I got my stitches out and had my friend Ashlyn’s Birthday party on Friday.

He said

The focus this week for me was our new product launches at work. September, has traditionally been a very exciting month for us, and this year has been no exception. On my birthday, we announced the new iPhone 14, 14 Pro, new AirPods Pro, Apple Watch Series 8, Apple Watch SE and, my favourite, the Apple Watch Ultra! I was is in charge of the team that changed over the store for this. It is always a super fun but very challenging task. We close the store one night and then 8 hours later, it is opened completely changed over. It’s definitely not my first over night, but this one might have been my favourite. And, like in years past, I went straight from the overnight to my beloved Friday morning hockey. And then, straight to bed!

From a fitness standpoint, by the time I got home from hockey on Friday, I had done in excess of 14,000 steps, met my stand goal for 9 hours and closed my Activity Ring 3 times and done 80 minutes of exercise to my daily goal of 30 minutes. And that was yet to take into consideration my 21 km bike ride later that day after sleeping. When the day wrapped up I had burned 1,961 calories (goal: 390), exercised 146 minutes (goal: 30 min) and hit my Stand Goal for 21 hours (goal: 12). Sure the day is a bit of anomaly because of the overnight, but still something I am very proud. And, I had no problem getting to sleep Friday night!

With the big, final race of my summer season out of the way last weekend, cycling things have settled down to just my daily rides. I am trying to keep my goal alive of being able to continue rides outside until the weather makes it not possible any more. I am hopeful that I can get at least one ride per month outside with December being the only realistic question mark on the year. February, this year was the only month that submarined me this year, but every other month so far I was able to get a ride in. The nice thing thing this weekend was I did a couple of back-to-back rides with Danielle and this year we’ve done a lot more rides together than last year.

Lastly, but not leastly, I want to talk about today. Today is Danielle’s and my anniversary. It marks 23 years of marriage, and 34 years of us being together. We spent the entire day together doing the the most mundane things and it was absolute bliss. I wouldn’t have it any other way. The best decision I ever made was to decide to spend every possible moment I could with her. The is no other person I can imagine wanting to get up to all the hijinks I do with. We’ve made our share of oopsies, as well as many, many moments to be proud of. But the best thing we ever did was made a life together. And a family.

She said

I want to start the post about the positives of this week. First is today – our wedding anniversary. September 18th is the most special of days for us, it was the official start date of our relationship, it was also the date we got engaged and then a year later we got married. Our life hasn’t always been easy, we have had more challenges than I would wish on anyone, but at the same time we have an incredible highs that I would never change. Most about the last 23/34 years I wouldn’t change since they brought us to where we are. It brought us a life that has our amazing daughter in it. Happy Anniversary John, I love you more than I can ever express in words. Thank you for the life we have and love we share.

The other happy event was for Emelia specifically. Once again we have found strong connections with some amazing friends through Emelia’s sports. When Emelia started gymnnastics we made incredible friends, those friends thankfully moved when Emelia moved to cheer. Now we have added some to our friend group through cheer. The first years of cheer were so challenging and disconnecting because of covid but now we are finally able to see the kids practice and near the end of last season we forged some great friendships. This past Friday Emelia got to spend the night with some of her cheer besties celebrating Ashlyn’s 16th birthday. The girls had an absolute blast and didn’t want to say good-bye at the end. I love the friendship these kids have, they have each others back and are each others champions. Everything sport represents.

Well that was the good, now to the sad unfortunately. Last week I received a message from one of my best friends from my childhood that her father was very ill, in the ICU and was not expected to survive, due to covid restrictions we were not able to go visit him. Friday I received the sad news that Dick had lost his battle and had passed with his family around him. Dick was one of the most fundamental men in my life growing up, he was one of my parents best friends and was there for everything through my teen years. When I was 12 years old we moved to the house behind where they lived and quickly became very close friends with his daughter Samantha. When my sister and I were going through all the hardest times and when our mother was in the hospital for her first really long stretch it was the Steven’s home we went to. The door was always open, the love was always there and Dick was always the person we could talk to without a lick of judgement. I will forever love this man for everything he gave my family, you were one of a kind and the world is a sadder place without you. Tomorrow John and I will go to the funeral to say our good-bye and give all the love to his family.