Why I might not be in choir on Halloween

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.

: (

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.