Graduation, Party, Drive, Graduation, Drive.

What a busy weekend around here!!

My niece Hannah graduated from a high school near here, and she's off to a small Central American country for a year of working with Habitat for Humanity before she heads off to college...
She and her friend Ana graduated Friday night, then Saturday we had a big party in Portland for both Hannah and John Michael.
The party was great because we had both nephew and nieces there, and as much family as we could cram into Julia & Gary's Extravaganza! Palace, and the weather couldn't have been more perfect for a back yard barbecue and family photo shoot.

Afterwards, Brian took Nora home, and I went north with Joel and Jeff to Jill's house, and today we went to John Michael's graduation at the Tacoma Dome.


Lots of pictures afterwards (without Nora there to protest/turn away, we were all pretty darn cooperative with all the people trying to get a shot of the graduates with various combinations of girlfriend, family, family, family, brother, parents, you name it.
I think the last few of the day were my favorites -- one of John all by himself, one with his girlfriend Ashley (who's just about as sweet a girl as can be, and very tolerant of us crazy people/family).

Even Joel flew in from New York, so we had all of us 5 kids together at once!

Congrats to John as he heads off to college, to Hannah as she leaves for Guatemala, and to the parents who got you here!

Pneumonia!

Miss Nora's cold that started in mid-May didn't go away entirely, then last week she got what sounded like a barky cough. Having had bronchitis before, I figured it was that...so I took her in.

A week later (yesterday) I woke up to her having not only a very wet sounding cough, but a fever of 101.5. I called the doc for advice, and they asked to see her, and we saw a new doctor to us, since Dr. A was booked for the day.

This new doctor prescribed a Z-pack, and it took WELL over an hour in the pharmacy to get it, then on home. By the time we got there, Nora had spiked a fever of 103.6 and was not doing well at all.

I gave her some ibuprofen and waited a bit, and when that didn't work I gave her some Tylenol. STILL 103...so I finally put her in a tepid bath, which brought her down to 101.7.

After all that, she rebounded for a bit, and we had about an hour where she was a bouncy little 99.7 degree kid. Mom came over and I went to the store, and by the time I got back, Nora had had some diarrhea (ahhh, antibiotics...) and it wasn't long before her fever spiked up again.

It was a rough night last night, because she was SO sick...By the time I put her down at 8 last night, I couldn't get her fever below 102, but I couldn't give her anything more.

Fortunately, she slept ok, and I checked on her at midnight, 2 and 4 a.m., and she had a fever at midnight, but not at 2, so it broke at some point.

The Z-pack seems to be working, and today she's hungry and has a normal temp. Will have to keep her as inactive as possible, which is a challenge!

The funny thing about yesterday was the doctor trying to chat with Nora, but not waiting at ALL for her to answer, so then she turns to me and asked me if Nora COULD speak, and how well she could be understood. THEN she offered to have Nora's HEARING tested...

Say what?

Apparently mine needed testing too.

I let her know Nora talks plenty -- and quite understandably -- to those she knows, and even better when she's not so sick! It is weird how sometimes people can go on tangents like that!

Here's hoping Miss Nora is better soon!

Nora Sings Karaoke!

BRASIL!

Miss Nora is visiting her Aunt Jill this weekend, and she gave Nora her first and only Brasilian soccer uniform!

Jill, Joel and I were all born in Brasil when our parents were Lutheran missionaries there in the '60s and early '70s...and so we get a little passionate about our soccer.

It's World Cup Time, kids, and Nora is dressed for success in this authentic uniform from New York City.

The size?

6.

Yeah. Thank goodness there's a drawstring on those shorts, but otherwise she can pull it off!

We even wore it over to Ashley's house, where John and Ashley got ready for prom.

Miss Nora brought them numerous flowers and of course, resisted getting a picture taken that involved her looking AT the camera, but we got a few shots.

For those friends on Facebook, look there...in the meantime, there might be a few more posted here in the coming days!

On This Day, 25 Years Ago:

If I may say so myself, I think I was fairly cute coming out of high school.

Considering I started 6th grade with bifocal owl-sized glasses, a bad Raggedy Ann perm wearing plaid and overalls...I think I came out the other side of my public/formal education all right. (Yes, I have a picture documenting that entire ensemble all at once, but I will save everyone the cyber eye burn...)

One of my classmates asked something on Facebook about "how far we've come" and it took a few minutes to dig out a few pictures, and have a fun time looking back on 25 years, and try to put into words how much I've learned.

The problem is, all the stupid cliche's you hear about -- that the end is just a beginning -- that the path we all go down is never what we planned, but we wouldn't undo most of it --

That garbage is all true, to some extent.

I started college at the University of Washington in 1985. I met some fantastic friends, many of whom would remain lifelong friends, which isn't easy to do in a pre-Internet era.



I have some friends I kept in touch with since childhood, and some I did not.

My friend DHan and I have been friends since the fourth grade, and we are still in touch (she's the one in the middle with the good hair...

And Mary Rohrman -- I lost contact with. And when I was in Hermiston, I drove by the old Rohrman Ford dealership where I used to spend a few afternoons helping to sweep the showroom floor with her...and it's been bought out by someone else.

Suffice to say, college for me was fun. I wasn't ready to study academically as much as I needed, which is why I dropped out my Junior year (trying to hold on to financial aid while working 3 jobs and attending school full time was a grade-killer).

But I *did* finish, when I was 32 instead of 22.

And here I am at 43, once again going back to school to make yet another career.

I've been married twice, but the second one took.

It took me 5 years and 5 pregnancies to have one healthy baby.

In 25 years I've lost two grandparents, one father, a few friendships, and countless pounds (which I gained back again, some of the time).

But despite the disasters, I've had family and friends who have helped ride the storms with me.

I consider myself a good person who, although mouthy as hell and not anywhere near above reproach, doesn't intentionally try to hurt anyone. When I get knocked down, I get back up again.

Every.
Single.
Time.

And I love my life.

A good glass of wine and a hug from my little girl at the end of the day, after 25 years of adulthood, that's how I can say my day's been good, and overall my life is a successful one.

So for those of you heading out into the big wide world, my speech to you will be short and to the point:

Realize fame isn't nearly as fun as it sounds. Sometimes obscurity is much more interesting and freeing.

Notoriety and respect cannot be obtained by simply obtaining wealth or a certain age. It's always earned.

Most of the time, life is a game to be played, while realizing that you are not exempt from the rules. Personally, I never met a rule I didn't want to bend, and sometimes break. But realize that they're there for a reason, and sometimes those reasons make sense and sometimes they stink.

Don't rush into anything, whether it's a marriage or a burning building or other things that are hard to get out of.

No matter how old you are, there will always be someone older and wiser, until you're 116 and the oldest man or woman in the nursing home, and then everyone will just be waiting for you to die. You don't want to be that person.

Aim for something between the doormat and the bulldozer.

And whatever you do, make sure you have fun and be nice to people, especially if they can't do you any good.

Fine. Great. OK Jenny, This Blog's for YOU! :)

We're doing fine.

Not great: I didn't get the first cut into nursing school, but I'm on a short list of wait-listed students, and will know later this summer what's going on with this fall. If I don't get in this fall, I will next fall.

Not bad, good even!: Nora and I just got back from a long vacation in Sacramento/San Francisco, which was a fantastic break, seeing my beloved Aunt Kathy, her sons and families, and enjoying some really great times traveling!

Not horrible: Miss Nora has "a touch" of bronchitis and an ear infection, which earned her her first non-well-child visit to the pediatrician yesterday. She's on meds and will survive, hopefully...She is SUCH a trooper about being sick. I put my hand on her forehead yesterday for probably the 100th time and she said "I fine Mommy."

But fantastic: Nora's talking more than ever, using full short sentences, our home is a happy one, and our life is overall a good one.

Things That Need Doing

Boy, there's a long list of stuff Things That Need Doing in our old house, and gradually it's getting done.

Ever since this past winter, when we had three bad leaks and one minor one, I've had some ceiling stains that needed to be taken care of, but I wanted to wait until I was done with school for a while, and after the new roof was on.

Another big item on my list was to properly put up some blackout curtains in Nora's room (under her sheers) so that I didn't just throw some blankets up there, making the window look even more catastrophic than the floor.

So yesterday, Brian took Nora in her new bike trailer, and stayed away until I had the painting done. The Before/After picture of Nora's room with it's 5 foot wide by 2 foot stain on the ceiling shows how bad it was, but I didn't realize how much water had dripped down the blinds and down the wall until I really got in there and cleaned it all up.

Much better, huh?
My other big project was this corner of the Family Room, where the drip actually became a steady stream during our first big leak of '09.

This corner is finally taken care of too, along with one in the dining room (just a small stain) and the master bedroom as well.

It's amazing how LONG I can put something off, and how one day, once I just decide to do it, it only takes a few hours to do...and how much BETTER it looks and feels to have it done!

Just Because I Have a LITTLE Decorum...

I won't include a picture of Nora in the activity that we started this week...

She's decided that since "Elmo does" (she's seen the Potty Time video enough times I can sing the song myself as well)...and "Boo does" (Boo is the little girl character on Monster's Inc., who Sully at on point takes to the potty) well, Miss Nora is ready to too.

We went to Target and picked out some training pants, so she had the choice between Dora and some princess stuff (I bristle)...and she picks "Woody & Buzz!" Thank God. I can handle Toy Story and any sequel they throw at me.

Woody & Buzz unders it is.

So we go to the potty once an hour for now. Just sit there, read a book, then she's learning how to get the TP off the roll, where to put it and to get down, flush, pull her unders up, and go wash hands.

Yesterday, even though we haven't actually gotten any peeing happening in the toilet itself, she put her face right down to the small opening of the tot-butt-sized hole of the training seat and yelled "Bye bye pee pee!"

And so it begins.

It's a Kroc!

This past weekend, we enjoyed the new Kroc Community Center here in town, and we loved it so much, Nora and I went back today!

I asked her if she'd like to go to the Kids Club, or...
and she finished my sentence with "Swimming pool!"

The Kroc center was recently built by the Salvationi Army with a grant from the Ray & Joan Kroc Foundation, which gives communities who need it, a great new center, and the funds to help run it (with some input from the community).

They have swimming in TWO pools (one "competitive" and one "leisure"), workout rooms, babysitting, a climbing rock wall, tons of services and activities for kids, lessons for sports of all kinds, you name it.

Stuff like this just makes my liberal bones tingle...GET people in the door, keep them off the streets...give some meaning to their lives.
Our Kroc center opened last fall, but I haven't had time to check it out, so this last weekend, Brian and I took Nora to swim in the "leisure pool" which is built with kids in mind, from a small kid's water slide, lots of little waterfalls and other fun things to play with and on...NONE of these pictures can possibly give it all justice.
So tThis afternoon, we arrived at the Kroc Center, then got changed in the locker rooms with the spacious family-sized changing rooms (with private showers for afterwards!)

Nora stood at the door to the pool and said "Open! Open! Open!"

We swam for nearly 2 hours, and she swam for so long tonight that she asked for "night night" at 7:15 tonight!

Cute Pictures of the Day

I think you can see why I couldn't choose between these three pictures for best picture of the day, although I did love this first one of Nora especially as she was SO happy to ride the train!

Nora, Brian and I went to the zoo together today -- for the first time in a while, and we had so much fun.


Lots of new changes are happening at the zoo...the Red Ape exhibit is coming along, and the orangutans will have a new home soon...


We also got three new black bears, so the Cascade Crest trail was closed as the new bears are introduced to the zoo and to each other.

We had SO much fun today. It's been a while since we had family time like this, and we took full advantage! Sunny day, spent the whole day there. The works!

1111 Posts!

I almost quit blogging a while back, only because of a lack of time and the effort required to edit pictures, come up with something to say, and of course, do it.
But I enjoy blogging. I enjoy my report each week that says all of seven people came to see my blog in any given day.

Boy are all you seven going to be surprised when you come back and see how many posts I've made! This is the benefit of all that free time I have when I'm not in school and *only* have a small child to watch.
This past week we went to the Skagit Valley, then to Eastern Oregon where I saw some old family friends and attended the memorial for Beth.

Here I am, mid-April, and having a hard time knowing what to do with all this time on my hands. I'd love to paint, or do some yardwork outside, but the weather hasn't been good for that. I'm hoping Nora will get into helping me paint...I'm already putting old clothes aside for her so we can wear "disposable" clothing.
As for Miss Nora, she's over 40 inches tall now. I haven't weighed her lately, but she's in the neighborhood of 30 lbs., so she's still a tall drink of water and thin but healthy and active!
She eats a lot -- When I was at my brother's house he was surprised at how much I put on her plate...while she's not a neatnik about her food (she prefers finger food and drops a lot), she still manages to get quite a bit in, and is getting better at it.

And the talking...She says a few full sentences, and informs you of things like "Monkeys eat bananas!" as if I am the first person she's letting in on a big secret. "Bunnies eat carrots!" is another favorite whenever she sees a bunny or a carrot.
She jumps and dances and sings at the top of her lungs. She loves "Chitty Bang Bang" and pretty much any musical. She loves Shrek and...well, free time is gone. She just came and asked to watch Elmo's "Potty Time" -- another thing we're working on!

Ferry Ride

There's one very special thing about Seattle that you don't see in too many other American cities, and that's the Washington State ferry system that will take you to, among other places, Bremerton, Vashon Island, Whidbey Island, and a number of other places across Puget Sound (that's pronounced "Pew-Jet Sound")

Last Friday, on the way home from the in-laws house in Mount Vernon, I called 511 on my phone and found out that our arrival in Seattle was PERFECT for me to fly off the freeway's express lanes off of Columbia street, straight down to the waterfront, and that light would take me right to the ferry terminal, where we wouldn't have to wait more than 10 minutes for a ferry run to Bremerton.

Nora saw the ferry Kaleetan and said "BIG BOAT!" and was VERY excited to ride on it. We boarded at 11:10, ran around the lower decks, then went and had lunch on the upper deck's cafeteria before running around some more.

I was delighted to see that the boats have been fitted with a lot of new safety gear that keeps 2-year-olds from sliding into the Sound...and Nora just had a blast running free for our trip across the water.

Once in Bremerton, we only needed to drive a few minutes to my sister's house instead of the hour it would have taken to drive "around" and across the Tacoma Narrows bridge.

Wandering Around Eastern Oregon...

A dear friend of the family passed away last week...Beth Hellberg Creason was good friends with my sister Jill more than anyone else in the family, but she meant more than that to me when I decided to go to her memorial service this past weekend.

Our families were good friends during my most formative years...We moved to Hermiston when I was just finishing kindergarten, and left after the 6th grade.

During that time, my parents got involved in Marriage Encounter, a weekend couple's church retreat thing that would take them away for weekends several times a year. That meant that they needed to find a place to put their five kids, including me, and a LOT of the time, that meant going out to Max & Marilyn's farm.


Max & Marilyn took us kids and were always fine with having some more kids around. They made us work a bit (I remember moving pipes early one morning before church and school) but mostly they let us ride their horses all we wanted, and boy, I can remember more than one Monday morning being dropped off at school by Marilyn feeling pretty darn saddle sore!

The person who taught me to ride a horse was Beth. She was a teacher from her very early life, and eventually became a teacher (elementary school) in her hometown, and did that for nearly 20 years.

Beth wasn't just your average nice gal from the country. She was fantastic. She had a quick smile, and easy laugh, and I never once knew her to be unkind to anyone.

As any kind human being would, but especially as a child, that made a big impression on me, and that impression was revisited and echo'd by many at her memorial service.

Beth, for so many people, represented some of the best of all the goodness in the world. And for that, she will be sorely missed.

I found out that Beth died suddenly last Sunday, after she became antibiotic resistant to a meningitis that she had been fighting for some time. She was only 46.

Her sister Joy is a friend of mine on Facebook, and it was through her that I found out that Beth was seriously ill on Sunday, and within hours she posted an update that Beth was gone.

Their brother Kurt is also a friend of mine on FB, but is also the friend of mine from my earliest memories. The other siblings, Marilee and Tim were close friends of my oldest brother Jeff, and Trina -- Trina was that middle child like me who is the spark of the family and the driver who often keeps things moving.

ALL of them deserved to have as many people come to pay their respects to Beth, but also to them. ALL of them had a key role in my life as a "second family" to me and my own siblings.

And so I went.

When I decided to go, it was largely because I knew how my own husband's family felt when their son David died. The shock and sadness among all of us when we lost David was made the slightest bit better by the support and love of those who came to the memorial service and offered support and meals for the family in the days following David's death.

The Hellberg family parents still attend the church I did as a child, where my own father used to preach. It was an amazing weekend of not only catching up with childhood friends, but seeing the old church, seeing how my old house had been sold and moved away (yes, put on wheels and moved to another location) and the "fellowship hall" where the reception following Beth's memorial and after church the next morning was held in what would have been my old living room or kitchen.

It didn't bother me at all...time changes the landscape in amazing ways, and I was able to see as I drove out of town, how Hermiston's high school is new, the hospital where my baby brother Jeremy was born has been replaced, and my old elementary school is in the midst of a complete remodel including new construction.

And on the way home, I saw the wind turbines that dot the landscape in the Columbia Gorge, and the gorgeous transition of desert to green that happens along that glorious stretch of highway to the West.

In a matter of hours, I was home with my family, with my husband and daughter, and thinking about my weekend on the other side of the state.

Thank you to everyone -- Kurt and Ericka for putting us up, Paula Newcomb for coming too and lending such a wonderful time to catching up with each other, and of course the Hellbergs, and so many others, who made this a special weekend.

Skagit Spring

We are visiting Nora's grandparents in the Skagit Valley, a beautiful area of the country where the Skagit River runs through it's last windy pathy until it meets the Puget Sound...That's pronounced "Pew-Jett" for those of you not from this area...

This big fertile farmland was settled by, among others, Dutch settlers who decided to build dikes along the river, and clear the land to make a second dairy and tulip country, not unlike their homeland, and they were a raging success at it.
Monday my friend Sue and I loaded Nora up in the car and we drove over to RoozenGaarde's, a tulip producer of epic proportions in this valley.

The Roozen family first began raising tulips in Holland in the mid-1700's, and one of their many descendents moved to the Skagit Valley in 1947, where they began raising tulips and started the farm which would later merge with Washington Bulb Co.

I remember growing up and picking bulbs for Washington Bulb Co. was a summer job for a lot of middle and high school age kids who wanted to make a few bucks...I never did it myself since I worked for Hulbert Farms and others on Fir Island, but knew of the company. It wasn't until after I left the valley for college in the mid 1980s that the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival (of which RoozenGaarde is one of the principal sponsors) really got off the ground.

This weekend Brian and I drove up with Nora, and the line to LEAVE the valley was miles long...we realized we'd driven up during "tulip time" and were amazed at the traffic!

But by Monday, things had settled, down, and when Sue and I took Nora to RoozenGaarde's, my friend DeAnne was there too, and she recognized Nora (who walked up to her, not knowing her!) and she started looking for me as she said "ARE YOU NORA?!?" She was there with her son Kenny (who's a prospective husband for Nora, just based on nothing except DeAnne and I would love to be in-laws), and the two hit it off after Nora gave him a tulip, a dirt clod, and a blade of grass. It almost ended though, when she heard someone coo over somebody's picture of their kids kissing, and Nora tried to kiss Kenny, who was, naturally, horrified.

In all though, a beautiful day in the valley...truly a treasure, and with a little dry weather between rainstorms, we got to enjoy it!

Easter Egg HUNT!

We went to our friend Patti's house this afternoon so we could do a kids' Easter Egg Hunt.

Initially I wondered how Nora would "compete" against a lot of 5-year-old boys and girls, a few younger than that, but not many...As most of us remember, Easter egg hunts are generally over in a nanosecond and the spoils go to the biggest and fastest...

Nora had so much fun today, it was amazing, and instead of a blazing race, my friend Patti hatched the most egalitarian Easter egg hunt in the history of Easter egg huts, by making 10 eggs for each kid who came, and putting their initials on them.
That way, Nora's eggs were waiting for her long after the 5-year-olds blazed by, AND she was totally clueless that it was anything like a race, so she stopped to play on the trampoline, and enjoyed every minute of just playing in the back yard in the rain!

There was a little candy, a few little toys, and a lot of fun playing with other kids upstairs.

PLUS some quality time playing with a Woody & Buzz dolls that Jamie brought with him and fortunately allowed Nora to play with a lot this afternoon!

Easter Egg Fun!

Nora's first Easter egg dyeing project was so much fun!

At first, Nora wasn't sure what to do with them, but she figured it out...
Before long, she was playing with all the eggs, and afterwards she helped put them on the rack to dry.
later after we put the stickers on them, Nora put them all in the basket, and this morning she took them out of the fridge, knocked on them individually and said "Chicken! C'mere chicken!!!" like she expected a chicken to come out of them.