Guys, I have the greatest bunch of ladies that I play racquetball with!  I have been playing at the Redwood multipurpose center for about 30 years now!  Ha! That's hard to wrap my head around!  You'd think i'd be pretty good after all these years, but I stay about the same.  It's fine though cause it's really the funnest way I've found to exercise.  Different ladies have come and gone but there's a few of us that have hung in over the years.  

I never dreamed this would ever happen, but this last January, Ruth retired.  She has had a really rough year with health problems and a lot of conflict there at Redwood. You could see it was really getting her down. So she decided she was done.  I know it was a hard decision for her because this has been such a big part of her life. She has pretty much run that place and for sure has made the different programs happen for so many years!   She even taught swimming lessons to 

Camille and Katie when they were little!  They had a nice retirement party for her and we haven't seen her since. She had talked about coming back part time after a few months of rest, but I guess she decided against it.  I've talked to her a few times on the phone and she says she misses all the ladies.  Well we miss her too. We kind of just arrange ourselves when we are going to play now and it works out.  Being flexible in our times to play makes it so more ladies can play too so that's nice.   

 This was on my birthday.  Marsha is so thoughtful and brought yummy breakfast treats for all of us.  It's really more of just a fun get together with these ladies every week!

We lost our dear Lanice in March.  She has been battling cancer for a couple years and finally decided to stop fighting. She really loved racquetball and would come and try to play (ha she still would beat us all even in her weakened condition from chemo) Then when she was finally too weak, she would just come sit on on the bench and watch us play. When she stopped coming, we would go to her house and visit her there. The most heartbreaking thing was watching her young daughter struggle with knowledge that she would soon be without her mother. Lanice's family is very close though and her sister was planning on raising her daughter. 

She worked as a deputy at the sheriffs department for about 20 years so they threw a big retirement celebration for her that we all attended.  It was pretty special to see how very loved she was.  The last time we visited with her she told us she would be saving a racquetball court for us in heaven.  She was brave, funny, and so positive with her circumstances.  She had the best attitude and would be the one cheering us up right to the end. Love and miss her.