Archive - 2009

A Bit of Excitement

So there I was, minding my own business, wrapping up some last  minute things before putting Bip down for his nap.  He and Boo were playing Wii Fit and it was Boo’s turn.  Bip was sitting in a little chair in front of the fireplace.  What I didn’t see was that he was actually tipping his chair back.

Oh yes, he did indeed fall back and hit his head right on the edge of the brick hearth.

You know, with all my children, I have never had to deal with a head wound.  I’ve heard that they can bleed a lot and you know what?  It’s true.  I ran to poor Bip, scooped him up and carried him to the kitchen, dripping blood as we went.

I put a clean wash cloth to his head and then instructed Boo to clean up Bip’s hands which were quite bloody and was scaring him.  Seriously, there was a lot of blood.  I had Pumpkin Girl call Philip so he could start on his way home in case we needed to visit the ER.  By the time he arrived, we had Bip, me, and the floor all cleaned up.  Bip had on a nice clean shirt (at a clean chest, which had also gotten covered in blood!) and was settling down.

It was hard to look at his wound since it is in his hair, but as far as we can tell, it doesn’t need any further care.  Philip helped me settle him down for his nap and then returned to work.

Later in the day, Pumpkin Girl and I got in the car to go to ballet class.  Can you believe it – the car wouldn’t start!  Last night it had been snowing on our parked car and when we got home, the passenger door was stiff and snow was caked on the window, so I had trouble closing it.  I guess it didn’t close completely and the overhead light stayed on and drained the battery.  Thank God we didn’t need to take Bip to the ER!

Bip seems to be fine now, other than the bump and his matted hair.  When we got home from ballet, I asked him how he was doing.  He said, “Bad hair day,” and pointed sadly to the back of his head.

Sadness

I really was going to write this over the weekend, but Saturday morning I was pulling on my socks and I managed to rip my right index fingernail off, halfway down.  It bled and hurt.  Alot.  So much I cried when I had to get a new bandaid.  Hello?  Band-Aid brand?  Whatever happened to the no-stick pad?  Cuz it stuck and naked nail bed hurts. Really badly!!

So I really can’t use that finger much, which makes it hard to type and really interferes with my computer games household chores.  But I’m here now, hurty finger and all, making about 12 typing errors per sentence, but here it goes…

One of the most striking things about our new home was the view.  All the people that traipsed in and out of our since we moved in, the locksmith, carpet cleaner, movers, furniture repair guys…all of them commented about the view.  Of all the windows that face the back yard, only the bathroom and bedroom had window treatments.  It was just too beautiful to block.

Well, the city, in its infinite wisdom decided that the dry creek behind us needed to be cleared of the trees.  Something about improving drainage and delaying erosion.  I’m thinking that tree roots help with erosion, but then again, I’m not in the Army Corps of Engineers.

Now our backyard view is pitiful.  It’s like mighty Samson, shorned, betrayed, weakened and blind.  It hurts to look at.  It hurts to know that this view, this one thing was our home’s crowning glory.  It hurts that it will never, ever look the same again.

Here is the view from the deck, looking to the right of our house, as it was the day we bought the house.
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Here it is now. Make sure you click to make the picture bigger so you can truly appreciate the horror.
rsz_dsc02038I know, I know.  I think the drainage pipe is a nice touch, don’t you?  Reminds me of the L.A. River.

Here is the old view, looking to the left.
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And now…
rsz_dsc02036Oh look – neighbors I never knew I had.

We were spared one single aspen and one other tree behind our house.
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I know they are just trees.  I know that in the grand scheme of life, this isn’t that important.  But I loved those trees.  Looking out our windows brought me such joy.  Sitting on the deck, listening to the wind through the aspens, spying the deer walk along our fence, getting a snack – this is exactly what I thought of when I thought of Colorado.  Even though we were moving to a big city, being surrounded by such Coloradoness was the unspoken dream of my heart.  And I wanted aspens. Imagine my joy at finding all that I wanted.

So my heart broke last week, listening to the chain saws and mulcher turning my trees into wood chips.  I’ll admit it, I cried.  As I sat in the office window one night and could see my across the creek neighbors, I realized we would need curtains.  I’ll never be able to sit outside with my coffee and enjoy the beauty of nature.

It’s tough, accepting the things you can’t change, losing the things you love so much.  I’m sure there is a lesson here, but I don’t really want to know what it is right now.  I’m such an Eeyore anyway, always sad about something and now I’m mourning my trees.

Halloween Snack Mix

I thought I’d share the recipe for our favorite Halloween snack mix.  It’s so easy and so yummy!

Fall Snack Mix

The whole recipe is this: equal parts (like 1 or 2 cups each) of M &Ms, peanuts and candy corn.  Mix together and display fallishly!

Well, I said I wanted snow

We woke up to snow this morning.

rsz_dsc02012This is from my front porch, looking across to the park.

rsz_dsc02015It’s not a lot of snow, but still…it’s October! And it stuck around til lunch time.

Of course, this was the scene, back in September:
rsz_dsc02004(I know it’s hard to see, but trust me, that’s snow.)

So if we wanted snow, I guess we picked the right place to live.

End of an Era

It would surely be some type of crime if I did not tell you that today, right now as I type (Sept 30), is Philip’s very last day in the Army.

I was there with him from the beginning, on the day he was commissioned.  I kept the homefires burning and the post office busy during Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm.  We moved 10 times, to 8 different states (we hit some of them twice) and one foreign country.

He was a tank platoon leader, basic training company commander, intelligence officer, mentor and friend.

He jumped out of airplanes, presided over a court martial, worked on the Crisis Action Team at the Pentagon after 9-11, and brought to life a global satellite communications network.

He earned his spurs, the Order of St. George, a Bronze Star and the Legion of Merit.

It’s been quite a ride.

Disneyland Never Gets Old

Our impromptu trip to Disneyland was success.  We were able to pull it off because of the military appreciation tickets that Disney was offering, by staying at the Disneyland Hotel for free with our vacation club points and getting good air fare.  It all just came together like it was meant to be.

We were able to spend a whole day with my grandparents and nuclear-extended family (as opposed to the whole, entire clan). Pumpkin Girl just loves my grandparents house – she says she feels cozy there.  The boys love it, too.  It’s hard not to have fun when you are surrounded by love! The next day, my cousin April and her son joined us at Disneyland, which was a nice treat for all the kids.

I won’t bore you with all the details, since we seem to have a Disney trip every year.  But here are some of the highlights:

Boo rode on the Haunted Mansion, with his eyes open this time.

I went on the Matterhorn for the first time in years.  I’ve been pregnant during almost every trip, except the last one and that time the Matterhorn was closed.

In an attempt to curb the souvenir buying frenzy this year, we limited the children to 2 souvenirs each.  We suggested that they keep lists during the week of the things they saw and we’d come back later to buy their top 2 selections.  This worked wonderfully for Pumpkin Girl who divided her list into three parts, ranked by how much she wanted each one.  The plan totally backfired on me when I told Bip to put the stuffed Eve (from Wall E) on his list, and when he talked about it constantly and was very, very sure that that was something he wanted, returned to buy it…and it was sold out.  As in, the whole darn park was out.  I spent 3 days looking in every darn store, asking  cast members, all in vain.  We were successful in finding her before we left, so a catastrophe was averted.
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Boo coolly turned down Jedi Training Academy again this year, stating matter of factly that he was already a trained Jedi.  Pumpkin Girl, however, wanted to attend.  When the Jedi master began choosing Padawans, I told her to jump up and down and wave both her arms and make lots of noise.  She was chosen, trained and then battled  Darth Vader. He found her lack of pants faith disturbing.  She defeated him anyway.  She’s fierce.
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We happened to be at the right place at the right time when the Monorail arrived and asked to ride in the rear compartment.  These private compartments are bigger now, so our whole family fit and we got an amazing view on our way into the park.
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Hopefully, this trip will give us our Disney fix for a while.  Though I hear another cruise is in the plans…

More Colorado Fun

So…life in Colorado continues to be interesting.  On the night we returned from Disneyland, I woke up in the middle of the night to a strange sound.  In my overtired and overly tanned but not quite sunburnt state, I was dreaming that I was hearing the astroblaster from the Buzz Lightyear ride that we’d ridden about two or three times a day for the last 5 days.  When I woke, I heard the sound again and then again.  And then I realized it was that sort of horn sound from a police car.  I was wondering vaguely what might be going on when I fell back to sleep.

Later I learned that two houses down from us, a neighbor had left their garage door open and called the police…not because of a burgular but because a ginormous papa bear had gotten into their garage, opened their freezer and had pulled out and eaten their stash of deer meat, buffalo steaks and ribs.

The lesson here – put your freezer in the basement.

Did I ever mention the three bears we saw walking across the street one day while on our way home from the library?  Philip saw those same bears, a mama and her two cubs, going through another neighbor’s trashcan on trash day.

And then tonight, as I was sitting through an hour and 15 minutes briefing for the parents of Religious Ed students, I learned what the security procedure  is if they have to lock down the campus because of bears or mountain lions.  Apparently, both have been known to cruise around and a mountain lion was once spotted sitting in the tree right outside the church.

And to top it all off, it snowed all day on Monday.  Yes, this past Monday, which just happened to be the last day of summer.   I’m just glad that we have enough room in the children’s closets to store out of season clothes so we were able to get cold weather clothes out without much fuss.

I gotta tell you, I really like it here!

Remembering

Five years ago today, our sweet baby Rebecca entered our Lord’s Heavenly Kingdom.

I’d like to say that it has gotten easier, but it hasn’t.  You don’t really recover completely from the death of a child.  It’s not the natural order of things.  It’s just not right.

The pain does dull over time.  It’s like a scar – it’s always there, a constant reminder.  Sometimes it hurts so badly it feels like you’ll never be able to stand up.  But as time goes by, it doesn’t hurt as sharply.  But it never goes away.

Our family not only survives each day without Rebecca, but we are managing to thrive.  Not because of some great inner strength, but because of faith.  Our God has promised us that we will see Rebecca again and be with her for all eternity.  We know that she is basking in His glory right now.

I’m happy for her.  I really am.  She was wonderfully and perfectly made and she is now free from all human trappings.  She is the lucky one.

But I miss her. I miss her fat legs and soft cheeks.  I miss the way I’d stroke her head while she nursed and she’d grab my hand.  I miss her turning my cheek to kiss me.  I miss the mischief in her eyes.

When an adult dies, we mourn for what used to be.  When a child dies, we mourn for what should have been.

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