We woke up to snow this morning.
This is from my front porch, looking across to the park.
It’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:
(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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Hopefully, this trip will give us our Disney fix for a while. Though I hear another cruise is in the plans…
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!
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.
So…Thursday night our conversation turned to Disneyland and Philip said, “We should go!”
Friday morning we booked the hotel, flights and picked up the military appreciation tickets at the local Army base.
And as I type it is Saturday night and I’m in the Disneyland Hotel, ready to start enjoy our impromtu vacation.
We’re probably crazy, but we’re enjoying ourselves. I’ll see you when we get back home…
“Mama,” Bip said to me during lunch. “I have someting to tell you, but I didn’t want to get in trouble.”
“Okaaay…,” says I, wondering what sort of mess I was about to be cleaning up.
“I had a little accident in my underwear and pants.”
“Oh, Ok, well, that happens. Did you change your underwear?” I asked.
“No.”
Of course he didn’t. But at least this was minor and well within the scope of my parenting abilities. “Well, you need to get clean underwear when you have an accident.”
“No, no, no, mama! Listen – you just leave them alone and leave them alone and leave them alone. And then…you have…”
“Clean underwear.”
We started school three weeks ago. I knew we’d be feeling sad that our house guests had left and Philip was gone, too. Our Nomad friends had to be moving on to their own brand, new home. I don’t blame them and even though their visit was a short one, it was a great one! Unfortunately, their leaving coincided with Philip’s return for Washington, DC. In a great feat of government efficiency, his employer wanted him to return for an all expense paid (by the taxpayers) trip to undergo a polygraph and psychological evaluation. Even though he is going to be working the exact same job that he’s held for the last 4 years, it was important to determine whether or not he is the type of person that would sell our nation’s secrets and then lie about it. We’re assuming he passed.
So anyhoo, left alone for the first time in a new city, I thought it best to dive into school. The children were predictably excited to be starting American history with Sonlight’s Core 3. Their new school books had been waiting for them for about 3 weeks, just taunting them.
Our first day back took forever. We’ve never taken the summer off before and I was astounded at how much math knowledge was lost and how much hand holding was needed. However, Boo and Pumpkin Girl were very supportive and assured me that in a few days, it would all come back to me.
After a late afternoon nap with Bip, I herded everyone in the car to go register Pumpkin for ballet. It took longer than I’d anticipated because I missed my turn and had to backtrack, and it was rush hour. Actually, rush hour had nothing to do with it because rush hour traffic here is like normal DC traffic. In fact, I didn’t even realize it was “rush hour” until after we’d finished with the dance studio and someone piped up that they were hungry.
So we headed off to the McDonald’s near our house 1)because kids can never get enough of McD’s, 2)Bip had been trying to get a beany baby Grimace in his happy meal since we moved here and 3) they have a play area. Sadly, they were out of beany babies, but we ate there anyway.
After we ate, I let the children play. I heard a crack of thunder and wondered if I’d remembered to close the upstairs windows at home. It wasn’t worth worrying about or dragging the children home for, so I turned my attention back to watching people go through the drive through. Then it started to rain. Actually, it started to pour. And you know what – this particular McDonald’s has a skylight-type roof over the play yard and the rain was really loud. And it got louder and then I noticed the hail bouncing off ground outside. Just pea size hail, no big deal. Hail storms don’t really last that long, right?
Right.
All hell broke loose and the hail kept coming and grew bigger and bigger. At some point the noise in the play yard was deafening, so I gathered up the children and took them into the restaurant, which had a normal, quieter roof. There we watched the hail pound the parking lot and cover both it and the cars with ice. It was really quite impressive, except for the fact that our car was out there, getting pounded by hail that was now the size of peach pits.
After the storm passed, the children kept playing while we waited for the ice to melt. I wasn’t too anxious to see what sort of damage was done to the car. I skipped my usual iced vanilla latte out of guilt for going out for fast food and getting the car all dinged up. Turns out, it wasn’t that bad. A couple of spots may or may not be hail damage, but nothing to get fixed right away. We’ll probably wait until the car looks more like a golf ball before heading to a body shop.
Upon our return home, we found our upstairs windows open and hail on the (brand new) roof, in the grass and on the back deck. We wiped up the water on the window sills and went out to play in the ice. We took some pictures for the blog.
Our piano has arrived. A week later than expected, but it’s here. When asked about the delay, the mover said “it was bigger than we’d expected, so it took longer than we expected.”
I’m wondering if maybe they had strapped it to their backs and hiked over the Rockies with it. No matter, it is here now.
We were actually pretty impressed by the movers. They got this 900+ pound piano off the truck, up two porch steps and into the house in just a couple of minutes. As they stood there catching their breath, one guy said, “There’s no air up here!” I can’t imagine the effort needed to move a piano at 6,500 feet above sea level!
They reassembled the legs and pedals and moved it into position, then one guy lifted it while the other slipped the cups under the wheels.
Pumpkin Girl and I are thrilled to have it. It looks great in our house and it sounds beautiful, even though it probably needs to be tuned. I have to say that I love this piano! My mom has been saving it for me, waiting for us to stop moving around. And now we have and here it is! I’m having fun playing it again and I’m working on getting a couple of my more impressive pieces back up to speed. And now I’ve got to find a piano teacher for Pumpkin.
I think I’ve mentioned that I was high school friends with Glen Phillips of Toad the Wet Sprocket.
And another high school friend ended up being pretty darn famous, too.
Now it turns out that I once went to the movies with one of this season’s “Dancing With the Stars” contestants. Oh yes, little ol’ me went on a date with Chuck “the Iceman” Liddell.
I haven’t seen him since high school, but back then he wasn’t exactly dancing material. He was a wrestler and football player and I won a lot of money off of him during the 49ers Super Bowl winning season of 1986-87.
I’ve never watched “Dancing With the Stars”, but I think I’ll be tuning in this season. I think hot chocolate in my 49ers mug will be in order.
(yes, all 3 guys knew each other. I think the four of us were in the same honors English class as sophomores.)
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