Two months I won't soon forget (AKA the best excuse not to be reading my books)

It has been far too long since I posted, and more has happened in the last two months than I can really acurately describe.  Of course, at the end of December was a wonderful Holiday season that I was able to share with my family. 

Unfortunately the happiness of the holidays lasted only until the night of December 29th when my father suddenly and unexpectedly passed away.  I won't get too deeply into how it happened, only to say that he had spent a day with my two brothers, doing what he loved, which was skiing.  He spent the evening with the love of his life, my mother, and he passed away in her arms on the floor of the home that he had built with his own two hands.  While I wish he were still with us, I am envious of his final day.  I love my father, and always will.

Now that I have sufficiently bummed you out, I have to say that even if you may not want it, the joy in life seems to miraculously appear when you most need it.   My father and mother had planned a trip to Asia for late Jamuary that they obviously were not able to go on.  Part of that trip included business, so my mother had to go.  Fortunately my two brothers and I were able to go with her, with stops in Kyoto, Japan and Hong Kong.  Let me tell you, if you need to find peace in your life, going to a city full of Zen gardens is not a bad place to start.  We had a wonderful trip, and were able to find some joy at a time when it didn't seem possible.  The only negative was my beautiful wife had to stay home to work.  At least our puppy wasn't left to fend for himself. 

When we returned home, we had one more joy to celebrate.  My beloved Green Bay Packers won their fourth Super Bowl, and 13th NFL title.  My father, who always loved sports and made gameday special for our family, would have loved to celebrate with us.  It is funny though, when life sucks, and you need anything, even something as trivial as sports, to cheer you up, a little miracle happens.  My family and I got to spend a night cheering for our favorite team to do something unimaginable only a few weeks before, and we got to see my hometown team win the Super Bowl.  Incredible.

And here is where the excuses start:  Still not finished reading "All the King's Men" though I did read a few hunderd pages on the flight to Asia.  Hopefully within the month I will be able to finish and move on to book four.   So long as people stop dying.  Or if the Packers offer me the job as team historian.  If that happened I would dump this blog so fast.....