Other summer pics

C and I got to spend some time together while the littles were finishing up gymnastics.

 

Nana & Papa's pool is open!

 

Pokemon clock I made for V's bedroom makeover-Dollar store clock that I took the cover off of and added clipart from the internet.

 

Tree climbing!

 

H upping his grilled cheese game by adding bacon!

 

Made some bibs & burb cloths for a friend who finally was able to adopt :D

 

 

The kids got tattoos at the farmer's market.

 

 

We get lots of visits from the wildlife-baby racoons;

Chipmunks;

bunnies

 

V Pokemon party

V had a few people to Nana's pool for a Pokemon themed swim party.

We made our own cards while waiting for everyone to arrive and I laminated them while the kids swam. 

 

I painted these golf balls (we find them behind the house each spring!) and V & H hid them for guests to find.

 

Giant Chinese lantern I painted for decor.  It's now in her room, which will be decorated in Pokemon soon, as I ordered a bunch of bedding, etc. for her birthday present.

 

Hand drawn Pikachu goodie bags.

 

Decorated bubbles for goodie bags.

 

Sour jellybeans divided by color and decorated with different elements, 1 per goodie bag.

 

The kids helped me wrap the chocolate bars for the goodie bags.

 

I decorated little notebooks for the goodie bags.

 

Decorated Pikachu balloons using sharpie and punched out red, black and white circles.

 

Evee die cut invites designed and cut with my Wishblade cutter.

End of the school Year & Canada Day

We had our annual PJ & Screen day to kick off the summer.

 

 

 

 

V started swim team 3 x a week.  Only lightning will stop practice....

 

 

She walked in the town's Canada Day parade with the swim team handing out candy to spectators.

 

Then we met up with family at the park to watch the fireworks. C waited with a funnel cake.

H lit up the night until the fireworks started.

 

 

What I've been busy doing....

I got purple hair. Probably just for the summer, then I'll be back to brown, I think.

I've tried two paint parties.

 

 

 

Spring 2017

V had a busy spring at school.

The garden is happily growing back after a long winter, including a rouge parsnip...

We added stepping stones we made of cement and colorful stones from the dollar store.

The farmer's market started back up and there was a competition to build a Inukshuk out of vegetables and submit a picture to win a prize.

 

The next week the kids could get a free planter with a strawberry plant, basil plant and grape tomato plant.

We took V's friend with us.

 

H decided we needed to make an apple pie after seeing the baskets of apples at the farmer's market.  He declared using the slicer peeler made it the "most fun chore ever."

 

The kids rebuilt the Gnome Town better than ever after the tree disaster back in March, but this time in a safer place next to the house.  Notice the hand hewn log fence by C.

 We put lattice on an existing side fence to add some privacy for the hot tub.  We'll still need to redo the gate, but this will provide some much needed privacy.

I had a lovely Mother's Day with lots of gifts from the kids.

We did some home improvement to try to warm up our basement.

We put in a REAL door including frame in the back of our closet, which is the door to the cold cellar.

 

We added insulation under the stairs.

 

We reconnected a return air duct that had been disconnected when our basement was remodeled by the previous owners.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grandparents

In the midst of finishing up the school year in June, my maternal grandmother passed away.  I flew out to Washington to say my goodbyes and spend time with her and other family for a week.  Grandma was 84 and the toughest gal around.  We thought for sure she’d outlive us all and was fine when I saw her at Christmas.  About 2 months previously she developed a platelet disorder that caused uncontrolled bleeding and bruising. Traditional therapies were not working well so she’d been in and out of the hospital.  Due to complications from one of the drugs she was on, she was susceptible to an infection that ended up in her brain and left eye and she went on hospice Monday the 12^th and was able to get home on the 13^th as my dad’s a hospice nurse at the hospital she was in for her latest visit and was able to pull some strings to get her home very quickly.  I arrived to see her Tuesday afternoon when she was still recognizing us and able to tell us she loved us and that she was ready to go.  She was comatose Thursday and Friday afternoon, 10 minutes after her last requested visitor arrived, she stopped breathing and passed away.  They celebrated their 63^rd wedding anniversary on Monday with a priest to bless their marriage at the hospital and all their 7 children surrounding them. I think the entire time I was there the least amount of family & friends in the room was 3.

 

Grandma had a huge garden that was her pride and joy.  She canned fruits and vegetables (her dill pickles were the best in the world, hands down).  She was a lively dancer who preferred polkas.  She once danced on a broken toe for 2 weeks because taking care of it would have interrupted her dance schedule.  She danced in parades, she did road trips, hikes and was always very busy.  She would say it kept her out of trouble.  She did charitable work driving people who couldn’t drive themselves or delivering food or rent checks to those who needed them or visiting those who couldn’t get out and about as well as they used to.  She made meals out of the garden and what was available and it was always from scratch and delicious.  She would poke fun at us all to help us develop a tough skin, but was good natured about taking as well as she gave. 

 

As she and grandpa always said, they were never rich, but always had enough.  They had 7 children and had a special relationship with each one. 

 

One of the hardest things about living away from a family that you are close to emotionally is figuring out what to do when you get “the call.”  My paternal grandfather was our first experience-just a few months after we’d moved to Canada.  After much soul searching we decided that no matter the cost, when we get the call that “you need to come” I get on a plane.  I don’t take the kids, just me (this could change as they get older), but I come and I sit and I spend time while they are still with us.  I do not go back for the funeral.  The decision we’ve made for us is that it’s more important to us to spend the time while they are still alive, esp if they are still able to know what’s going on around them than to spend time at the funeral.  I’m lucky to have a family that is much loved and I know that the church and funeral service will be packed with family and friends and know that my presence while it would be appreciated, will not be sorely missed.

 

My grandfather ended up living on 2 more years, but that time I spent with him and grandma was my official goodbye and I’ll never forget that time.  While I still got to see him over the following  years, with children around and everything else, the week that we were mostly alone, just grandma, grandpa and I, was really our farewell tour and the time we took to say what was important and just BE with each other.

 

Going to WA for my grandmother in June was a little different.  We knew (rather than thought) that this would be the last chance.  There was no chance for long, deep conversations as grandma was very unwell and had a short amount of time to visit with the many people who wanted to hold her hand and speak to her.  I came back not only to pay my respects to a great woman, but also to go through the process.  I’m getting to an age (nearly 40) where I’m realizing I’ll at some point need to go through parents passing away, a spouse passing away, a friend passing away.  This was an opportunity where I could go experience the process first hand, but others were “in charge” (my mom, aunts and uncles) so I could be more of an observer.  I don’t know that I was surprised by anything in the whole process with regard to logistics.

 

I was surprised that rather than being sad my grandmother was finishing her life, I was sad for those left behind, especially my grandfather.  I thought I would be mostly sad thinking of wonderful things that had happened with my grandmother and sad that those would be the end of our journey together.  What made me sad however, was seeing my grandfather’s anguish at being left behind (especially when he’d probably spent a good 50 years or so believing that she would outlive him and being given about a week or month to have to realize this would not be the case).  I also felt a huge sadness for my aunts and uncles not realizing HOW close they were to my grandma.  I knew she had a special relationship with each, but I don’t think I realized until the last week how deep it was with each. This was especially true with my youngest aunt.  My youngest aunt is only 4 years older than I am and lives next door to my grandparents, so for the last few years, she probably has spent the most time with my grandparents.  However, I realized in this last week, that she got the least amount of time with my grandmother of all the kids.  There’s about 8 years between my aunt and her next older sibling.  As my cousins and I sat in the room and reminisced, it was clear that my aunt always seemed like one of us because we were closer in age to her than our other aunts and uncles.  My heart broke for both my grandfather who had spent most of his life with my grandmother and didn’t seem to know what to do without her and for my aunt who didn’t seem to get enough time with her mom.

 

The other thing about the week that resonated with me was that my brother was up from Portland and I’d come, but neither of us had brought our children.  It was probably the first time in 25 years or so the 4 of us had been together without spouses or children. Just our nuclear family, reunited.  It was a little strange.  My parents were about 45 when us kids left the nest and while we’d come back for summers, we never did come fully back home after high school, so it had been awhile for just the 4 of us to be sleeping under one roof.

 

I also realized that my feelings and relationship with my grandparents is very different than the relationships and feelings my children have.  They do love them and seeing them and spending time with them, but it’s different than my experiences.  When I went to visit grandparents we slept overnight and did very different things and had different adventures than my children have with my grandparents because now my grandparents are 30 years older than when I was a child.  This trip made me realize this and that it is ok. On one hand it makes me sad that my kids have a different relationship with my grandparents, but I’m also coming closer to acceptance that while it’s different, it’s still a good thing. I’m sure my mother probably felt the same way about my great grandmother. It was very different for me to visit her in the nursing home she was at by the time I remember visiting her at age 5 and 6 than it was for her to visit her grandmother.

 My brother and I stayed with my parents.  It was the first time in a long time just us 4 had been together.  We managed to survive...

 

 

I was feeling a little melancholy waiting for my flight back to Canada, especially knowing I'd be coming back in a month with my kids and not be taking them to visit my grandma.

 

Then I got on my flight and the attendant pulled out an apron of balloons and started making balloon animals.  You know it's on Southwest!

 

Anyway,  June was a little more hectic than usual due to the unplanned week away which is why I’m catching up on blog posts out here in Washington.  I’ll get caught back up by the end of July and the next post should have lots of fun pictures.

 

More dreams = so tired!

I go through weeks where I dream constantly all night and don't feel rested when I wake up.  It used to be cyclical-I'd have a few weeks where I had them, then a few weeks off.  It's been awhile since I've had a spell, though.  Months.  Until this last week. I think they started last Sunday or Monday and have been nightly since. I think I've had one night where I only dreamt half the night.  These weeks leave me irritable as I feel like I've been doing something all night. For instance, one night I moved someone into a college dorm.  Last night I was on a road trip.  I can't remember all the dreams, usually just pieces of the one right before I wake up.  I fall asleep, hit REM and dream, then awake, change position, dream, awake, change position.  The good news is now I fall right back asleep (I didn't always-sometimes I'd awake for a few hours, then go back to sleep).  However, falling back asleep means falling into another dream. 

I asked my husband if it drives him crazy to have me tossing and turning all night.  He is more of a night owl than I am (well, he's the night owl I used to be before kids necessitated someone waking up at a decent hour to get them off to school) and he also sleeps more deeply.  He's actually a little jealous of my dreaming.  He says when he dreams he feels more well rested and peaceful.  He joked that maybe he's got all his inner baggage worked out and maybe that's why I dream more than him.

You'd think I'd awake refreshed, aren't dreams your subconscious way of working things out?  Apparently not necessarily for me.  However, last nights' did feel better.

Last nights' dream is sticking with me this morning. I was on a road trip.  Some 8 hour roadtrip with just I and the kids, no Paul.  I may have even driven to pick them up?  Anyway, right before waking I'd gone to church with my grandma (my Dad's mom) since I was at my destination and was preparing to get ready to drive back and her church had gone in the mega-church direction-I don't know that the female pastor was even there in the church or preaching from somewhere else-anyway, it was very impersonal and on a huge projector screen.  At the end, she was admonishing me about coming into the church (I cannot recall if she listed a specific reason-maybe it was my dislike of really large churches?) I looked around and the only congregation left was about 30-45 people who were from churches I'd attended over the years, mostly LWUMC.  She was saying something about if anyone stayed to support me that they'd not be welcome back.  These churchgoers from my past (and a few who have been sure to talk to me whenever they see me in my current church) all stayed.  They defied the pastor on the screen who seemed shocked that they would side with me rather than her about whatever my transgression seemed to be.  I had a feeling of love. I hugged every one on the way out of the church and we all sat and had coffee out of fancy teapots that I believe was spiked with Kaluha or Bailey's, lol. 

It got me to thinking as I lie there in bed seeing that the light was starting to come in around the blinds.  I do feel bound to a church family who I'm sure thinks of me time to time even though I'm away. Every time I go home to visit they all ask when I'm coming back and are genuinely happy to see me.  I imagine I will seek this even more in the coming years as my parents retire and sail off into the sunset as my brother has also moved out of the area.  I still have friends in the area and I'm sure we'll make an annual pilgrimage as we've done since moving here. I am trying to integrate with my church family here.  I've been attending the church we got married in and the people do try to make conversation and be nice.  I know that I need to do more non-Sunday stuff to get to know people better in small groups as well as have better attendance.

Anyway, enough about seeking meaning of the dream (I have my ideas that I'm not ready to share) it did leave me with a feeling of peace and of being loved even from afar, so for that I'm thankful.  The dreams will finally leave when I've become so exhausted that I can't even dream anymore and I'll go back to dreamless sleep (whether I'll sleep through the night or not remains to be seen-my sleep patterns have never been great despite my best efforts as an adult now that I NEED my sleep).  Until then I'll nurse my large morning coffee, drop words from my sentences (the first thing to go with lack of sleep) and be a little cranky.