How can I keep from singing?

Julia is Ten!

2012-01-25T16:58:00.001-07:00

Julia turned ten on Sunday. We had a busy weekend so she got a three part celebration. On Friday night we went and got her ears pierced.

Saturday night I made a meal of her request: barbecue pork ribs, homemade bread and salad.

On Sunday we had dinners with friends and I brought a birthday cake along.

I took her to the Dr. today...Julia is 4' 10" (90th percentile) and 74 lbs (54th percentile) It was a quick in and out because she is doing great!

Kitchen post #1

2012-01-24T12:25:00.001-07:00

We are redoing our kitchen. Yes, it is exciting, but yes, the expense gives me nightmares. There is a hole in the cabinet under the sink. It is leaking water into the laundry room - but I caught it fairly quickly and put a mat on the bottom of the cabinet and so no more leaking. The leaking itself is just the standard sink leakage from the pull-out faucet. In the past there have been other more major leaks under there. The cabinet holding our dishes has a shelf that is sagging dangerously. I hope it can hold out a few more weeks and all my dishes don't break. The tile floor has at least 8 cracked tiles. There are other problems...so onward we go with the remodel.

I wrote a post about the kitchen a few years ago here. And yes, when the kitchen is done we will have to keep it neater.

The cabinets are ordered...they are a medium maple. They will go all the way to the ceiling with crown molding. We are tearing out the closet-style pantry and putting in a pull-out cabinet.

I am trying to figure out countertops...was going to do quartz..now leaning towards granite because I haven't found a quartz I like.

Anyway...stay tuned for updates..the cabinets are due to come in on Feb. 22.

Annual Lauren doctor post

2012-01-16T17:51:00.001-07:00

I have a nice history about freaking out about Lauren's health and her slight size and pale complexion.

It has been pretty good lately - it used to be an every 6 month thing to so.

I took her in for her 6 year old well-child visit.

As usual - she is small - right on her curve though!

She is 38 pounds (9th percentile)
45 inches (48th percentile)
13.1 BMI (3rd percentile)

She has been complaining of a stomach ache on a daily basis, so I brought that up. We talked about bowels and diet and didn't see any red flags. There is a x-ray machine right in the office so we went down the hall and Lauren had an X-ray of her abdomen. The tech looked at the images and then came in and quizzed me about what her specific complaints were and asked if she had much vomiting and nausea. The would be red flag #1 - the tech coming back and asking questions AFTER looking at the scans.

The her doctor went to look and took 15 minutes - which was red flag #2 because why on earth would it take that long.
I was trying not to worry - but after standing next to Lauren in the x-ray room too many flashbacks were occurring.
I was waiting for red flag #3, perhaps being asked to step out of the room or her doctor not looking at me in the eye when she came back in, but she finally arrived.
Despite normal bowel habits and bowel sounds, it seems Lauren is "backed up" quite far. I questioned the doctor how she knew it was poop (and not something else was the unspoken question). She told me it is distinctive looking.

So - I will put her on fiber for now. She eats tons of fruits and veggies as it is, so a diet change can't really help. We will then consider testing her for celiac and food allergies if she is still having the stomach aches after a month or so.

Here are some old posts about her doctor visits and size...if interested.

5 years Lauren 5 year stats

4 years Little Lauren stats

3 years Lauren's Appointment

2 years Little Lauren

Christmas Pictures over the years

2012-01-08T09:52:00.000-07:00

December 2011

December 2010

December 2009 (same dresses as year before)

December 2008

December 2007

December 2006

December 2005

December 2004

December 2003 (in New York City)

December 2002

December 2001

December 2000

December 1997

December 2011

2012-01-07T09:27:00.001-07:00

Happy New Year!

December was a good and busy month. You'll notice the lack of Dance pictures this year. Neither girl is doing dance. Julia chose Musical Theater (see pictures from last month where she is dressed in a hat - she is a Newsie) Lauren decided that rushing off to ballet right after a full day of school didn't suit her. The second Monday she started crying right off the bus and asked if she had to go right to dance. She is doing full-day kindergarten, violin, and children's choir at church and that is enough for now. She would love to be taking swimming lessons but we cannot fit them into the schedule because they are either twice a week after school or Saturday mornings, and both girls have group music lessons most Sat. mornings.

I was busy with my choir's annual large Christmas Concert and then the usual December rush, along with a little bit of work.

Luke's parents came out for Christmas and we had a wonderful time with them. I rounded out the year with the NOON Year's Eve event for the Children's Museum we are trying to build here in town.

As far as grief goes - this Christmas season was easier to handle than previous Christmases, and I am grateful for that.

(rss readers...slideshow below)

November 2011 Pictures

2011-12-07T09:22:00.001-07:00

Another month gone by...

November was a busy one. It was full of performances and rehearsals for the girls and I. Lauren turned six. My brothers and parents came during Thanksgiving week.

Here's the proof! Though it seems I didn't really take pictures of all the performances.

(slideshow below)

Five years ago

2011-11-28T08:30:00.001-07:00

December 2006 Julia, Lauren and I flew home from NY, where Lauren and I had been since September with Nathan. I took this picture of Julia and Lauren probably before going to church. Lauren is wearing that dress now. How time flies...

October 2011 Pictures

2011-11-10T13:38:00.001-07:00

I really need to recap, so, briefly:

Lauren lost her two top teeth ("lost" being not quite correct because Luke pulled one and I pulled the other when they were so loose they had to come out. Lauren wasn't terribly happy with us but got over it quickly)

We went on a "hike", which was more of a walk, with our friends and took some family pictures.

I went to California to visit my sister-friend Lisa.

Luke was gone for a week on business.

Halloween!

Oh - and I forgot to do Sept. pictures though there are not many - see them here.

Different Families

2011-10-28T07:30:00.001-07:00

Something that has been breaking my heart lately.

Julia's family: Mommy and Daddy and Nathan and Lauren

Lauren's family: Mommy, Daddy and Julia.

No Nathan. She is learning to write - she writes about all of us but not him. Her "My Family" project for school, - no Nathan. I didn't ask, didn't push. I just asked it there were any other pictures she wanted. I then asked if she wanted any pictures from when she was younger and she said no. So that's it.

I don't blame her. She was only 20 months old when he died. He is just an idea to her. He is a stranger in pictures. I just wish she understood how much he loved and adored her and that she does have a big brother.

I just makes me really sad.

Anesthesia Joke Repost

2011-10-04T06:43:00.003-07:00

With all the Propofol in the news these days it made me want to repost this. Nathan received propofol for most of his bone marrow aspirations and biopsies. Sometimes they let me be in the room with him and they would push it and he would be asleep instantly.

Nathan: I know why it is called propofol !
Me: Why?
Nathan: because when they give it to you it makes you FALL asleep and then you wake up and try to walk and you FALL down.

I had Nathan tell the anesthesiologist who said it was her first propofol joke. It is cuter coming out of Nathan because he says "purplefall" instead of "pro.poe.fall"

September 2011 Pictures

2011-10-01T13:49:00.000-07:00

Hmm - sees like I forgot to post September pictures...I am going to backdate this post though!What did we do in September? I cannot recall! It looks like I had a birthday and we went to an Air Force football game.

39

2011-09-29T10:23:00.002-07:00

So, yesterday I turned 39. A week ago or so Luke and I celebrated 14 years of marriage.

We are terrible in the household about celebrating anything that isn't Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter.

On our anniversary, Luke had meetings all day and an dinner/evening meeting at church where he had to present something and I was sick. Needless to say, we didn't celebrate. Luckily we had an impromptu lunch out the day before.

On my birthday I had a meeting and Luke met me for lunch and then we went to church after school (after arguing with Lauren about her violin practice with which she was having a hard time taking my coaching). We had dinner at church and then worked with the kindergarten choir. I am directing it this year so I asked them to sing me happy birthday :)

Luke and I have agreed that next year we celebrate big for 40 and for 15 years of marriage and then when his turn comes for 40 we celebrate that too. We have a tentative plan for a large awesome trip with my parents that may span our anniversary and my birthday (which is also my mom's birthday) so that would certainly be great.

It is good that Luke and I are compatible in our celebrating styles but sometimes that means we could both use a kick in the rear because we tend not to celebrate things and while that is fine, on the other hand, why not celebrate things? We need excuses to celebrate and have fun from time to time. We are so busy and we also purposely ignored some celebrations soon after Nathan died because they were so painful that we have gotten into a rut.

So - I hope to report some fun celebrations this time next year!

Life now

2011-09-19T07:51:00.002-07:00

So - there has now been month of school already! A month in which the girls leave the house at 8:00 and return at 3:45. It is a new stage of life for me. Last year with four half days a week for Lauren we were so busy during the day. She needed things to keep her occupied the other half of the day.

The first weeks have been pretty busy for me actually. My parents were here at the beginning and then I started cramming for Mendelsson's Elijah, which the choir had been working on all summer while I was traveling and otherwise unable to rehearse. I was also preparing to direct the kindergarten choir this year and going to more meetings than usual for the Children's Museum as there is some really great momentum going on there. Dropped into the middle of these weeks was a job opportunity as well.

So, I sit here in the middle of September. Elijah was on the 11th and went really well. It is the most demanding piece of music I have ever sung, partly because it is 2.5 hours of singing and also because it is just difficult music. I was on the verge of giving up but I am glad I stuck with it. There were many hours of rehearsal at church as well as at home. We are back to normal choir hours but only for a month because we will start working hard for our Christmas concert very soon. I am blessed to be part of such a large talented choir.

The first kindergarten choir night was on Wednesday. I had a lesson plan and it actually worked very well. I have been helping in that choir for a few years now so I knew what to expect. I have never directed anything before though. Fortunately it went as well as possible. Going forward it should be less stressful.

The Children's Museum project is gaining momentum on two independent fronts that should converge next month and could really make the museum a reality. It is fascinating to have in inside look at how this city works, who makes it happen, and see such exciting visions for the future. We've had nothing but negative for a few years.

Through a connection I was offered a very small bookkeeping/administrative job that I will do from home for just 3 hours a week or so. It will start in October and I am excited about tipping my big toe back out into the working world. I had assumed I would have to start at something outside my field so it is great that it involves a teeny bit of accounting. It is a far cry from my last job as a CFO but that is just fine for now! I think there will be similar opportunities in the future, and there are even a few possibilities cropping up, but this job is fine for now.

I will also be helping out at the school and perhaps some volunteering in the children's music ministry office at church. Luke and I are also on the Stewardship committee which will be busy in October. Oh, and I am starting to attend Tuesday morning women's bible study.

The girls are continuing their music lessons and are both making great strides. Lauren is dropping ballet but she really wants to add swimming. Swimming is twice a week after school though, so hard to fit in to our schedule. She may have to wait for spring. Lauren has been pretty tired getting used to full day school. Julia has a musical theater class in addition to her cello and she loves it. They will be doing excerpts from Newsies. Both girls are in choirs at church while Luke and I are doing the kindergarten choir.

So - life is busy, and good. This morning I am still in PJs with a few errands to run and tasks to complete but I am feeling pretty lucky to have this down time. Luke is working very hard, as usual, at work.

Oh, and yes, I wish I had a sixth grade boy's schedule to add into this mix.

Vivid dream

2011-09-10T10:15:00.001-07:00

I often write about Nathan dreams..this wasn't one. I also often have dreams where I die - this one is different. This dream woke me up a 6:22 this morning.

It was widely circulating that the world was going to end. I sort of believed it but was skeptical as well. I dropped of Lauren at Luke's parents house and told her I would come back to get her later. I then was driving north on I-25 and I called Luke because it was almost the supposed time for the world to end. I told him kind of lightly it was almost time and we kind of laughed but then ahead of me I saw the city just collapsing in flames and I told him that it was happening and I told him I loved him but I was very calm and at peace. I had a sensation of falling and falling and falling and as I fell I cried out to Jesus, but not in fear, in anticipation and love.

Then, I woke up.

Wow - I have just never had a dream like that that involved my faith. It was not a nightmare, per se, but it certainly rattled me enough to wake up, and I supposed the dream had to end because when I was done falling, I would have been dead.

It is one of those that is still with me, many hours later...

August 2011 Pictures

2011-09-09T08:13:00.002-07:00

Where has time gone? We returned home to Colorado from Illinois on August 1. It was our hottest drive through Kansas...112 degrees on the van's thermometer...crazy!

We came home and started to get ready for school ahead of my parents' arrival. They were here for five days and we had a wonderful time doing summer activities. The last time they were here in the summer was the summer Nathan died and of course we weren't doing anything fun. In fact, the many preceding summers that they visited were all to help us out with Nathan and the girls and so we really never had a chance to do anything outside.

We went to parks and the zoo an we had a wonderful outside german meal at a restaurant. The weather was simply perfect.

School began the day before they left and activities begun to commence and August ended with our lives back in school year mode. Both girls are gone from 8 - 3:45. I will write more in an upcoming post about what I am doing with my newfound time this year.

As you will see we managed a family hike to a waterfall and I also went downtown to see the prologue of the USA Pro Cycling Challenge - that was really cool.

(slideshow below not visible on rss)

Candy Pants

2011-09-06T07:35:00.001-07:00

Candy Pants is what I call these pajama pants. I rarely wear them - they are high waters now, but they are really comfortable. I grabbed them out of my drawer the other day and have been wearing them this week.

Why am I blogging about them?

They are full of memories. Five years ago Nathan and I went to New York city to stay for about 10 days and have him start a new clinical trial. So new, he was the first human to try it. The doctor in charge of the research told us it it could be "a cure".

After the first treatment and we were getting close to our return date we had an appointment where the doctor told us that he really didn't want Nathan to go home because no one had ever had this treatment before they were concerned about unknown side effects. I still remember the call home to talk to Luke about it.

So - we didn't go home (not until December). Fall came to New York City and all I had packed were summer clothes. I went to Old Navy to do a little shopping and bought the candy pants (since Halloween was the next holiday and so they were the cheapest long pajama pants they had). Luke and Julia eventually came to visit with some more clothes for Nathan and I, but I must not have requested any more pajama pants because I wore the candy pants every single night.

It is hard to believe that was 5 years ago. There are so many memories. I was just remembering when Nathan was in the hellish in-patient run there and we just scanned him and he had progressed on treatment. He was neutropenic and his counts were not coming back. They were insisting on giving him shots to raise his counts even though the medicine could be given by IV. They felt it was more effective in the shot form. That day, I knew there would be no cure for Nathan. I grabbed one of the residents and pleaded for the IV form. I heard the usual spiel about shot versus IV. and I told them that he had this scan and that I felt he was now terminal and I was not going to allow him to give him a shot when he could have an IV. I had turned the corner from trying to save him to preserving his quality of life.

Now I remember why that memory came up. Luke and I were discussing the fact that we never had "the talk" (for you non-cancer parents that would be the your-child-is-going-to-die talk). We realized we didn't need the talk because we had been running the show and making the decisions for quite a while and so we could see that when the last great attempt was made, and his bone marrow could not longer handle chemo, and his disease was still progressing, that it was the end. No doctor had to tell us that. I am glad for that. We didn't give up - we then researched all other available trials at the time and had phone calls with the famous Dr. S. in Vermont who rescued several children and Nathan just couldn't do what was mandatory chemo for that trial at the time.

Anyway..so the candy pants...you see how no memories are simple when it comes to what we have been through. So many things are chained together. I don't mind wearing them..I am sure I snuggled with Nathan while I had them on.

Kindergarten!

2011-08-15T07:41:00.001-07:00

Lauren went off to Kindergarten this morning! I finally got to send two kids together on the bus - four years later than it was supposed to happen. Nathan should have been off to his first day of middle school today.

Pictures over the years...

Julia's first cello recital

2011-08-09T06:55:00.003-07:00

Julia is doing great with the cello. Unfortunately for her we started at the end of the school year and so she has missed so many lessons between camp, her teacher's vacation and our vacation. So - we really has had maybe a month's worth of lessons at this point and 2 group classes.

She had her first group recital last Thursday. She had fun and did great. She was sad that her big brother was not there to see her. There is a video in this post not showing up in rss…here is a link

July 2011 Pictures and Summary

2011-08-03T15:47:00.003-07:00

So, July...Busy!

We left for Hilton Head to visit my parents at the very end of June. We had a great time at the beach and pool and watching fireworks. The girls also got to spend time with our friends Tammy and Larry and their daughter Brady (Tammy used to take care of Julia and Nathan but she lives in NC now). Luke and I took the opportunity to spend the night in Savannah in the historic district and had a great time walking around and being together there.

We came home for about 10 days. Luke had a birthday, the girls had vacation bible school and I got some things done and school shopping and then the girls and I left for Illinois, leaving Luke at home working. We spent the night with our good friends in Kansas City so we could hang out an dI wouldn't have to drive the 15 hours by myself in one day (which we usually do and did coming home). A few days later, having left the girls in the hands of their grandparents, I flew to DC as did Luke from home. We met up at the airport and immediately went for a late dinner at one of our favorite restaurants from when we lived there. Luckily it was exactly the same as it used to be and we had a great meal. The next day (a Sunday) we went to hang out with my Aunt Eleanor. We had lunch at our favorite lunch spot and relaxed and caught up. Late afternoon we headed out to drive by our old apartment and to see the chapel where we were married. You will see some pictures of us in front of it. We thought about going down to the mall to see the monuments but it had been record heat and it was pretty parked up so we just drove around and enjoyed the view from the car. It is not like we haven't visited those sites many times before. We will take the girls sometime. After that we took the kid-free opportunity to go see the final Harry Potter and had popcorn and raisinets for dinner.

The next day Luke went into his office. His office is actually in the DC area but he has worked from home for 13 years. So - he put in an appearance there and we met for dinner with one of his colleagues. After dinner Luke worked very late on the presentation for the next day so I just watched TV in the hotel.

The next morning we drove up to Trenton, NJ. Luke has been going there for years for work so it was interesting to see it for myself. Its reputation precedes it.

I drove to nearby Princeton and did some shopping and then went back to the hotel. Luke met me there later and we went out to a big team/client dinner in Princeton. It was a fabulous meal and fun to meet some of his co-workers and clients I had heard so much about. The next day I was on my own again. I seriously considered going to either Six Flags or its water park but did not in the end. I ended up doing some shopping and read for a while at Panera. I picked Luke up and we drove back to DC, stopping for some fondue in Wilmington DE. We flew back to Illinois the next morning and spent the next few days with his family before we drove home. There was record heat everywhere we went. The van's thermometer read 112 degrees in the middle of Kansas and we drove home. We had a bonfire while we were in Illinois even though it was so hot. The girls love it so much so we had to do it. You will see in the pictures how hot and sweaty we were!

We arrived home on August 1 so that is our July. School starts in less than two weeks and we are all looking forward to that!

Gone fishing..

2011-07-31T20:00:00.000-07:00

We've been away on vacation for most of July...School starts August 15! There will soon be many pictures of our adventures this month. Fortunately the activities for the year don't all kick in until September so I will have a little less of a shock as we build up to the crazy school year schedule.

Yes, we passed the four year anniversary of Nathan's death on the 29th. We spent it together as a family and just got through it without too much acknowledgment - which is what we usually prefer to do. Even after four years I don't want to fully embrace all that pain on that particular day...what is the point?

Photo book done

2011-07-19T07:36:00.003-07:00

Well - there was a sale I couldn't beat and since I am struggling with Nathan's death anniversary coming up anyway it seemed to make sense to go ahead and make the final photo book with Nathan. I was going to try to share it here, but the service makes you sign up and also, it just seemed a little too private for a completely public forum like this. In the end..I didn't put the worst of the pictures but put the ones where is he doing something interactive even if he looks bad. I put in his obituary and the program from the funeral along with pictures of the girls from the day of his funeral.

More grief stuff

2011-07-11T19:05:00.000-07:00

If you recall, I wrote about the physical manifestation of my grief a while back here.

I did have an "attack" a few days after Nathan's funeral and then was relatively well for a while after that with occasional "episodes" that I though were medical and now think were caused by anxiety/grief. It seems that instead of the passing of time helping, it is getting worse. One of the things is my startle reflex which gets really overactive. I had a bizarre jolt driving home from the airport where there was a slower car in the lane in front of us and I saw it and let out a big gasp and nearly startled Luke into an accident. Really small things cause a huge overreaction at the base level, before I have control over them. It is crappy.

Passing Nathan's birthday and approaching his date of death has me at the verge of tears and experiencing some of these things. It is really frustrating because I am planning some things where I have to be "on" and the thought that my mind/body may betray me is really depressing. I do not like being weak and vulnerable. More than that - it is just not my personality. I guess you might say no one likes that, but it really is just not me.

Yes - I guess I am whining...forgive me because I know it could be worse

Laundry Room Project

2011-07-10T06:31:00.000-07:00

My friend Lori visited not long ago and told me how she rearranged her laundry room to avoid piles of clothes around the house. I LOVED the idea....more on what it was later.

What we have done for our whole adult lives is to do laundry, usually all the loads in one day and dump in on our master bed to fold. Often, we are too busy and it gets stuffed back into laundry baskets. Then some might get folded but the hanging stuff would get thrown on the benches at the end of our bed to be hung up at some point. That point happened rarely. Our bedroom was always filled with laundry. The drying wrack was usually in the basement/office area and Luke used a baby gate to expand the hanging space.

The laundry room was the dumping ground of the whole house. We have a crawl space whose entry is a 2.5 foot door about 3 feet of the ground. You have to launch yourself in there. So - whenever something needs to go in there it sits in the laundry room for a while. We also keep our luggage under the stairs. We had a hamper that held all our paper goods instead of laundry and a garment rack that sat on the floor and would get piled with stuff at the bottom. I owned at least 4 vacuum/steam cleaner type of machines which all lived there as well as all our extra pillows and various other linens. There was also a very old high chair that my dad used as a kid, wrapping paper, light bulbs, ziploc bags etc. Oh and parts of a bed frame.

So - we took everything out of there...every single thing. It filled up half of our basement.

Then we bought shelves. We bought enough shelves to hold all our folded clothes on. I also bought cloth baskets for socks and underwear and a bin for mismatched socks. We found a wall-mounted garment rack that has a shelf and bought an additional folding wrack to dry clothes on. Lastly I bought some smaller clothes baskets so that the girls could carry their clean clothes three stories up to their rooms. That is the idea, that once there are piles, they bring them up and put them away and bring the basket back down. Clothes that come out of the dryer are hung or folded IMMEDIATELY right in the laundry room. It really only takes 5 minutes or so and it is amazing how much easier it is to just fold one load at a time.

So - no more piles of laundry in the house! No more long-term dumping in the laundry room because the system is in place and anything waiting to go into the crawl space will be very apparent and more likely to get put away sooner. The paper goods are on a shelf by the washer that I had, but was full of stuff I didn't need so I threw away a bunch and made some room. I have enough space to have one large pack of each paper good item (from costco etc) but not more than that, but that is fine. I am getting rid of some of the vacuum things and moved the steam cleaner to an empty space in the garage since I hardly ever use it. We got rid of a few luggage items and all we have fits nicely in the space now.

So - with that I will give you the pictures...everything full from yesterday because of all the laundry from our trip. In a day or two the shelves will be empty.

as you walk into the room, clothe racks, socks and underwear drawers

view of drying racks, garment rack, pantry

drying racks and ziplocs

clothes racks, sock and underwear drawers, baskets, vacuum, luggage under the stairs

laundry supplies, paper supplies

The terrible crawl space door

June 2011 Pictures

2011-07-09T12:55:00.001-07:00

So - obviously I have really been slacking at the blogging thing. I am getting ready to to June pictures and think that I should recap the month a little.

The first week in June was quiet for the first few days with music lessons and some swimming. On June 5, Julia went off to camp with our church. This was her first time at sleep-away camp and she loved it. She couldn't get rid of us fast enough when we dropped her off. She kept hugging us and saying bye and waiting for us to leave. We were looking around so we said goodbye and let her go off. She came home on the next Friday night. I somehow kept Lauren busy the week she was gone. The poor thing had to run a bunch of errands with me but we also went swimming, went to a dog show, played in the fountain downtown and went to the library.

The next week we took it easy. The girls both went to the dentist and both have loose teeth. Lauren's adult teeth are actually almost all the way up behind the baby teeth. I am trying to see how long to wait until they will need to be pulled. They are a little looser but they need to come out soon.

Julia has had several cello lessons and is now playing half of twinkle twinkle. While she was at camp I took my cello to her teacher who looked it over for me and recommended a few tweaks so it is in the shop right now. Julia is loving the cello and is looking forward to a more consistent schedule of lessons.

See, I should have blogged sooner because looking at the calendar my mind is a bit blank but I know we were busy with things most days so who knows! Looking at the pictures reminds me they played in the sprinklers a few times. It's funny how much fun can be had in sprinklers.

We did go on a mini hike for father's day and out for a beer.

As you will see pictures are scant.

We just returned home from visiting my parents in Hilton Head Island, SC. We were there for a few days in June but the bulk was in July so I am saving those pictures for July.

June 16, 2000

2011-06-16T21:02:00.002-07:00

Ellie

2011-06-11T07:07:00.001-07:00

I am writing this post for a reader, who until recently had no idea we had a dog.

This is Ellie. Her full name is Eleanor, named after my aunt Eleanor, who said that if no one would name their child after her, perhaps they would name a dog after her...and because we love her so much, we did!

We got Ellie a few months after we bought our first house in early 1999. We headed to the local humane society and while I was hoping for a terrier, we say this beautiful 4 month old dog and fell in love. She is some sort of shepherd mix. Another person had dibs on Ellie once she was availble for adoption in a few days. They had until a certain hour to come get her and so we showed up at our appointed time and were thrilled that she was still there and ours for the adopting.

She was very nervous on the car ride home and also when we got to the house. She had never seen stairs before and it took several days to convince her to go up and down them.

We tried keeping her in a crate but she cried and cried. One night I went to go sleep with her in the basement (with her in her crate) and she cried so I let her outside and she refused to come in. After that night she slept outside at night for about 2 years. Sometime 2 years later when I was sleeping in Nathan's room due to his teething I realized she took to barking in the early morning hours (his room was on the back side of the house) so we couldn't let he sleep outside anymore and she transitioned to sleeping inside again.

Ellie doesn't like other dogs or older men. We wonder if she was abused by an older man before we got her. She loves to chew her nylabone and likes to dribble her tennis ball. When she was younger she loved to play with two of her toys at once. If enough of our family settles down in one room of the house together she is very happy and will go find her bone and bring it in to chew with us all. Luke has worked from home her whole life and so her routine, especially in the last several years, is to go down to the basement with him to work and sleep down there with him all day. For that reason, she doesn't like weekends when she waits by the basement door for him to go down there.

She has had a few surgeries over the years. She has canine lupus on her nose and is developing cataracts now. She will be 13 in November. She is a very good dog!

Ellie when we just brought her home

Me with Ellie as a puppy

Ellie and baby Nathan

Julia and Ellie (2004) after she cut her tendon on lawn edging

Luke, Lauren and Ellie

Ellie after surgery to repair her "knee"

Her favorite place to sleep

The rest of these pictures are of Ellie currently, the first several in desperate need of de-furring and the last after being groomed.

I have tried to fix my comment posting ability - so if you have failed in the past - try again!

May 2011 Pictures

2011-06-10T08:26:00.000-07:00

May was a busy month! Julia started her cello lessons, there was a dance rehearsal, Mother's Day, third grade awards (Julia got the award for the most AR (reading) points of all the third graders), last day of preschool, and our very good friends Brian and Lori and their children Scarlett and Grahe came to visit us over Memorial Day.

Cleaning

2011-06-09T06:16:00.001-07:00

Sorry about the slow blogging...I have had some posts in my head so I am going to post them, some on delay.

First off - it is June. I like June, but June contains Nathan's birthday - so that is hard. Facebook doesn't help with the bombardment of 5th grade graduations and other friends with kids the same age having their birthdays.

The other day I finally tackled the rest of my medicine cabinet. I had done the bare minimum of pulling the dangerous medicines out of there a few years ago and brought as many as I grabbed to the hazardous waste disposal center.

I wasn't expecting how hard it was to throw away the rest of the stuff. There was all the line care stuff, andmany bottles of SSKI (drops to protect his thyroid before nuclear meds scans). There were also, to my surprise, many types of narcotics still hanging around, even a fentanyl patch which really shouldn't be just sitting around.

I was really sad throwing away all the supplies and I had to bag up all the narcotics until I take my next trip to the hazardous waste place.

What it comes down to is that I hate erasing pieces of proof that Nathan lived in our house, even when they are not happy things. There was some bit of comfort in rustling around the medicine and finding a replacement cap to the end of his lines. Over half of his life was spent with these items and they became a part of our life. I wouldn't want him to need them, but they remind me of him and his everyday presence.

Still - I did dispose of them - just through tears. And I was depressed the rest of the day - I didn't really realize it until Luke came up from work and I went to try to make dinner and found that emotionally I just couldn't do it and I cried and he ran out and got us some food.

May 1-8, 2011

2011-05-10T11:22:00.000-07:00

We had quite the busy week last week.

It started on May 1, the Sunday after Easter. Our church remembers those who died the year before on that day. Our friend MaryAnn has dubbed it "dead people Sunday". Ever since Nathan's name was read at that service 3 years ago, I have not wanted to relive it. So - we skip. We invited MaryAnn who does not like D.P.S. either to join us for breakfast out - which was great. That evening we had our usual Sunday night dinner with our friends (two other families). We always enjoy that!

Monday held school and ballet after school. Tuesday Lauren had violin and Julia started cello. I also helped out in Julia's class (which I do every Tuesday). Wednesday afternoon Lauren had a mother's day party at preschool and Wednesday night I had a 3.5 hour meeting for the Children's Museum we are trying to build. Thursday night I took Julia with me to choir rehearsal so she could rehearse her solo with the choir. As it turned out the choir's "oohing" was a little complex and we spent a lot of time on it. It was hard for Julia to hear her part on the third verse with our "oohs". She had complete confidence and got up in front of everyone and sang by herself with the piano first. She only got shy when the choir director started joking around about how much money she was going to make in the future and how he'd be her agent. She couldn't stand the attention and turned red and put her head down...poor thing. When it came to singing though...no shyness at all!

Friday the girls had their dance dress rehearsal. As usual the steaming and pinning of costumes took a while as did the hair. This year Julia needed a low bun (harder that a regular one because there is less hair to work with when it is low) and Lauren needed two french braids! Those french braids took at least 20 minutes for me. I was also a mother helper backstage, I try to do that in the spring. After the dress rehearsal we went out for pizza.

Saturday we had our first real warm day of the season and worked outside int he backyard most of the morning. I took Lauren to a group violin lesson and then came home and started working on costumes and hair again for the recital. After the recital we bought the girls some Dairy Queen and shopped for dinner. We had our first dinner outside on the patio of the season.

On Sunday, Julia and I got up bright and early to go to church for the soundcheck. She and I sung two services and then headed home. I proceeded to read and relax outside for most of the afternoon and then Luke and I made a dinner of steak, salmon, potatoes and asparagus and ate again outside.

Julia did a great job singing. Not perfect, of course, but really well for a nine year old who has not had much training. I was a nervous wreck singing next to her. In retrospect it may have been better if I had not sang that morning because I was trying to pay attention to her if she needed me to prompt her for anything and still sing my part, which we had just learned a few nights before and so didn't really know well enough to look up much. Of course, the camera angle had much of me on it, as nervous as I was, and I usually like to look a lot more relaxed and joyful when I sing, but it was all I could do to breathe.

She (and I and Luke) got many, many complements and it was wonderful to have her sitting next to me in the choir loft on Mother's Day. She proclaimed the whole experience as "fun", which is the best outcome!

A little more grief has been rearing its head now that the week is over, with all its performances as such. With Nathan's birthday and date of death being in the summer - there is a certain apprehension. I do see a overall curve, if you will, of grief and I can look back a bit now and see that the grief is not as intense, which is great. This is NOT to say I am "over it" or have "moved on", just dealing with it better overall. That also does not mean I don't have bad days, or weeks, but that they are less frequent, and I am grateful for that.

Photobooks

2011-05-06T08:01:00.000-07:00

I have been slowly working on our family pictures and making photo books (digitally) to preserve them. I take a lot of pictures so each book is 1-3 months. When Nathan got sick, our friend Lori, took it upon herself to scrapbook for us and made many books for us. Not too long after Nathan's death, I took over and have been working on them one by one. I watch for sales and when there is a good one, I make the next book. I recently finished May 2007.

So - here I am, staring right at June, July and August 2007. I have several dilemmas. Which pictures do I include? There are a few pictures, taken 10 days or so before Nathan's death that I keep in a separate folder so as not to accidentally have them pop up on my screensaver. I have only looked at them a few times. I don't even know if I posted them on here - they are terrible to see, not gruesome or anything, just the reality of death approaching and cancer taking over. Some earlier in the month also show this, but at least he is still doing something and not just lying on the couch in pain.

As far as the funeral goes, there are no pictures really...I was given one of my dad holding Lauren at the reception. I think I will include a scan of the funeral program. That pretty much explains it.

And then, starting in August - the pictures go on, without Nathan.

Yeah, maybe mother's day weekend is not the time to work on them....

Robins

2011-05-05T07:28:00.000-07:00

I pair of robins has made our backyard their spring home. More specifically, our outside table and window sill. I haven't seen a nest anywhere, but the female spends all her time looking inside our family room. I wonder if they are trying to figure out how to get inside to build a nest. They have also tried tapping on the window to get in. The dog's water bowl is their water source.

April 2011 Pictures

2011-05-02T07:59:00.000-07:00

Easter girls - 2011

2011-04-27T05:58:00.000-07:00

I made this post last year and just thought I would update it for this Easter. I think there is a big change between last year and this year! We had a really good Easter. We all got up really early and I sung four services and Luke and the girls went to the 7:00 service and also Luke helped with handicap assistance and so they went out to eat and came back to church to do that. I finally got home around 1:00 and we relaxed for a bit before joining friends for an Easter dinner.

Easter 2011

Easter 2010

Easter 2009

Easter 2008

Easter 2007

Easter 2006

Easter 2005

Easter 2000 - with Nathan in my tummy!

Dream - April 21

2011-04-21T07:20:00.000-07:00

Luke started tossing and turning somewhere before 6:00 this morning. I guess I should be grateful because it allowed me to wake up and then fall asleep again and have a really detailed dream about Nathan. In the first part of the dream we were swimming. He had floaties on his arms but they were small and he managed to swim under water with them. At some point we were out of the water and he was standing right next to me and I asked him a question and he answered it, just exactly how he spoke, which I can't explain, and ended with a little laugh. I put my arm around him. We went to figure out a prescription and it was taking a while and the pharmacist wanted to substitute something else so I told Nathan "Go see your Daddy" and told her he was terminally ill but was doing really well and we didn't want to change anything. At this point in the dream in my mind it was 2010 and he had lived another 3 years. He was about 6 in the dream though. The next part of the dream was a big dinner at our house and a lot of our friends were there and Nathan had two of his friends there and it was nice seeing him interact with them. I didn't recognize them though.

There was more fuzzy stuff, but my favorite part was the conversation I had which was pure Nathan. Of course seeing him smiling face was wonderful too.

Life right now

2011-04-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

Part of the purpose of this blog is for me to record life. I have not been very good about that lately.

What is life like right now?

It is pretty typical. I have to remind myself that when Nathan was ill - typical is what I strived for.

Generally, life is mostly about the kids right now.

Warning - this ended up long and sounding like a Christmas letter, which I have never done and now know why! Since you read my blog you know everything is not all roses so at least you can read this knowing that!

Julia is involved in dance, musical theater and kid's choir at church. She is in third grade but rarely has homework, lucky girl. Most days she gets up at 6:30am and if it is "her" day on the computer plays some computer games until 7:30 when she gets ready for school. She gets on the bus at 8:13 and returns home at 3:47. We still walk out to the bus with her in the morning but she comes in on her own. We can't see the bus stop from the house even though it is very close so somehow I can't bring myself to let her go out and not know if she got on. Silly, I know. I'd have to revisit the issue next year but conveniently, Lauren will be joining her so I have an excuse to still go (I say "I" but it is usually Luke).

Julia would like to play the cello and we have an interview tomorrow with a teacher. She will have to give up one of her other activities and has also been warned that practice will often take place before school. I am also expecting (hoping?) she will have more homework next year so she will be busy.

Julia spends a lot of her free time reading. She is a voracious reader and we borrow many library books at a time. When the weather is good and we are not busy she loves to play outside, riding her bike or scooter with neighborhood kids.

Julia loves to sing and will be singing a solo with the sanctuary choir on Mother's Day. This is a pretty big deal as our choir is very large and good. I will be backing her that morning up in the choir loft. I am nervous, but she is not!

Julia just got glasses and is enjoying being able to see better. She has been told she looks like "Junie B Jones" and I told her if that is the worst they can come up with, she is lucky! She is very tall for her age and still has beautiful strawberry blonde hair and many freckles. She has the cutest laugh.

Lauren has preschool Monday through Thursday afternoons. She LOVES preschool and is definitely ready for kindergarten next year. I will be sending her to full-day kindergarten and she will ride the bus with Julia.

She has violin lessons Tuesday mornings and some Saturday mornings. She is progressing so well and really enjoys playing. She loves a good challenge and is willing to push herself. She also has dance and kids choir at church. We had been doing Monday and Wednesday morning swimming lessons but she got too advanced for the morning offerings. I let her have Tues. and Thurs. after school lessons in March and all the running around almost killed me so this month I am trying to take her myself and coach her. She does a lot of lap kicking and I am so impressed at her perseverance. She wants to continue with lessons so when summer comes I will do that for both girls.

Lauren is still a big cuddler and just wants to come sit on my lap and snuggle. She is always so considerate of others. Every night when I put her to bed she tells me to have a good evening. She has a bedtime hug and kiss routine she developed where she gives a kiss and a hug three times followed by a big kiss and big hug.

While Lauren is at preschool I have a few things going on. On Tuesday afternoons I go to Julia's classroom and administer timed math-fact quizzes. Most of the kids love doing them and often beg me to do it again but I have to get through the whole class. I like getting to know Julia's classmates. She loves it when I come in and always gives me a big hug. Most weeks I have a meeting for an organization that is trying to bring a ch*ldren's museum to our town (yes I misspelled it on purpose to avoid search engines. We don't have one here and given the large population of kids and the big tourist industry here it is a no-brainer that we should! So - we are making an effort.

I just finished a Thursday morning bible study and on Tuesday mornings Lauren has violin. For her violin she is to practice every day. As she learns more songs, practice can get longer and longer. I am big part of her practice and so this is a daily activity for me too. If/when Julia starts cello this will be doubled. If I have time I like to play my cello or violin. If I have time I will play harmony with Lauren's violin. It is good practice for her to keep to her melody.

Both Luke and I are involved in Wednesday night children's choirs at church. We are the kindergarten helpers. We both are also on a committee to address plans for next year and I am also going to become a liaison for Wednesday nights in a committee for children's ministry. I am also in the sanctuary choir which meets Thursday nights and then we sing two services on Sunday. This time of year there are lots of extras. There are 7 commitments in the next 13 days. So of course I have come down with a sore throat and cough. I am not sure if I will be able to sing! I love choir and it is a great "me" thing to have.

Luke and I recently joined a Sunday school class. I have to miss half of it in order to sing second service but it is good to get to know some of our peers in our huge church. On Sunday nights we have dinner with two families every week. We have been doing that for two years or so (the other two have been doing it for many years - they asked us to join them a few years ago). It is a wonderful blessing to have that fellowship and friendship.

I love to cook and sometimes our schedule messes that up but I really love the fact that most every night I cook a delicious nutritious meal for us and we sit down in the dining room together to eat it. This is how I grew up and I love it.

Luke is very busy with work, and has been for the past year. Currently he is traveling but for the first 4 months of this year he had impossible deadline followed by impossible deadline and so it was a bit stressful. He still works out of our home (and has done so for almost 13 years now). He has gotten to see his kids more than the average dad this way over the years. There are a few drawbacks but the positives outweigh them for sure. He is a deacon at our church and helps out with handicap assistance on Sundays. He plays basketball at the church every other week and tries to make it to the gym during the week. His main hobby is playing his guitar and one of the great perks of working from home is that when he takes a break he can just reach for the guitar for a few minutes. He has been teaching himself guitar for about four years and has made a lot of strides. Sometimes he pulls out the guitar and I pull out violin, cello, or mandolin and play along...it is fun!

I am looking forward to May and cessation of many of everyone's activities for the school year. School gets out somewhere around the first of June but we never know the exact date until the first or second week in May (which is very annoying because school may be out before OR after Memorial Day so plans could be made if we knew).

This summer, as we usually do, we will be traveling to my parent's house in South Carolina and also to my in-laws' house in Illinois. Julia will be going to church camp for her first sleep-away came experience. Music lessons will continue in the summer as will choir for me. We plan to spend free days at the pool and playing outside. We will probably throw in a vacation bible school week in there somewhere. My parents may come visit in August. They haven't been here in the summer since Nathan's funeral and so we really hope that happens so we can get out and do some fun things instead of hanging around inside the house.

So - what is missing? We are quite busy, but what I would like to do better on is:

the gym for me!!! - I think this will happen will Lauren goes to school full-time next year

seeing friends - I have had almost zero time to spend time with the friends I do not have joint activities scheduled with. There are about 7 friends I would love to get together with. Some I haven't seen in many months and I really miss them! This will also get better in the fall, I hope. I also see I just need to schedule these things, even in a few weeks in advance!

Time for Luke and I - we are due for another trip by ourselves. We rarely even get out together because of our busy schedules and lack of easy babysitting. We are always looking for time and will grab when we can! We did get to go an a marriage retreat this winter - so that was great!

Keeping the house cleaner - also hoping I do better on this next year! I do not come by it naturally!

So - that is the state of things, for now. Kudus to you if you had the patience to read this.

Encounters

2011-04-09T09:42:00.000-07:00

Since December I have had several run-ins with the staff of Nathan's oncology clinic. He spent 4 1/2 years under their care and that means I spent a whole lot of time with these doctors and nurses. I love to see them, but it is always emotional and I am left shaken a bit. It is hard to explain.

On Thursday afternoon I ran into one of Nathan's oncologists, but not the main one. We would see this one when the other one wasn't available. He said some very nice things about how everyone still remembers us and about missing seeing me at the clinic. Still, I left the encounter feeling shook up and a bit uneasy. Over these 3 1/2 years I have seen all the staff, except one, Nathan's primary doctor. He has since retired due to Parkinson's** and the last time I saw him was at Nathan's funeral. He means so much to Luke and I. We feel so very blessed to have had him for Nathan's doctor. The care he gave Nathan, and the way he dealt with Luke and I was superb. He made a terrible situation the best it could have been.

Friday, I ran out to Sam's club at the last minute and guess who I saw? This wonderful doctor! Just one day after seeing the other one. He reached for a hug immediately and we talked for several minutes catching up. He told me that he had been hoping to run into me and that he thinks of us often. We talked about how crazy it was to both of us that it we just passed the 8 year mark of diagnosis. He had just started here in town a few days before Nathan was diagnosed and I think Nathan was his first diagnosis in his new city. We had a great talk and I didn't even tear up once (which I always do) and I left the encounter, not shaken, but very happy. I did tear up afterwards, because I felt so thankful I saw him, and the timing of seeing him was just right.

** a note on the Parkinson's. I wrote here about learning of his retirement and how sick it made me feel. On Friday, we talked about how he is doing and about how, at the time of his retirement, it was not what he wanted but looking back at many things which have happened since, the timing was right and he mentioned the mysterious ways God works. I was so glad to hear and see that he is doing so well. The disease is progressing quickly, but he seemed to be in as good a place as he could with it.

Brother and Sister

2011-04-07T07:32:00.001-07:00

I love it when Lauren has a "shared experience" with Nathan. Since she was only 20 months old when he died, she didn't get to actually have very many. Preschool has been one of them, in the same classroom with the same teachers as Nathan.

Here are some pictures I took recently, and some old ones of the same park.

As for the other brother and sister - here is a picture I recently put in a photobook of Julia and Nathan....so sweet.

March 2011 Pictures

2011-04-05T08:20:00.004-07:00

Lots of fun this month!!

Lame

2011-04-04T14:03:00.000-07:00

I mentioned a few posts ago I need to show you why Luke and I were the lamest couple at the marriage retreat.

We were lucky and got up there early, dealing with some crummy traffic in Denver, but not nearly as bad as those who came after us. We check in at the desk and proceeded over the the picture station. At first I thought they were doing some construction over by the stairs but quickly realized it was all part of the weekend theme, "Marriage, Extreme Heart Makeover Edition" or something like that. There was tape and cones and vests so I asked the picture taker if we had to dress up for the pictures and I was told no. So, we didn't.

Later as they began taping the pictures up I saw that EVERYONE else had used the props.

On Saturday night, we had a "contest" that involved competing as small groups, some involving silly things. Luke and I then just declared that we were lame and our picture was proof. We just aren't into play-acting, being goofy, pretending AT ALL. Not one bit. We could have done the picture, but being that it was a marriage weekend and we concluded that we are very happy together, why not just be lame together?

She's mocking me

2011-03-19T12:55:00.000-07:00

I think I recently blogged that I bought a cello and that I played the cello from ages 5-13 and then quit. I probably hadn't played a cello since I was 17 or so.

I decided to buy suzuki cello book 3 because I actually remember playing those songs.

I open the book and see this little girl

Now I am playing a piece that utilizes many high positions and vibrato and is not "easy" but man, does she make me feel old and slow! I have no clue what age I was when I first played this, but still...

Here is a link to a girl playing one of the songs in the book if you are interested in the level.

It is fun to be playing again so I am just trying to ignore the picture.

February Pictures

2011-03-18T07:00:00.001-07:00

Pictures from February...plus I actually blogged something last night, below this post.

St. Patrick's Day and Lent

2011-03-17T20:45:00.001-07:00

I have been to choir rehearsal tonight. We rehearsed a beautiful choral arrangement of the following song. I found it a fitting choice as a celtic tune and for this season of lent. I ~~wish I could find the choral arrangement to share as it is better than this solo one~~. Here are the words.

O love divine amazing love
That brought to earth from heaven above
The Son of God for us to die
That we might dwell on high

He died for you
He died for me
And shed His blood to make us free
Upon the cross of calvary
The Savior died for me

Edited to add Here is a link to an mp3 of the choral version

http://beckenhorstpress.com/audio/1900.mp3

Life

2011-03-08T19:34:00.000-07:00

Hmm...still light on the blogging. What have we been up to?

We went skiing last weekend with my brother and his family. It was my second time skiing. I started out on the bunny hill for an hour or two and then went up the big lift. Last time I tried the lift twice and fell both times. This time I made it off without falling and managed to do much better skiing overall. I still came down the greens with very wide turns but made it down many times without a fall so that was a success! Julia took a lesson and I think we will be able to try her on the big hill next time. Lauren made it to the bunny hill but turning is still a bit of an issue. Luke has been a skiier for years so he was very nice and skiied with me a lot of the time. I sent him off to some blacks here and there.

The weekend before, Lauren had a group concert for violin. She and I played a duet of Lightly Row, with me on the cello. Yes, I did go ahead and buy myself a cello a few weeks ago. It has been really fun getting back into playing it after 20 years. I have a video, which I have shared some, but I am unhappy with my intonation in it. I may post it, we'll see. She did great!

The weekend before that one, Luke and I went to a marriage retreat with our church to Estes Park. It was a really good weekend. We went into it feeling like we didn't really have any major issues and luckily came out of it assured that we don't and that we are on the same page about things and manage to communicate about marriage types of things on a regular basis anyway. Our senior pastor and his wife spoke and are fabulous. We even got to repeat our vows, which was meaningful to me especially since Luke and I didn't have a Christian wedding so saying these vows in a new light was really special.

The weekend before that one was when Luke's sister, Anna and her boyfriend were here. (did I make up for naming him and not Anna last time??)

February pictures forthcoming....plus a post with picture and why Luke and I were the lamest couple at our retreat!

Garden of the Gods

2011-02-23T09:29:00.000-07:00

We love living in Colorado Springs for many reasons. Garden of the Gods is one of them. It is a beautiful, red rock, free, city-owned park. We just went there this weekend with Luke's sister and her boyfriend, Chris.

Here are the three kids, each in the same little nook

Nathan, July 2005, 5 years old

Julia, July 2005, 3.5 years

Julia, February 2011, 9 years

Lauren, February 2011, 5 years

Zoo Shirt

2011-02-21T09:08:00.000-07:00

Something that Nathan and Lauren have in common. They both felt the need to have a designated "Zoo Shirt". This is not something I ever pushed, they both just decided at some point that when they went to the zoo, they ought to wear an appropriate shirt and went through their drawers and come out with the shirt on. Lauren is about to outgrow her current one so I need to be on the lookout for something that will work for her.

Brandy Bear

2011-02-20T09:08:00.000-07:00

This time last year I was struggling about where I should send Lauren to preschool, the same place she was currently going with her best friend, or to the same place Nathan and Julia both went. In the end I chose for her to go where her brother and sister had gone and it was a really good decision for both her and me.

One of the traditions her teacher has is sending home "Brandy Bear" for a weekend with a child and then we write up her adventures with us. I now know that Brandy Bear seems to be a different bear from her collection each year. Here are the kids with Brandy Bear.

On a side note, I can't believe there are only 3 months left of preschool. This school year has gone so fast. Lauren is signed up for full-day Kindergarten (if she gets in, which she most likely will). Next year will be a lot different.

January 2011 Pictures

2011-02-18T20:10:00.000-07:00

Yes! I am very late posting these. Being sick for a week and then going away for a weekend really set me back. Mike N at Loyola, Anna tells me it is time to post them! (she is here this weekend)

We didn't do a whole lot in January, as you will see, Julia turned 9 and Lauren went to the zoo. I will post about the bear she is toting in my next entry (if I ever get around to it!)

Julia turns Nine!

2011-01-24T07:43:00.000-07:00

Julia turned nine years old on Saturday. Since it was a Saturday she got to celebrate all day long! I made her (canned) cinnamon rolls and eggs for breakfast and then she and I headed up to Denver to shop. She really couldn't think of anything she wanted for her birthday and so we decided to shop instead. However, the alone time with just her and I was what she was excited about. She found just two things at Claires she wanted and used a giftcard for those. She tried on some clothes and we looked everywhere, including the American Girl store, but she just is not interested in things. She got a little frustrated and said she wanted to buy something that she could enjoy and use more than once. She wants something to entertain her but she is not easily entertained. She doesn't fit into a lot of clothes very well. She tried on some things at Justice and they were very stylish but she is so tall and thin that many clothes hang on her. She kept her spirits up and kept saying it was all about the time with me anyway. I was hoping for a nice lunch but what she wanted was a pretzel dog - so that is what she got!

She and I hurried back home to wait for her best friend to arrive at 3:00. They went off and played until we had pizza, popcorn and a movie (Matilda - which they had both seen many times). After that we had cake and they went to bed (but not asleep for a while). In the morning, her friend came with us to church. She had never been to a church before and was a little nervous. I couldn't convince her to stand at any point for singing (but that was fine, of course). Unfortunately our pastor got creative and decided to use an empty casket for a prop. I assured her it was empty! Julia enjoyed introducing her to the people around us. After that they went to Sunday school, which they both enjoyed and then we took her friend home.

All in all, a very good birthday!

Lauren 5 year stats

2011-01-17T20:19:00.000-07:00

I had Lauren in to the doctor the other day for her five year old well-child checkup. The poor thing needed FIVE shots. Four of them were routine, one had been missed in 2007. The doctor was trying to figure out how it happened and I just said "2007 was a bad year" and she agreed. She asked me if I wanted to come back for the extra one. Lauren was so scared that I thought it was better to just get them all over with instead of having one more hanging over her head. If I had been thinking I would have considered splitting up 3 and 2 or something but that wasn't offered.

So - she had all five, first one in her arm and then four in her legs. She bawled. I felt really bad. I took her to get a milkshake ad then over to a friend's house to play. Later that night she was running a 101.7 fever and all day the next day a 99.7 fever. I really felt bad for her. She seems to have fully recovered now.

Her stats were as follows:

Height 43.5 inches (48th percentile)
Weight 34.5 pounds (11th percentile)

I forget her BMI but it was something in the single digits and 3rd percentile.

Her height percentile has never been this high - that is nice to see.

She is just a skinny, skinny little thing but she is strong and athletic. It is just how she is made. At this rate she may be in a 5 point harness until she is seven. They really recommend children be 40 pounds before they go into a booster. She is such a tall, skinny 34 pounds that you could fit two of her side to side in a booster - so she stays in a car seat for now. I have explained it is all about her weight and not her age.

Validation

2011-01-12T16:42:00.000-07:00

So I have mused a few times recently (too lazy to look up the posts right now) about if some of my physical problems are stress/grief related. Luke was the one who told me that perhaps it was and it had not really occurred to me before then.

However, I got "proof" today. I was planning a trip to two banks to consolidate what is left of Nathan's memorial fund into one interest bearing account and also to the safe-deposit box. I went through some folders to select things that needed to go to the safe-deposit box and selected the title Nathan's "slot" in the Columbarium. It was in a fancy envelop with a snap and so I opened it up just to check the contents and found his "Certificate of Cremation" in there. IT is an official document that was needed before interring his remains. I had forgotten we had to give it to the cemetery. There it was, spelled out in front of me, date of death, age of death, date of cremation. Ugh, ugh ugh!

So - I tucked it in my envelop and hurried off to take Lauren from school but my chest was tight, I was short of breath and dizzy. It stayed that way for quite a while. One of the bankers was trying to make small talk as he set up this account (memorial, he knew that much anyway) and I finally told him that this was not a cheerful errand and apologized that I really wasn't in the mood for small talk.

Anyway - I just find it all so odd. I knew what I read, I had this physical reaction, I knew I was having this reaction based on what I had just been doing but I could not make it stop. I am just used to being in control of myself and I guess it is beyond my control.

December 2010 Pictures

2011-01-04T09:09:00.001-07:00

December 2010 in review

2011-01-01T18:58:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year!

Instead of a year in review I am, for now, going to review December because it was so incredibly busy that I haven't blogged much at all.

The first 13 days of December contained five multi-hour choir rehearsals and two concerts. We do this concert every year in the local performing arts center with a bell choir, a children's choir, an orchestra and a big band. It is a ton of fun and big time commitment and lots of work. During this there were several violin lessons for Lauren, one for me, and a recital. School and dance lessons and Christmas shopping were all going on during this time span as well. Immediately after the concert found Luke and then Julia down with the stomach flu.

Then, the day after the concert my sister-friend, Lisa and her family came to Colorado to visit her new niece (who was born very early and is in the NICU). She came despite the illness in our house and stayed a week. The girls had a lot of fun with her three daughters and they were able to join us for Lauren and Julia's dance recital. I was busy finishing Christmas shopping and attending a few Christmas functions that week, as well as the all fluffing and steaming of dance costumes and such. I also had more choir rehearsals getting ready for Christmas Eve.

Christmas week, we finally had time and health to start baking Christmas goodies. I had to finish up the shopping and wrapping as well. On the 23rd we went on the Santa Train (the cog railway that goes up Pikes Peak and stops halfway up to visit with Santa). Christmas Eve I left the house around 12:45 pm to begin singing Christmas Eve services. I sang three services, we had a quick break for dinner which the church served us and Luke and the girls attended as well and then I sang one more service (7:00 pm) that Luke and the girls attending. I went home with them afterwards, to tuck them in and get ready for Christmas morning. There was one more service I didn't sing.

Christmas morning we enjoyed opening presents and spent the rest of the day relaxing except for a break to cook a full turkey dinner. Since we were in Chicago for Thanksgiving and ate at a restaurant we were all anxious to have our traditional Turkey dinner here at home with leftovers!

The day after Christmas was Sunday, so we all went off to church and then came home and relaxed a bit and went and had dinner with friends.

The week between Christmas and New Year's the girls did a lot of playing, some fighting, and had daily swimming lessons. They both passed their classes and were excited to move on. Lauren had taken her level 3 times because when she started swim lessons she would not put her head under water. She is now jumping in over her head and surfacing all by herself. She can also swim under water and dive for an object at the bottom. This is a huge improvement and she is having much more fun at the pool now. Julia s getting closer to swimming with a proper freestyle stroke. Her next class will help her get to that point. I am proud of both of them.

We also had dinner with friends Thursday night and new year's eve the Children's Museum had a NOON Year's eve party (at noon) and since I am on the board (we are trying to build a CM here in town, a long ways from reality yet) I was very busy helping out with that. Last night I was exhausted but we put the extended edition of The Fellowship of the Ring on and made it to midnight (minus a catnap between the end of the mines of Moria and Baromir's betrayal of Frodo).

Yes, there are pictures to go with these and I should put them in, but I will put the monthly slideshow up tomorrow and you can refer there or if I find I have time I will update this post.

Wintersong, Again..

2010-12-22T16:18:00.002-07:00

I posted this last year and just wanted to post it again.

So far, this Christmas has been easier in the grief department. At the same time Nathan is very close to my heart at this time of year.

Siblings

2010-12-16T20:30:00.000-07:00

A picture came home from preschool of Lauren and I thought she really looks a lot like a picture of Nathan we have (he was 6).

First Violin Recital

2010-12-13T11:51:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned before that Lauren is taking violin lessons. she had her first recital on Saturday and did very well! A Video is below.

I also got to play with a few other parents and some older students which was a lot of fun.

Here's a far cuter picture of me playing the cello when I was Lauren's age.

And a few more picture of Lauren

Healthy Heart

2010-12-08T16:05:00.000-07:00

Three years ago, a few months after Nathan died Lauren had her two year old checkup. Her doctor referred her to the pediatric cardiologist because she had a very loud murmur. An echocardiogram revealed that it was a "functional murmur". Today she went back for a recheck and her murmur is much quieter and everything looks good. That was a relief.

Bringing her in, however, had its own triggers. I remembered the day Nathan fainted after chemo and I had to bring him in there for a stat echo. I remembered bringing in Julia for an echo that finally helped prove she did have Kawasaki Disease. I remembered a conversation I had with a just-turned-two year old Lauren the last time we were there in the parking lot. She saw the hospital and immediately associated it with Nathan.

Also, I had to fill this out:

November Pictures

2010-12-03T20:30:00.000-07:00

Yes - I am a slacker. I have bunches of posts in my head. Hopefully a real post will happen soon.

Meanwhile...pictures.

Holidays

2010-11-17T10:13:00.000-07:00

Andy, Max's Dad, left a comment in which the end said:

"Hope you guys are doing OK with the holidays approaching. We need an angel parent party or something like that, I think (weird, I know, but comforting too) "

Andy, you are so right and the thing is, no one else can understand. It is impossible for others to understand what we angel parents go through day to day, and even more so with the holidays. I recently had a friend try to ask me (in full love and the spirit of trying to understand) why Christmas is so hard. I tried to explain, but there is no explaining. All I could say was "how would you feel if one of your kids was not there on Christmas?". That doesn't work though and I never want any of my friends to be in my place, that is for sure! I can socialize with those I am close to for Christmas Eve and Christmas but we have had invites over the years to join good friends PLUS their relatives or other friends and I just cannot. I cannot because I will have to put on the fake face for these people I do not know well. I will feel like I have to push in all my grief and the truth is, I do that too much anyway. I don't want to have to do that on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

I know the people who love me are waiting for me to get beyond it or something like. Things will change eventually, I think. When my children are no longer small, the sting of Christmas morning might be less. I don't know, just guessing. It isn't easier this year. Nathan would be 10. It is just as hard as if he would be 7. It is not easier this year just because another year has gone by. I am USED to not having him with us for Christmas but it hurts JUST THE SAME.

This DOES NOT MEAN I have no joy and happiness at Christmas. This is the other thing I think people don't understand. I have ALL the emotions. Some of them are SAD though, which is different than that of my friends. I was told recently I have to get to a place where I can have joy too, but she assumed wrong. I have joy AND I have pain.

I would love to attend an angel parent Christmas party. Alas, we are too spread out. So, for now, and until I feel differently, which may be never, I don't intend to force myself to put aside my feelings of grief at the holidays.

Lauren is Five!

2010-11-16T18:57:00.000-07:00

I can't believe my baby is five..here is the proof!

October 2010 Pictures

2010-11-03T14:56:00.002-07:00

Halloween 2010

2010-10-31T15:27:00.001-07:00

I have three posts in drafts - two are depressing. I think I will do a halloween retrospective post instead.

First a few from my childhood:

Bullwinkle!

1987

And then the kids....

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Reader

2010-10-26T15:04:00.000-07:00

Julia is has a voracious appetite for reading. She reads a lot and she reads very quickly and also several grade levels ahead. This is a good and well but finding her appropriate reading material is somewhat tricky. I have been getting her some series of books from "A Life of Faith". Although these characters range from children to full-on adults by the time the each series is done I have assumed since they are Christian books the content is fine for her.

She has to do a reading log some weeks and so she asked me to sign off on last night's reading session.
This is what it says

Arther wanted to get Elsie back for not lending him money even though her dad told her not to lend her money to any one so one day they were walking and stopped at the top of the hill and he pushed her.

I just asked her if that upset her and she said no and I asked if she died and she said that no and that since it is a series she knew she had to be alive for the next book. She told me Elsie hurt her ankle.

I guess it didn't faze her but I was a bit surprised.

Quilt

2010-10-23T07:30:00.001-07:00

I mentioned a few years ago that Luke's mom was going to make a quilt for us out of some of Nathan's clothes. I just searched the blog for a previous mention and found this post. I was surprised to learn (I won't say remember) that it was a full year until we did all of that cleaning out of the room. It is a bit of a painful post to read.

It took another year to actually bring the clothes to Illinois and go through them and make decisions about them. I think it took many months after that for Kathy to get to the point where she could face making it. It was also technically difficult for her because she normally hand quilts and the materials in this quilt caused to her to need to machine quilt instead. She has made the kids and us many beautiful quilts over the years, all hand stitched. I will have to post those sometime!

All that to say that this summer, Kathy finished the quilt and gave it to us.

I borrowed a picture from her to post here. The quilt is currently folded on top of the cedar chest in our living room where we store Nathan's things. I am not sure of its ultimate home.

Thank you again, Kathy - it is better than I could have imagined.

Memorial Done!

2010-10-22T07:59:00.000-07:00

I have been remiss in posting about the memorial for Nathan we were working on at the school. This is the post I wrote about it a year ago.

There were some delays after that in regards to getting the cement slab poured. The assistant principle ended up doing it himself and also installing the bench and plaque. The butterfly garden is his pet project at the school. It was put in this summer and then the plaque was put on shortly after school started. Luke and I went to see it this summer but then I wanted to wait until the plaque was on to see it again. Also, it is quite bittersweet and so I wasn't exactly chomping at the bit to go back but we took Luke's parents over there while they were here last weekend.

Here is it - and as you can see Lauren was cold and not wanting to pose!

Thank you to everyone who contributed to his memorial fund. This is not the only use of the funds but one of the more visible.

PTSD again

2010-10-11T20:24:00.001-07:00

I wrote about PTSD recently

I have been wondering about some physical problems I have been having lately and read this:

Re-living: People with PTSD repeatedly re-live the ordeal through thoughts and memories of the trauma. These may include flashbacks, hallucinations, and nightmares. They also may feel great distress when certain things remind them of the trauma, such as the anniversary date of the event.

Well, yes to all of that.

Avoiding: The person may avoid people, places, thoughts, or situations that may remind him or her of the trauma. This can lead to feelings of detachment and isolation from family and friends, as well as a loss of interest in activities that the person once enjoyed.

Yes to some extent. I have over the years learned to face more of these situations head on and just deal with the pain. I still do avoid many things though. I still try to do the things I enjoy. As I wrote in this post, choir is something I enjoy that I find myself avoiding at times.

Increased arousal: These include excessive emotions; problems relating to others, including feeling or showing affection; difficulty falling or staying asleep; irritability; outbursts of anger; difficulty concentrating; and being "jumpy" or easily startled. The person may also suffer physical symptoms, such as increased blood pressure and heart rate, rapid breathing, muscle tension, nausea, and diarrhea..

Yes to most of these. I have noticed in the past several weeks that I am often short of breath and have an extremely heightened or overactive startle reaction. Small things create a very large feeling of shock, dread, surprise, or just alertness. My heart seems to be racing too often. In fact, while writing this Luke hit the keys on his keyboard suddenly and a little loudly, probably deleting something and it startled me way more than it should have. I probably shouldn't have even noticed it. I have been nauseous for days. My family will tell you I am irritable and the difficulty concentrating has been especially bad lately as well. I don't have problems falling or staying asleep but my night terrors persist. I came home this afternoon and used an inhaler for shortness of breath but it didn't help. Luke told me that it sounded like anxiety. I then found list of PTSD symptoms

I am surprised there are so many physical manifestations. I imagine there are other things that could be causing all of this. I have a history since landing in the ER a few days after Nathan's funeral of the same set of symptoms about every 3 months that often put me in bed with crippling fatigue, vision disturbances, GI issues, and more. I need to start keeping a diary of how often it actually does happen (like last weekend) but I wonder if these are all anxiety induced rather than physically induced.

I have been to my doctor about some of these episodes. She is always trying to treat the current thing so the big pictures has never been discussed. Last time it was the shortness of breath, the time before was for vision problems. Perhaps I will be able to talk to her about it all again once I keep track of things for a while.

The body & mind are mysterious things.

Birthday and dreams

2010-10-09T06:14:00.000-07:00

I really don't have time to blog this morning but I am going to try to do this quickly.

Yesterday we went up to my brother's house a few hours away. My parents had come in to take care of his kids while he and his wife were away. My kids were out of school and it was my father's birthday. I figure it had been a good 20 years since I had spent my father's birthday with him and it seemed like an excellent opportunity to do so! I made his traditional birthday cake the night before (cherry walnut) and we got up and went yesterday morning. He didn't know we were coming and so it was a big surprise when we showed up. We hung out and spent some time outside in the beautiful fall weather and had a big dinner and desert. It was a really great day.

Last night I dreamed of Nathan. It was a long drawn out dream where I spent a lot of time with him. As is usual with my dreams, his health was frail but this time the knowledge of his death wasn't there, it was just that he was not robust and I was transported back to that time. He ran around a bit and then all of a sudden it was his birthday and we were celebrating that and he was smiling and happy and it was just wonderful. His last birthday he was doing pretty horribly but in this dream birthday last night he was that age but it was a wonderful birthday. The dream was so vivid that it almost feels like I spent time with him last night. Wonderful.

Why I might not be in choir on Halloween

2010-09-30T20:20:00.000-07:00

It has nothing to do with Halloween, but I found out we will be singing my most hated choir song that day. I could not get through it tonight as I was laughing (quietly) to the point of tears. If you subject yourselves to this video please play the end and witness the lovely hand clapping to go with "the trees shall clap their hands".

The combination of the trees clapping, the 60's? vibe and the hand clapping is just too much. Yes, it is horrible of me, but I just don't think I can do it.

Here is a video and this is not my choir.

: (

2010-09-28T07:42:00.002-07:00

So - I wanted to put a picture on my facebook profile of me and my kids (all of them) on my birthday and I unfortunately came to the realization that no such picture exists because it never happened! Lauren was born in 2005, 6 weeks after my birthday and in 2006 Lauren, Nathan and I were in New York and Julia and Luke were home in Colorado. In 2007 Nathan had been dead for 2 months.

I'm not going to let this ruin my birthday today but it was a downer to discover this.

I'll throw some picture out here anyway. Interesting because it looks like it was hot last year too. It is supposed to be record-setting hot today. Also, I made my own cake last year and will again today... not because I have to, because I want to!

2000

2002

2004

2005

2009

Lucky Thirteen

2010-09-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

Luke and I celebrated our 13th anniversary yesterday. We started early on Friday night with a dinner outside in the beer garden at a german restaurant. Just a side note that we have been having record heat here and so it was a warm night out side in a sleeveless shirt no less. Yesterday we snuck off to lunch while Lauren was at preschool and after the kids were in bed we had some champagne, raspberries and chocolate fondue.

Thinking back over the years...with pictures on or near the day.

Year 1: Luke and I had just moved to Colorado a few weeks earlier and were renting an apartment. We went out to dinner at a local steakhouse.

I can find not one single picture taken in 1998! The whole year.

Year 2: We were in our new house and planning on starting a family. We went out to dinner for fondue. It was snowing!

Year 3: We had a three month old baby. I am guessing we had a quiet evening at home

Year 4: We had a 15 month old baby and I was 5 months pregnant with Julia. Back then we never had a babysitter so once again I'm sure we did nothing much.

Year 5: We had a 2 year old and an 8 month old. I remember thinking that 5 was a milestone. There is a good chance we had fondue or something after the kids were in bed.

Year 6: We were in Denver for Nathan's transplant. He was three and Julia was 20 months old. She was at home with my mom. I do believe Luke and I snuck away for a late dinner together. The transplant unit there felt strongly that parents not spend the night. There was no where to sleep in the room either.

Year 7: Nathan was 4, Julia was 2. I just went to read the caringbridge journal the beginning of the entry talked about the frustrations I had that day trying to schedule scans...here is the end.

Once again today it was quite hot out and the kids had some fun playing outside with our new neighbors who are the same age as they are. That was the one fairly smooth part of the day. Dinner involved Julia throwing a fit about the meat I put on her plate (though it was really a control issue). She screamed in her room the whole dinner and then finally calmed down and ate all her meat.

The kids are happy to go to bed but are being just awful lately with coming in and out of their room for one excuse or another. EVERY night we have to yell at them after repeated request for help with toys they have dropped or other trivial things.

Have I complained enough? I guess so....we all just need a few good days so we can recuperate. I think it is not the acts themselves but the cummulative effect which is wearing away at Luke and I. We did toast to our anniversary with a glass of wine at dinner (to the lovely sound of Julia screamining). We will celebrate without kids soon, we hope.

Year 8: Nathan was 5 and Julia was 3, I was 7 months pregnant with Lauren. We had a fairly tame day at home. Nathan was in the middle of battling his first relapse.

Year 9: Nathan was 6, Julia was 4, Lauren was 10 months old. Nathan, Lauren and I were headed to New York City, the next day. Luke and I (and baby Lauren) went out to lunch while the other kids were at school.

Year 10: Julia was 5, Lauren was 22 months, Nathan was gone. We weren't in the mood to celebrate. I went to choir rehearsal.

Year 11: Julia was 6, Lauren was almost 3. We got to go out! Here is the entry. I think Julia took our picture.

Year 12: Julia was 7, Lauren was almost 4. I just read the blog entry from that day. I wasn't in a very good place.

Thirteen years of marriage in a nutshell. The one sure thing in this bumpy ride is my love for Luke and his for me. That has not and will not change.

Community

2010-09-17T07:51:00.000-07:00

I went to choir rehearsal last night. It had been quite a while. I missed a lot of choir this summer due to travel and Luke's business travel. Then, in the last few weeks, I have wanted to hibernate at home. Whenever I start feeling myself go into the grief place I need to be alone and since I am rarely ever alone I try to avoid places with lots of people. Church and choir are certainly places with lots of people! Our church has thousands of members and the choir about 150. We went to church last week but went to the contemporary service which happens at the same time as one of the traditional services the choir sings in and so I only saw a few people I knew.

Last night, so many people were genuinely happy to see me. They knew I had been gone and were glad I was there. I was surprised by this. I guess that just shows where I am right now. It was a really good feeling and it underscores what I know deep down, that choir is good for my soul in so many ways. I need to push myself to go even when I am uncertain about going.

So, thank you to any Big Blue folks who might be reading this and Carol L, you were right, of course and I will keep going and be OK with missing every once in a while when I just need to.

Family Photo Dec. 2000

2010-09-15T08:28:00.000-07:00

I just ran across this - I had forgotten we had this taken. What is up with my hair? (and look at all of Luke's hair) No matter - it is the slightly teary baby that is cute here.

Timing

2010-09-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

So I just dropped Lauren off at preschool. I have been, for some reason, plunged into a grief cycle right now. Lauren being in Nathan's preschool definitely has been bringing up some feelings. I think I recall being in a similar place last September (and frankly most of the fall-Christmas). Nice.

I decided to sit at Starbucks for a little bit and maybe blog. So - I sat down but before I could get started I caught a glimpse of one of Nathan's former preschool classmates and her parents. After a while she saw me waiting for her drink and started chatting. Eventually she asked how Nathan was. She didn't know. Yikes - it has been since forever that I have had to tell someone that who actually knew him. So - I told her. It was awkward. Especially with her 10 year old at her side.

So - yeah, not feeling any better right now and the blog subject fell right into my lap. It's not really funny to think that the whole period between now and Christmas might be like it was last year. It is not really a matter of a change of attitude or something. If you ask all the people I hang around I think they would say that I do really well, that I am strong. I go through all the motions, but on a happy face as much as possible. I can't do anything about the grief within my soul though. It is there and I do my best to ignore it but sometimes I can't do anything about it.

Convenience product

2010-09-13T16:41:00.000-07:00

I was overly excited to see this on the shelves. Lauren loves spaghetti for lunch and this will cook quickly and I don't have to struggle to cut it!

Trying to breathe

2010-09-09T06:18:00.001-07:00

literally.

so - nothing to say on the blog while I deal with these stupid allergies that have me up half the night.  I am ready for a good hard freeze.  

Breckenridge

2010-09-06T08:41:00.002-07:00

On Thursday night Luke and I decided to go up to Breckenridge for the night. It had been years since we had been there. I seem to recall last being there with a double stroller (Nathan and Julia).

We left Saturday morning and got up there in about 2 hours 15 minutes. We reflected on how lucky we are to be that close to the mountains. We don't take advantage as often as we should.

After arriving in town we headed up the gondola to peak 8 where all the summer fun activities were set up. After spending an insane amount of money we had our passes and headed up the short chairlift to the alpine slide.

We rode it twice (it takes several minutes to ride to the top - it is a nice long slide!) and proceeded over to the bungee trampoline. On the way we ran into friends and stopped to chat a bit.

Then, the girls got to jump!

The girls both really enjoyed the jumping and then we went inside for some lunch. After lunch we took the big chairlift to the top of peak 8.

After that, the girls and Luke went into a maze, the girls panned for gold and went into a jumpy house. Julia accidentally caused Lauren to get a massive nosebleed and so we had to pause for a bit to take care of that. Afterwards we went down the alpine slide again and then Julia went up the climbing wall. The first part she tried was too hard and she got frustrated but the man let her move to the easier path and she had fun doing that.

We were all tired and sunburned by then so we checked into the hotel and then went swimming and soaked in the hot tub.

After some relaxing we walked to town for dinner. We had a fabulous meal!

After dinner we got some ice cream and called the shuttle for a ride back to the hotel.

All I will say about Saturday night is that we got very little sleep thanks to one member of the family. It was not good. We lazed around for quite a while in the hotel room in the morning before heading out. On our way out of town we saw the the art show had opened and so we stopped and looked at the booths for a few minutes. There was some very cool stuff.

We had picked a hike off of the internet and so we headed up to Boreas Pass. It was paved for a few miles and then unpaved for about 9 miles to the top of the pass. The scenery on the way up was breathtaking!

At the top there were old mining buildings (including a very nice outhouse!) and we took a little hike. We could have hiked to the saddle between two mountains but with the lack of sleep and Julia still a bit drugged up from multiple doses of benedryl for her allergies we didn't push it.

When we came to the top of the pass we discovered it kept going (yes, it was a PASS so that should have clued us in but we were just reading something I printed off the internet!). We found out what was on the other side and proceeded down (more unpaved roads!) to the bottom. We saw may more beautiful sights including many trees already changing colors!

We came off the dirt road in Como, Colorado. It looks to be an old railroad town. We stopped for lunch at a cool B&B there. It was a great lunch with friendly people. We might go back sometime to stay!

After lunch we headed home, but we had seen a "short cut" on a map and so we took another dirt road that cut across south park. It was a good quality road and there was more nice scenery. From there we were back on 24 and headed home.

August 2010 Pictures

2010-09-06T07:09:00.000-07:00

Not so many pictures this month without the Florrisant Hike. I'll repost that one as I decided not to make a new album with both.

My Week.

2010-09-03T07:41:00.002-07:00

So - my attempt to blog more has failed a bit this week. I'll try to recap. Oops - it is kind of long, sorry.

Monday: Lauren and I hung around in the morning and then Luke fed her lunch and took her to preschool so I could have lunch with my friend, Carol (Hi Carol!). We try to have lunch once a month or so. Carol is in my choir and I certainly haven't seen her there lately since I have have not been going so much. Monday after school the girls both have ballet - one right after another. I stayed through Lauren's lesson and then she and I left to go give her new violin to her violin teacher. Lauren doesn't get to play it quite yet but she is about to earn it. It is a 1/8 size. The shoe is for scale. It is so cute!
Dinner was a mixture of cheese tortellini with ham and broccoli with fresh bread.

Lauren also practiced violin because she is working on practicing 100 days in a row to participate in an ice cream party. She has a fake violin and bow she has been practicing on for now.

Tuesday: Lauren and I went to my friend Linda's house and I helped her with some tech stuff and chatted while the little girls played. Lauren went to preschool and then we found out Julia's music lessons were cancelled so that was actually kind of good because we had a co-ed wedding shower to go to right afterwards. The girls went over to a neighbor's house while Luke and I were gone. Most of the shower was outside under a gazebo in a house in Black Forest (treed, more rural area of the city). There is a little bit of the fall chill in the air now and it was lovely out there. The shower was fun with lots of good company.

Wednesday: Lauren started swimming lessons. Lauren likes to be in the water but is fearful of a few things so we have decided to try some lessons. The lessons are fairly pricy even though we are members but her class only has 4 kids so I think it will be good. She was afraid of a few things but the teacher (an older man) was very good with her and reassured her she would not have to do anything she is not ready for. She will be going on Monday and Wednesday mornings. Lauren went to preschool and the girls played outside after school. Dinner was beef satay with peanut sauce, rice and zucchini and summer squash.

Thursday: I need to start with Wednesday night because I was having some restless leg and general not-going-to-sleep-well vibes so I dug into my bedside table for one of the many prescriptions I have tried that have not helped my night terrors. This one I may have only tried once and must have only tried one, not two as is an option on the bottle. So - I took two and it took me until about 10:30 in the morning to be fully functional. I got up at 7:30 but was very groggy and out of it. I tried to take Lauren to the library around 11:00 but she threw the biggest fit (about her hair and her show and tell) that I ended up turning around and coming home and putting her in her room. Luke got her some lunch and took her to school (one of the many perks of Luke working from home and being able to do family things on his lunch break). I ran some errands, including a whole van-full of donations to Goodwill, and got her from school. The girls watched James and the Giant Peach after school and then did homework and music practice after dinner (roasted whole chicken, raw green beans and sweet corn). After they went to bed Luke and I went outside and turned on the fire pit and made some plans for this weekend that we are excited about. I didn't go to choir rehearsal and I am grappling with some things about that but that will be another post. I plan on resuming it full force next week even though these weeks have been light compared to our full school-year schedule. In addition choir being missinb this week, it was also missing morning bible study, Julia's music lessons, Lauren's violin lesson, volunteering at the school, and children's choirs at church (where Luke and I help out in the kindergarten choir). These things will be added next week and the weeks after so I had better gear up! It is proving hard to give up the summer habits. Luckily Lauren has afternoon preschool so we are not running around in the mornings.

Today! I sit here in my PJs and I know there will be some cleaning and organizing some things. Dinner must be planned and I think we will be watching "The Princess Protection Plan" this evening with the girls.

Boulder Creek Trail

2010-08-28T18:37:00.000-07:00

We had a great hike this morning at the Florissant Fossil Beds. We had been there last year and took the walk with the petrified tree stumps but we came back to go on a longer hike. The weather was gorgeous! 70's and sunny and almost no one else there. In fact we didn't see anyone until the last half mile. We left around 8:15 (and stopped at the Donut Mill on the way) and got there at 9:30.

I'll let the pictures do the talking.

PTSD

2010-08-27T14:38:00.000-07:00

Pat Lacey - dad of the extraordinary Will Lacey recently posted about a presentation of PTSD in parents of cancer kids. I remember being in the middle of treatment with Nathan and attending the conference in 2004 ( I think?) and hearing a similar presentation.

Today I had a moment like that and it came out of the blue. Lauren and I walked to the supermarket. When we entered the door a woman came in as well with a IV still placed on her arm and some of that flexible bandage stuff wrapped around her arm (I can't believe I have forgotten what that is called! or at least what they called it at Sloan Kettering). I only caught her out of the corner of my eye and I had a physical reaction where my stomach dropped and I caught my breath for a minute and I felt a "zing" in my brain. Then, I realized what had made that happen. It was really odd and out-of-body-ish. I surely have seen such things in the last few years but this one really caught me off guard. Strange the way the mind works. I am sure I have suppressed a hell of a lot of emotions and memories. Four and a half years of hellacious medical procedures witnessed and a painful death are sure to do that to someone. I hope they stay out of my consciousness as much as possible.

p.s. this is my third post of the day so you might want to scroll down if you are not using a feed reader.

Holding Hands

2010-08-27T07:10:00.001-07:00

Now that Lauren is going to the same preschool as Nathan and Julia it is bringing up a lot of memories.

From where I park I cut through a field to the portables outside the school. There is a well-worn unofficial path there. Yesterday as I was holding Lauren's hand walking down this path I could clearly remember doing the same with the other two. It was very sweet.

Here is a picture taken on my cell phone of Nathan and Julia holding hands on the path after picking her up from preschool.

Nathan still held my hand as a 6/7 year old. We'd get out of the van at the clinic and I'd take his hand as we walked to the door. He and I went a lot of places together, just the two of us and even though the circumstances were not always the best I feel lucky I had that time with him.

Oh my gosh - for extra cuteness I just realized that Julia is wearing Nathan's coat. She must not have had hers and he gave it to her.

Technical issues

2010-08-27T06:59:00.000-07:00

Over the years I have had people tell me they have trouble with my site. I figured out one of the problems for commenting. If you are using internet explorer you may not see the word verification words and if you just type in your comments and click "preview" you will then see the words and can post from there.

Other problems such as freezing and multiple windows opening are things I cannot replicate on any of my computers but if you have any of those problems and have any insight, let me know. I tried to change one of my gadgets to see if that will help.

Bedroom Makeovers

2010-08-26T08:40:00.000-07:00

I think I mentioned before that I have been redoing the girls rooms. A good makeover post would have before and afters but I am not a good blogger - so there you go. I do have a before of Lauren's and will see if there are any pictures of Julia's taken for another reason.

Lauren - yellow walls... before and a complete mess!:

After: green walls plus one purple

Julia: before - long ago but was blue with that bed set:

After: with lavender walls:

Both girls are very happy with the new setups. Now to keep those rooms clean!

Back to School Retrospective

2010-08-24T08:39:00.001-07:00

It's back to school time. With Lauren being in the same preschool class as Nathan and Julia (with all the same teachers!) it was making me nostalgic.

Nathan, first day of 4 year old preschool

Here you see a picture of Julia on her first day of 4 year old preschool...

...or not. Yes, I have just learned that due to the general havoc of August 2006 no such picture was taken. I just went to the caringbridge site and this was the entry from that day

Today started out a little rough. I had to wake Nathan up at 8:00 for his tutor who was coming at 9:00. He threw a big fit and was so mad about having school at home. Mostly - I think the problem was that I had woken him up.

He did really well with the tutor and afterwards told me how much fun he had.

Nathan's white count is up to .5 but he still has 0 immunity. He needs red blood and platelets tomorrow. His clinic has stopped giving red blood transfusions in the clinic (because of $$$$) and so we have to go to the hospital to get it. That stinks because of how long it takes. We are going in at 9:00 and, on hospital time - I am guessing he will be done around 4:30 ot 5:00.

Nathan will miss his tutoring for tomorrow but is set up for Wednesday and Thursday. Tomorrow they have back to school night at his school at 6:00. I am hoping to make it home in time.

Nathan got another case of hives late this afternoon. It is still a bit of a mystery why he is getting them. I think the medicine made him sleepy so he went right to bed after dinner. He also has an infected sore on his leg. They think it is either staph or strep. He has been started on an additional antibiotic to fight that. It is a little scary to think he has this infection on his skin - I hope it doesn't get into his bloodstream.

We are really hoping tosee some signs of immunity soon. Once he shows some signs we will start planning our trip to NY and some tests here as well. He has been having some hip pain so I am a little concerned about that.

So - that's the scoop - I am hoping for some days off of anything eventful to write about soon.

And what I wrote about it a few days later

Julia started preschool on Monday and seems to be enjoying it. She has the same teachers and classroom and many of the same children as last year and so it is an easy transition for her. She goes four afternoons a week. She is so funny. At dinner we were talking about friends who adopted a baby from China. Julia said that it was a very long way to China and it must take a really long time to drive there! Nathan chimed in that he bet they had to change planes alot to get to China. Guess you can tell who is our very literal traveler!

So - here is her school photo from September that year.

Julia 4 year old preschool - Fall 2006

OK - now to Lauren on her first day in that class

Lauren - first day of 4 year old preschool

one more, after, where you can see her better

I do have Julia's picture from her first day of 3 year old preschool...

Julia - 2005 - first day of 3 year old preschool

OK - so now I am just going to post some more back to school pics - they haven't had the same first day ever so there are different pictures:

Julia - fist day of third grade

Julia and Lauren first day 2010

Lauren and Julia - first day 2009

Lauren - first day of preschool 2009

Julia (first day of 1st grade) and Lauren 2008

Nathan - first day of 1st grade - 2006

Julia - first day of kindergarten - 2007

Nathan - first day of Kindergarten - 2005

Weak

2010-08-22T21:07:00.000-07:00

I was glad to be back at church and at choir today. If you recall, two weeks ago I had Luke take the girls so I could be alone at home and brace myself for the upcoming week. Then, last week, with Luke leaving again we "attended" church in our pajamas on the couch with the livestream though the mac mini on the big TV. We'd been out of town the last few also.

Here comes the however to being glad to be back. I only sang the first service because:

1. Surprise hymn from Nathan's funeral
2. Sermon that started out with a dead kid story
3. One of points of sermon is that people look at those who suffer to bear witness/figure out how that withstand their suffering and still keep the faith.
4. Ends with the end of dead kid story and how the 2 year old brother saw dead brother ascend to heaven with Jesus singing "Jesus Loves Me"

After all that - I didn't think I could go back up there and do another service. I think I have mentioned before that the online streaming does some extreme close-ups so I pretty much need to hold it together.

So - I failed at the bearing witness part by being to weak to go back up there, but oh well!

Luke and I got coffee and a bagel and discussed some things that needed to be discussed. Hopefully next week will be better.

Family Room

2010-08-19T12:05:00.013-07:00

Sometime in 1996 or 1997 after Luke and I moved in together, we decided we needed some real furniture.

After college I moved to DC and lived with my aunt and uncle a few months until I got a job and a place. I rented a room in a townhouse and there was a loveseat for me to use. Luke moved to DC a year later and when I met him he had those green plastic outside chairs for seating inside his apartment. Later an old recliner made its way there.

So - we when combined households neither of us had a couch. I think Luke also had a papasan. So one of us could sit in the papasan and the other in the recliner. I went off one night and found a red couch and loveseat at a going out of business sale and they were comfy and I bought them. Luke still remembers me calling him and telling him they were red (he was dubious).

I paid someone to haul them to our apartment and they have served us well ever since.

our first Christmas

(see couches in the sides)

Right when we moved into our house in Colorado

Once we got our dog, Ellie, we discovered that not only did her hair show up pretty badly on the couches, it actually would entwine itself into the fabric and it involved hours with a vacuum to get just some of the hair off. So we started using a sheet over them and then moved one loveseat out of there and have had a series of slipcovers over the years. Recently we finally declared the family-room an no-toy storage room and moved the toy box out and the loveseat back in and I bought new slipcovers in order to have two matching covers. These were even uglier slipcovers (on clearance) because the couch was beginning to squeak and there were some springs sticking out the back and I knew their time was short.

Grandma Kathy with Nathan
(and red sheet )

with tan slipcover
(and Nathan wearing
Daddy's shoes)

Nathan on brown suede slipcover

All this to say - we finally replaced those couches! Well, and you know how it goes, I knew the nice new couches would make the ugly computer desk look even uglier so I replaced that too. I felt the same about the ugly side table but covered it instead of replacing it.

I should warn you that I can not decorate so don't expect to be impressed. I am just thrilled it looks so much neater and modern in here! My last project is to paint the fireplace black. I have some special paint to do it with. It may fail but it can't actually look worse than the worn out brass so it is worth a shot. I'll let you know how it goes.

cream slipcovers right before we got new couches

Lauren and Julia at ugly desk
(can't see how ugly it is here)

New couches and desk

another view

and a last view (plus the hairy dog whose hair

now brushes right off the new couches!)

Ice Cream Truck

2010-08-18T08:20:00.000-07:00

As part of bedroom redo for the girls and also family room makeover (will post on that later when I am finally done) I needed to swap out some plastic drawers in the basement with a different set so Julia could have the basement set. In these drawers were a bunch of cars and trucks. I went through them and then through the two other large containers of cars and trucks we have. Lauren helped me and had fun playing with them which made it easier. I didn't get rid of any, just redistributed them. These were all Nathan's, of course. He LOVED cars and trucks and given that he was "sick" for 4.5 of his 7 years he was given a whole lot of them. He particularly loved them from about age 2-6. So, yesterday I was on a quest to find a specific truck; the ice cream truck.

He was diagnosed in April 2003 at 2 years, 9 months. He and I spent most of the days that summer in the clinic either receiving chemo or blood transfusions. These were all day events. It was up to me to keep a 2 / 3 year old happy for 7 hours in a small room. So, we spent most of these hours on the floor with his cars and trucks. At this young age he wanted to interact with the vehicles. Ice Cream Truck would drive around asking all the other vehicles what kind of ice cream they wanted and serving them. I have such clear memories of playing with the Ice Cream Truck with him and can almost hear his little voice playing. It is a bittersweet memory but these kinds of memories are becoming more sweet than bitter. It sucks that these clinic visits were such a part of his life, but on the other hand, they were part of his life experience and remembering him, particularly at that age, means remembering these days.

I found Ice Cream Truck and it now sits on my desk.

Egg Cups

2010-08-17T07:51:00.002-07:00

Growing up for many years our Sunday morning breakfast's centerpiece was a boiled egg served in an egg cup. I suspect this started when we were living in England for a year, but I will have to ask them. At some point we stopped tis tradition and I hadn't had an egg that way in 25 years or so.

Recently, when shopping in Manitou Springs with my in-laws, I ran across some egg cups and, more importantly, the egg cutter! I purchased them and put them in the cabinet and forgot about them for a month or two but I finally got them out the other day.

Luke was wondering what the point was but I think he agreed with me after eating his that you get the optimal ratio of white to yolk eating them this way. It is funny as a parent to realize the things that mattered to you as a kid. I'm guessing a great majority of these things are just normal at the time and only by repeating them you end up creating a childhood memory of something you never intended.

So - a few pictures...one very blurry one...sorry.

Night Terrors

2010-08-12T07:25:00.000-07:00

I am sure I have written here several times about my night terrors. They have become more cyclical in the last year which helps me to endure them. The current run of them is really beating me up. This current batch is lasting for HOURS and involves mice/rats in my bedroom. I am repeatedly jumping out of bed, turning on the lights, putting on my glasses, generally running around my room. Last night I jumped off the end of my bed over the footboard. I am really glad my room is fairly clean right now because I could have landed on something pretty hard.

I am not terribly rested this morning and really need to continue on the current project of painting and moving furniture and books around the girls rooms/family room. More on that later.

Sloth

2010-08-09T16:00:00.000-07:00

What I have done today:

Woke up at 5:30 not feeling too well. Since there was a little daylight and chirping birds I was up for the day.

Commenced sneezing and snuffling and rubbing my eyes for the next 9 hours or so. I think I am allergic to Pueblo West.

Laid down with my computer.

Cooked some frozen sausage.

Tried to use my computer and dozed off for a few minutes.

Showered!

Took Lauren to her violin lesson.

Ate lunch.

Laid down with my computer and slept for a little while more only interrupted by children a million times.

Emptied the dishwasher.

Made coffee.

Sitting UPRIGHT at my computer desk.

Some notes:

I don't nap unless there is something wrong with me. In this case I guess is is the severe allergies today. Not that I am against naps I just can't usually.

Left to do today:

put dirty dishes in the dishwasher

think of something to feed the poor girls (with Luke being gone so much I really need to get over my cooking only for me and the kids depression and actually cook for them but I am not sure I even have anything to cook in the house)

Put kids to bed

Watch Bachelor Pad because that would just top off the worthlessness of my day perfectly.

Talk on the phone to Luke or perhaps be on the phone with him in silence if we are both too tired to really talk but attempt to anyway.

Here goes

2010-08-08T07:23:00.001-07:00

OK - so I am blogging today in the spirit of just blogging and airing my dirty laundry (well, not really but you'll see)

I am home alone this Sunday morning. I sent Luke and the girls to church without me.

Luke has been traveling all summer for work. Since May he has been gone most weeks or has been with us at our parents houses but not home. He is in the middle of a three week stretch right now. He drove home from Illinois with us last Saturday and left Monday morning. So, the girls were in their usual post-grandparent/vacation emotional down state and daddy-is-gone was added on top of it. Luke got home on Thursday night with a bad cough, tired and just not feeling well. He is leaving again after church. Yesterday I lost it for a few minutes and told him I needed him to take the girls to church without me so I could have some alone time or else I might not survive this upcoming week.

A quick side-note to how our weekend has been. Back and forth with 2 sellers of beds for Julia with the end result of the sale falling through and a very disappointed Julia. Also made all the effort to go to the pool yesterday and arrived with it closed for a "code brown" (I heard it described that way). Use your imagination. Luckily the indoor pool was open but, still..

So - I am home and need to do some baking. I am off to a BBQ in Pueblo west for a friend who is swinging through town on a "trip of a lifetime" for her daughter who is terminally ill with BAtten's Disease. I wrote about her here. Later I will have our usually Sunday night dinner with two other families, minus Luke :(

blogging

2010-08-05T18:40:00.000-07:00

I have been neglecting the blog for quite some time. I am trying to decide if I should ramp it up and if I can even keep it up if I do. It is hard to know where the line is drawn between interesting tidbits of my day and boring recounts about boring things that a stay-at-home mom does. So..we'll see.

July 2010 Pictures

2010-08-02T09:37:00.002-07:00

Last part of July

2010-07-15T20:17:00.000-07:00

Somehow my soul seems to know when big grief moments are arriving even before my mind does. Three years ago must have been a bad day. I could look at the journal and find out but I know. He died 2 weeks later. It is hot and sunny. It is bright, like the day he died and Luke carried his body out into the blinding sunlight to the hearse/van. I just can't avoid the feelings that come up this time of year.

Music

2010-07-14T18:59:00.000-07:00

When I was five I started cello lessons and then piano lessons soon after that. I also was in a children's choir for many years. I always promised myself that I would do the same for my children. Julia missed out on the early start mainly due to Nathan's illness and death and my subsequent early grief. I finally got her started with voice lessons this spring and we just added piano with the same teacher and extended the lesson. She did well at her first lesson yesterday and I am hopeful her "late" start is OK (she is 8).

Lauren told me she wanted to play the violin and I found her a good teacher pretty quickly. Her teacher requires that for the little ones (she is 4.5) a parent must learn along for a while. So - I am about to embark on violin lessons. My parents had my brother's old full-size violin in their closet for about 25 years. I brought it home from their house and took it to a repair shop. Today I finally picked it up and attempted to play it.

I think I did OK but it just made me wish for a cello! I don't have one anymore and a decent one is around $1000 so I am not just going to go out and buy one. I was trying to figure out how to play vibrato on the violin and am a bit dismayed the technique seems to be very different from the cello. I held the violin like a cello and could do it.

However, since I am now to learn violin I need to get over wishing it was a cello. A violin is much more portable. I am hoping that I can make quick progress and enjoy it. I have no doubt I can do what I need to for the sake of helping Lauren but I am kind of hoping to elevate my playing of it for my own enjoyment. We'll see...off to my first lesson tomorrow.

June 2010 Pictures

2010-07-10T08:03:00.000-07:00

A note about these pictures - some were taken by my in-laws and not me and I have decided to save all the South Carolina pictures for July since the trip started at the very end of June.

Completely different!

2010-06-29T17:30:00.001-07:00

We are in Hilton Head visiting my parents (who retired here from Illinois - I am not a southern girl)

It is a different as Colorado as you can get. The humidity I could do without..it is seriously hard for me to deal with. We have been outside on the golf course (my parents live on the 9th tee) and I finally had to give up and come inside to the A/C.

I AM enjoying the different birds and plant life here. We also enjoyed the ocean this afternoon (but no pictures of that yet).

There is dew here!

these crazy squirrels always are splayed out like this on this tree

A meme

2010-06-27T11:22:00.001-07:00

I rarely do memes but for some reason was compelled to do one today. Feel free to stop reading now if you don't like them. I got this one from here.

What color are your socks right now? I hate socks - only wear them when I absolutely have to - so that means never in the summer

What are you listening to right now? Lauren's mp3 player - A song from Glee

What was the last thing you ate? Just made pasta with grape tomatoes, garlic, basil and parmesan cheese for lunch (trying to use some things up form the fridge)

Can you drive a stick? yes - I learned how to in college because my then boyfriend's car was a stick. So - probably had driven it last in 1994. Two years ago we got a new car and it is a stick so I had to relearn. It didn't take too long.

Last person you spoke to on the phone? I think it was my mom yesterday morning.

How old are you today? 37 years, nine months and one day.

What is your favorite sport to watch on TV? College Football. When Luke and I were newly married and just moved to Colorado we would wake up and just turn on the TV Sat. morning and watch Gameday in bed (mountain time, mind you). We have no cable now and have kids so it seems we rarely watch college football anymore.

What is your favorite drink? Hmm... I'd say Izze (either clemantine or grapefruit)

Have you ever dyed your hair? Yes but not until I was in New York city in 2003 for 6 weeks and decided to give it a try out of a desperate need to control something in my life. I am planning on some highlights in a few weeks.

Favorite food? Popcorn with real butter

What is the last movie you watched? Sweet Home Alabama on netflix instant streaming while folding laundry yesterday.

Favorite day of the year? I am not sure.

How do you vent anger? I yell, I guess.

What was your favorite toy as a child? probably my little people, doll furniture, building blocks, and shoe boxes all used together to make elaborate homes for the people.

Favorite Season? In Colorado it is summer but in warmer/humid climates it would be fall.

Cherries or Blueberries?Neither actually - I don't choose to eat them but will eat them if they are in something.

Living situation? with the family

When was the last time you cried? Hah - well, I at the very least tear up every day. You know, the dead child thing...so I did tear up this morning during church as we sung "How Great Thou Art" because it was sung at Nathan's funeral.

What is on the floor of your closet right now? My closet is actually pretty clean. The one weird thing in it is a container with the Lego Star Wars Jabba's Sand ship set that was Nathan's and built right before he died. Somehow it has never found a different home although occasionally the girls ask to play with it.

What are you most afraid of? another one of my kids dying

Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburgers? plain with lettuce, tomato and onion. I used to be a plain cheeseburger girl but rarely do cheese anymore.

Favorite dog breed? I like terriers - schnauzers in particular.

Favorite day of the week? Saturday

How many states have you lived in? Illinois, Indiana, Virginia and Colorado

Diamonds or pearls? Diamonds.

What is your favorite flower? Sunflowers

Did you get an H1N1 vaccine? No.

Feel free to do this one and let me know.

Julia's Voice Recital

2010-06-24T10:14:00.002-07:00

Julia began taking voice lessons this spring. She recently had recital at a nursing home (so very informal and lots of people milling about)

Here are the videos.

Another year

2010-06-16T13:55:00.000-07:00

Yes - Today would have been Nathan's Tenth birthday. What can I say? It just sucks that he is not here with us. This is the third birthday he has missed. I want him back.

May 2010 Pictures

2010-06-06T09:26:00.002-07:00