a website (Gofobo) that lets you screen movies at the theaters before they are released.  We have seen a few so far (Maze Runner and Age of Adeline to name a few), but we were lucky enough to get passes to go and see Southpaw last night.  We were both very excited to see the movie because the preview of it looked really good, good enough for us to give up our Royals tickets.  We were not disappointed at all.  We went in thinking that the movie was only going to be about boxing, but we were wrong because it honestly was only about 10% about boxing.  It was an amazing story of a man having everything taken away from him and having the choice to either give up or pick himself back up and try to get his life back together.  It was really an emotional story honestly had you rooting for the main character.  The ending was really good because usually with these boxing movies you know how it is going to end, but with this movie it continually kept you guessing about the ending.  Amazing movie that we both highly recommend.

Entry 589: New Passion

Many of you who know us, know that we love baseball and especially the Royals.  Every summer we try to take a trip to go to a different ballpark until we see them all.  We still plan on doing this, but we have kind of changed our passion and plan on taking trips overseas now.  Julie has always wanted to go and visit Ireland and Lance has always wanted to go and visit Italy.  After much discussion (honestly we flipped a coin), we decided that we are going to go to Ireland next summer.  So we have postponed any baseball trips this summer and have decided to go to Ireland next summer for 10 days.  We are going through the travel company Globus and they are taking care of everything.  They take care of the accommodations, meals, airline travel, transportation to all of the different cities, and getting us into all the different places.  Want to see what we'll be doing, click here and then click on the itinerary tab.  Let's just day that we are both pretty excited.

Entry 588: Vegetable Garden

Ever since we have been married, Lance has been begging Julie to let him put in a vegetable garden.  Julie always resisted saying it would be too much work, but this year she relented and we put one in the backyard.  The biggest concern that we had was making sure that the dogs stay out of it, so Lance put a fence around it to keep the monsters out of it.  We decided to plant some zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, and green beans.  We both had our doubts about if we would get anything, but this past weekend we had our first "harvest".  We ended up getting quite a few beans, some cucumbers, and a huge zucchini.  More vegetables are coming in each day, so we should be good to go with our vegetables.