Heavy Heart, High Hopes

It has been a long 3 weeks for my family. We watched my dad's nearly 2-year battle with cancer come to an end. While I don't think our blog is the spot to talk about Hap, I want to make a few comments about his life. I thought his obituary was very good and wrapped it up very well. He was born in Fertile, IA (probably one of the smallest towns in IA) on May 10th, 1946. He was one of 4 boys. Hap had 2 older brothers, both still living Jerry and Paul. Hap also had a twin brother (younger) named Ronnie. He was killed in 1972 as he was hit by a drunk driver. This happened when he was serving in Vietnam.
Hap went onto college after high school at Waldorf Junior College, then finished his business degree at Mankato State. He started working at Heintz Pontiac, Cadillac, and Toyota while in college. He started in the wash rack cleaning up cars, then moved to mechanic, then after graduation he moved into sales. He worked with Heintz until 1985 when he bought his own dealership in Springfield, MN. We lived in Mankato until I was 7 years old. When he left Heintz he was as high up as he could ever get, right under the big boss Max Heintz. Max was always supportive in Hap buying his own place because he was grooming his son Ben to take over the Heintz dealership. Hap and my mom, working side by side for 17 years ran a successful business in the small town of Springfield. Can anyone imagine working side by side, everyday with their wife. I think that's remarkable.
The funeral service was beautiful, the music was very powerful. The weather was perfect, a sunny 60-65 degree day. It was everything Hap would have wanted it to be. We love him and will miss him every second of every day. We do however gain comfort in knowing that he is not fighting anymore with a powerful disease that everyone should take very seriously and continue to have and get your proper check-ups. I want to thank all of you for your support of Nicole and I through this difficult time. I will post some pictures of Hap when I get them sent to me. We created a beautiful DVD of them for the visitation and we are getting them set to music this week. I'll post it when it arrives.

After the funeral and everything was over Nicole and I worked our way back to Hudson. Her birthday was yesterday, April 15th. She turned 30, but is still as beautiful as when we started dating (March 25th, 1994) WOW!!! She spent the day doing what she loves. She started out the morning with Starbucks, Grande Non-Fat Latte. Then she had her hair done and did some shopping at her favorite store (La Rue Marche, downtown Hudson). Then she had a golf lesson with her favorite instructor (Brent Snyder) Troy Burne's Best! The she and I played 18 holes together. I had gotten her a new putter for her birthday, well actually Brent got it for her. He picked out the new Mizuno BC5. I think it is awesome but she did not putt well her 1st round with it. She played very well tee to green, but the putting was the worst it has ever been and ruined an otherwise good round. She did however, get a great phone call on the 1st fairway from Natalis Counseling and Psychology. She had an interview there last Friday for her postdoctorate work. They offered her a full-time job starting in September. We were especially excited about this because it gives us a chance to get back to our home in Hudson. She has offers now from 3 clinics, RMHC (where she currently works), Sioux Trails Mental Health in New Ulm, MN and now Natalis. She will continue to interview to see what other if any offers come and then we'll make our best guess, but we obviously would love to get HOME! This offer gives us that chance.
To read about the company go to http://www.natalispsychology.com/index.html
I don't have to tell you AGAIN how proud I am of her. Just a reminder, her residency here ends August 31st. She graduates in October (the 16th I believe) assuming she has her dissertation done (hey Nicole, how's that going?). She then will have her doctorate in Clinical Psychology. She then needs to work 2,000 hours (50 weeks at 40 hours/week) under clincial supervision, then needs to pass the state board exam for her licensure. Then she will be a Licensed Psychologist or L.P.
We are back on "the range" for 10 days now. This weekend we are heading to Duluth for their Art Crawl and my good friend DJ Gross has a show at the gallery where he displays his work. It is called the Washington Gallery and it is the closing reception to his month long show. My guess is he has sold out his work as he usually does. We are hoping to commission him for another painting this time for our basement, which should be done sometime late May/early June. I spent the day with Bill (our contractor) yesterday going over some final items. We have an electrical inspection today (haven't heard whether or not we passed). Next weekend we are headed back to Hudson, Nicole has a conference on Friday and Saturday and Saturday is a big day as my youngest brother Andrew turns 21. He is bravely letting his 3 older brothers take him out for his 21st. Don't worry Mom!
Anyway, I will take some pictures later today of the melting north and get some photos on the blog. It was great to see so many of you over the last week, albeit I wish it were under better circumstances.