Liz’s last day home

It’s a sad time – Liz and her husband Steve stopped by after their honeymoon on their way back to Utah – They are here to get Liz’s things – So I guess she is really moving out – It is so sad to have your youngest get married and move out –

Nancy is taking it much better than I am.

Even though Liz was at school for most of the past 2 years – this was her home – now she has a new home with that man…

She is very happy and he does love her and treats her well – but she will always be daddy’s little girl, even though she now has a new man in her life… I am no longer the man – I am the father – and he is her husband… but you know – that’s the way its suppose to be… right ( smile) They leave tomorrow morning at 6am – so what do I do at 7am….. sort of a melancholy time for me…

But life is good – So now it’s Nancy and me – and I guess that’s the way its suppose to be…

Liz is Married

Well my Liz is married now – it was very hard for me as she is my youngest… my baby –
The wedding went off very well – She was married and sealed to her husband – Stephen Patrick Dent, a fine young man – in the Washington DC Temple. For time and all eternity.
Then we had a beautiful reception in beautiful Historic London Town Maryland – http://www.historiclondontown.org/index.php/weddings-a-rentals
We view the site and the grounds were beautiful – the gardens were a pleasure to walk through and it was right on the South River. Liz was so excited –
However, it rained, rain is such a simple word – it poured and poured and poured – we had to change many things around.
We were going to have the ring ceremony outside overlooking the river – and then everyone was going to tour the grounds, play croquet, and we were going to take pictures while the guest were having Hors d’oeuvres – but that didn’t happen.
We had the food first – then we moved the ring ceremony inside before the dinner – it all went off very well – since many of the guest were late because of the traffic – its normally about an hour outside of DC, but is took so guest 3 hours to get there.
The DJ – was wonderful and made sure everything went off as well as it could and everyone love him – if you ever need one his name is Jack Bacorn -http://www.phdsound.com/ and his prices are very reasonable!!!
Soon I’ll be posting some pictures!!!!

Need Work

Work Work – I need to go back to work – retirement is driving me crazy!!! Wish I nevered retired – Would love my old job back
After my children’s wedding I plan on searching for a real job – I just need to make sure that I can still work at the Temple – More to follow

Home from Holiday

Well… Nancy and I just got back from a long vacation – 2 weeks – to celebrate my retirement.
Our first week we spent in Kissimmee Florida – it was cool, in the 40s most days although we did have 2 days in the 60s+. We have a nice timeshare there – Vacation Village at Parkway – and of course they tried to get us to upgrade ours – we signed the papers but I had second thoughts and thought that right now wasn’t a good time, so I cancelled it. I did buy the timeshare I have at Massanutten on eBay for 400 plus closing cost a few years ago and that turned out to be a very good deal, so when we’re ready I’ll get another one that way.
We enjoyed Florida, we went to Paramount Studio for 2 days – the new Harry Potter was fantastic – the rest of the parks was almost the same as it was about 5 years ago – next time we are definitely doing Disney – even though it cost more I believe you’ll get more for your money.
Nancy talked me in to going to Disney Downtown and seeing “Cirque du Soleil” which in my eyes was very expensive – it was very good and we had really good seats – I highly recommend it.
We Also saw Arabian Nights – and that was very good. It’s a dinner theater type of show, I had the vegetable Lasagna – it was really good!! –
After our week in central Florida we headed to Miami to start our cruise – Which was wonderful!!! We had 80 to 90 degree weather all week – We had 3 stops, one in Cozumel, Mexico where we got to see the Mayan Ruins of Tulum – that was absolutely the best and I highly recommend it. Next stop was Grand Cayman, again it was a wonderful stop – Nancy got to swim with the Sting Rays – She loved it. Our last stop was Jamaica – I didn’t care much for Jamaica – enough said –
Overall – it was a wonderful 2 weeks – and now we’re home to the cold – and still need to take the Christmas decorations down. Since I’m retired now – I don’t have to worry about going to work – In fact today, Nancy and I went to Whole Foods to pick up some healthy food – and now I’m going to learn how to use my Play Station that I got as a retirement present.

Our Yearly Newsletter

This is really a test to see if it works – We got a late start on our annual Christmas Newsletter – We’re going to send it out this week – but here’s a post of it – Tell me what you think –

Our Franco Family 2010 Newsletter –

What Matter’s Most

Well, it’s interesting – I’ve now been officially retired for 7 days – and I really wish I hadn’t retired. I do miss going to work and I do miss the people and friends that I worked with. If I knew 3 months ago what I know now I would not have retired. Oh well, I am… so now it’s making the best of it.
Nancy and I are on our way to Florida and then we’re going on a cruise out of Miami. That will be fun and it will hopefully give me time to think what this next chapter will be about.

I will start working at the Temple one day a week – I promised my daughter that I’d paint her front porch in the spring. My son is getting married in June and my youngest daughter is getting married in July, and my grandson has some wrestling matches that I want to attend. So I do have stuff to do.
I hoping to expand my e-bay store – I need to do some more research on book collecting. I’m thinking of getting a part-time job at maybe Staples or Office Depot. I would like to take all of January and February off to find out what my passion really is –

I know that I am passionate about Heaven Father and Jesus Christ – I’m passionate about family – I’m passionate about helping people get alone – team-building. I’m passionate about teaching people and I’m also passionate about learning.

I rereading Hyrum W. Smith’s book – What Matters Most – I’ve read it a couple of times, its really good. But many of my roles are now past – and I now have some new roles. And before I can really determine what I’m passionate about and what I want to do with this next chapter, I need to redo my Role, Mission, and my Governing Values – once I have these down – Then I will know what to do.

2011 – It’s a Start

Soon, very soon I’ll be starting the next chapter in my life – I like saying that instead of saying that I’ll be retired – Because it will be a new day and a new start.
What exactly will I be doing – I really don’t know right now, but I don’t want to jump into anything. I plan on taking all of January and February off before I start looking for work. I need to be sure of what I really want to do.
So for 2 months I plan on finding out what I am truly passionate about – and then find a way to do it. I have several ideas – but don’t want to get into the details yet – I’d just like to roll them around in my mind and see what happens there. The mind is wonderful place and sometimes its great to get lost in.

Total Remission

Just had a PET scan done and they said that it was unremarkable – now some would take offense if someone called them unremarkable – but in a PET scan that means no cancer!!!! the turmor is all gone –

Going back to work

Well we saw our oncologist today and he thinks I’m going great and that I can even start to go back to work. That’s good news – I think I’ll be able to start back next week – hopefully working at home for about 2 weeks to see how it is. I still have fatigue so I don’t want to push things. He also said that I can have the feeding tube removed in about 2 weeks – I haven’t used it in about a month and I am eating a little, mostly a soft diet plus I’m still on the liquid diet.

updates

Things have been getting better, but there was a lot to go through in order to get where I am. And as I’ve said before I could not have done any of this without my wife at my side. One time in the hospital my wife was caring for me and my middle daughter was there – I look at her and said this is what true love is really all about.

Going through Chemo and radiation at the same time is rough, that’s what they told me – but I had no idea what that meant – they beat my body up so much that I didn’t know which way was up. Between the nausea from the chemo and the lose of taste and saliva and sore throat from radiation by body didn’t know what to do – and they both kick you with a case of the fatigues that you don’t want to do anything.
Even when the last radiation treatment was done – they said it will still be in you for a few more weeks. I remember ( or my wife tells me) many days I just stayed in bed.
But my wife wasn’t one to just let me fade away – no – she made sure I got up a little each day – she made sure my feeding tube was clean and running – even in the middle of the night when it would run out of food. There she was caring for me.
As I go a little stronger she would drive me to the park and take me on a walk – everyday for at least 10 mins – and if the weather was bad we would go to a mall and walk.

Friends for stop by, but I could stay up to really visit, so I would just excuse myself and go to bed. A few times my wife hade to get some men to stay with me while she went out to YW. The men all stayed but we never visited because I was always too tired.

But that was then – now I have very good days and some tired days. I don’t always take a nap during the day as I used to. I see a light at the end of this journey.

My doctor say I have at least a month more of fatigue before it gets better, but also added that it will be about a year till I’m feeling completing like I did before the cancer. For this reason I cancelled my bike order till next year. Plus I want to spend as much time with my wife and family as I can.

I still haven’t eaten any real food – I drink these shakes and special drinks – I’m suppose to be eating chicken noodle soup, but really haven’t. Next week I’m suppose to start a soft diet – poached eggs, French toast with lots of syrup, things like that. I hope that goes better.

I think of eating a lot and look forward to having some real food to chew on – It seems as though the sweet taste is back because I can taste the strawberry syrup in the milkshake and the vanilla. So that’s good. Water tastes good again. And I had some vegetable juice from our juicer – carrot, celery, peppers – and it was good and I could taste them. Today I even ate a piece of celery and red pepper.

Today 2 close friends (Tom and Kathy) stopped by and worked on my yard, weeding, cutting the grass and putting down mulch. That was so kind of them. They have been our side since the beginning –

In the beginning of this I made a commitment to finish the Book of Mormon by April 1. with the help of my wife reading to me everyday we were able to finish it before April 1, we were so happy. We are now ready D&C everyday (she reads I listen)

I want to thank everyone who has prayer and fasted and thought about me during this ordeal. I know that it is through the grace of God, the Priesthood blessings and the prayers of everyone that I am here today. I love you all!!!