Zoo fun

I keep meaning to post about our trip to the zoo on Memorial Day. We went right when it opened and therefore got to see some very awake and active animals in light crowds. Some friends of ours were there and we got to chat with them on the playground a bit too. Culvers for lunch followed. It was a lot of fun.

The best thing was that the grizzly bears were awake and one was swimming. Here are some pics and a video. Also a picture of the family.

How Many?

I was asked at choir on Sunday "So, how many kids do you have now?"  I like this man but I wasn't going to play his game so I said three and he asked me the ages and so I told Julia and Lauren and then brought up Nathan, which he already knew, and he made some comment about having the two kids now.  Like I said, I knew that is where he was going with it the whole time but I just don't subscribe to that policy.  I have three children.  Only two of them are here with me, but I will always have three kids.  End of discussion!

I have to say I hold no ill-will towards him.  I cannot expect him to understand, but I also will not fit neatly into someone else's view of things. 

Dream

This entry is for me - I like to write down my dreams of Nathan so I can remember them later.

I was in the inpatient side of MSKCC. I walked through the halls and accidently walked through the nurses station. I ran into Dr. K and he said my name with surprise and asked what I was doing there. I told him I was there for my son. He made some comment thinking I was there to remember Nathan being there but I told him that Nathan was there and I was going to go get him. I got to his hospital room and I picked him up and was holding him cradle style. He was his 7 year old size. He was sweet but I could tell I was hurting him. I then picked him up chest to chest an he wrapped his legs around my waist and said that was much better and smiled at me. I took him right out of that hospital into the sunshine.

The feeling of being near to Nathan is still with me this morning. I love that.

Thanks for the reminder....

After reading went straight to the bottom of the email and hit unsubscribe.
p.s. another new post below this one.

Dance

The girls had their dance recital on Saturday. It was very cute of course.

I have a video of the dress rehearsal (which is why there is talking and people wandering around during it) and some pictures.

Enjoy!

Kids Church Choir Concert

Luke and I have been helping with the Kindergarten choir while our girls are both in different choirs. At times, keeping up with three choirs is a bit much but it was very rewarding. Here are some pictures and video from last night's concert.

Weekend

Despite not being overly pleased about the idea of Mother's Day we made it a good weekend.

On Saturday, Luke to Julia to a class about communion at the church and Lauren and I hung out.  When they got back we ate lunch and drove up to Denver and went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  The girls LOVED it and Luke and I had never been there and we had a great time goiong through the exhibits.  We topped off the visit with a volcano movie at the IMAX.  After the museum we drove over the the 16th street mall (a large pedestrian walking mall downtown) and walked and had dinner outside at the Cheesecake factory and then drove home.  It was a wonderful day of doing something different as a family.

On Sunday we had already decided to not go to church in the morning.  The idea of me sitting in the choir loft during all the mother's day mentions was not appealling and singing the same song we sing every year on Mother's Day was not appealling either.  So - we relaxed in the morning for a while and then Luke took the kids to church just to do his greeting/handicap assistance post but he wanted to leave me home in peace and people enjoyed the girls greeting.

They cam home with some sunflowers for me and we hung out the rest of the afternoon and had an early dinner and then went to the 5:30 service at church followed by a concert by Chi Rho - and men's acapella group from Wake Forest University.

All in all and good weekend and not terribly hard.

Mother's Day Tea

Well - I made it through the dreaded Mother's Day Tea in Julia's classroom. This was an event I attended with Nathan and it was a difficult day back then because I knew it was the last school function I would ever attend with him. Read my post here.  Here is a picture.  I will get one of Julia and I from todya at some point.

I have been in tears anticipating Julia's tea for a while now. I told her last night how I was feeling and that I hoped to make some new, happy memories of event with her.

I was doing just fine until she had to read her placemat aloud. It is one of those complete the sentences about mom. She wrote and read aloud (among other sentences), "My mom wishes....Nathan was here". Her teacher quickly handed me a tissue and I left the room for a few minutes to compose myself. I hate crying in front of people and so I managed not to do so, pretty well.

She seemed upset about something towards the end of the tea - I'm not sure. I feel bad that when everyone else was saying their mom's wished for money or clean houses that hers had to be about her dead brother.

In a semi-ironic timing - I brought along a check to the school.  They are starting work on part of the garden that we are donating a bench/statue and money for a tree and other landscaing  in memory of Nathan,

New Skin

I decided to change up my blog a bit. I'm not yet sold on some of the font colors or the quote being in my header...so it still may change some more. Luke thinks I have been working on it for five days - however I have been mostly learning the html and architecture behind the scenes of blogger for those (parts of) five days.

April 2009 Pictures

Kitchen

I read a blog. She is doing a thing where everyone posts pictures of their kitchen and shows it off and wants her readers to do the same. As expected - it seems like most have neat clean gourmet kitchens. I had to laugh thinking about showing off mine. I don't love my kitchen. Mine could use some loving, but it is not getting it! As you will see - I'm not good at putting things away.

When I looked around my kitchen it DID show
pieces of my life so I thought, what the heck

- I will do it - but not as a showcase.


Let's start with the cainet under the sink. To the left of the bin you can see a nice hole that happened last week. All the years of water leaking down there finally put a hole in the plywood.







One thing I like in my kitchen..Lauren eating breakfast! With her at the counter is the spray bottle left out from the other night when we made cedar plank salmon and it said to have a spray bottle on hand if it caught fire (outside, not in the kitchen). You can also see Lauren's medicine bottle. She has Impetigo. It is finally going away after 17 days on antibiotics. Julia's school folder is also on the counter. It has her Mother's Day Tea information in it for me to send back. I am semi-dreading the tea. It was the last school function I did with Nathan before he died. It is the same teacher, same classroom, probably same activities. I am trying to gear myself up for it.

Next for my windowsill. First, there is the beer glass that was hand washed and dried but for some reason not put away and is intead on the windowsill. It has been there for weeks. There are also 3 african violets. One of which is practically dead and the another on its way to dead. There are the sunflower plants that the kids grief group stupidly had my girls plant. As you can see only one sprouted. Why do you give bereaved kids something to keep alive????
Finally on he windowsill is Lauren's Thanksgiving craft from preschool. Can you guess how long it's been up there?

Here is a counter area. Lauren has left the drawer open after getting out her spoon. Her plate from last night with old hotdog seems to be still out on the counter. Yum!














Now onto the counter leading to the family room. Always an interesting collection of stuff here. Today we have pliers, from when a plastic cup got sucked partway into the disposal and became wedged in it. I had to get the pliers to remove it. That was a few weeks ago. We also have Julia's art portfolio from the school art show last night, sunscreen because it was actually hot here the other day, and some other random stuff.

A bag of construction paper I need to put back down in the basement. It has only been out since Monday! Notice the snowman nightlight the kids put in the outlet...yes - been there since Christmas but they like to use it so I have left it.

Are you at all surprised my fridge is messy too? School calendars, kid artwork, pictures, school lunch menu.

















OK, so I DO love my dining room. I wish it were bigger but I like it. It is actually pretty clean too!

If you get this far, you might want to notice I posted a more serious post yesterday, below this one.