Gone

This morning a friend lost her fight with breast cancer. She was my age. We had a lot in common, but were very different people. She has 2 small children (2 1/2 and 1). She was supposed to start a new drug trial that showed great promise in helping her get back into remission. Now she's gone.

We were in the same small group for a couple years, but I haven't really talked with her much recently. We were both teachers and I used to sub in her class. We walked when Cory was small. We had a bit of a falling out. I never quite knew where I stood with her after that. Now I'll never know. Now she's gone.

I know where she is and I'm thankful that she is no longer in pain. For her, she is complete. Now, what do those left behind do? How do children grow up without a mommy. For they are so small they will never really know her. And she has been sick for much of their little lives.

We have a lot of grandparents that are sick right now. I went to the first funeral I'd been to in years when my great aunt passed away on New Year's Eve. For them, it's hard, but you know it's coming. This is the natural order of life. You get old and eventually you die. It's never easy, but that's just the way life is.

But someone my age. With a family. It's not the way it's supposed to be. Somehow it seems to leave a much bigger hole. She's gone. And yet the world keeps on turning. It doesn't seem right.

On Christmas

Christmas started on Sunday for us - with a 70's style party at our life group! We had 2 fondue pots and 3 different types of fondue! With all of us standing around I really felt like we had gone back to the 70's! It was definitely yummy though! Homemade cheese fondue with french bread, marinated steak in hot oil fondue (it's way better than is sounds!), and dark chocolate fondue with all types of fruit. Quite the balanced meal!
We also watched a short Russian video - their version of Laurel and Hardy. You didn't have to read the sub-titles to see that the staged "robbery" was not going according to plan!

Tuesday night was Christmas with my family as we were supposed to be headed to Oregon yesterday...
The ham wasn't done until 7pm when dinner was set for 5. But none of us was complaining, we didn't want a repeat of last year!


So we did gifts first and Cory really enjoyed the first few presents and helping Grandma play Santa Claus. After that I think he was a bit overwhelmed. The hit present for him though was a set of Dr. Seuss board books from Kevin and Annika. One of them was Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb. It's a book about monkey drumming... and we read it when we were in Arizona in October. He loved it then and when he saw it in the package he started saying "dum ditty" which is what the monkeys say when they are drumming.
We have already read it multiple times!


Christmas Eve we did absolutely nothing. Well, because I am a complete dork I asked for (and received) CD cases for Christmas and I spent the better portion of the afternoon organizing and putting all my CD's in these cases! (they had all been in their original cases stacked in various places around the house and taking up space!) I suppose that was a nice way to spend the day!

We shall see what the weather brings in the morning and if we leave or stay here one more day!


Here's my attempt at bokeh photography on a neighbor's outdoor Christmas tree... the lighting was better half an hour earlier, but we were on our way to pick up Grandma and I missed it. Oh well!

Merry Christmas all!

Sunday Scribblings

Or maybe I should call this Sunday Scramblings. What do you think?

Do any of you get to the end of the week and go, man, I had about 6 things to post about and I didn't write any of them! That would be me. So here's my go at recapping the week. And a few pictures thrown in! (I tried to do this last night actually, but my computer was being lame so I went to bed)

My poor little baby got sick Friday night. I didn't get a whole lot of sleep... for one I was up late editing pictures (see next paragraph for the reason) and then when I went to check on Cory I discovered he had puked in his bed. So we got him up, washed, changed, bed changed... and then he puked again. Repeat. About 2am I finally went to bed and he woke up again at 5. Thankfully not sick, but probably hungry. I gave him just a bit of water and his snuggly blanket had gotten washed so he could have that and go back to sleep. He let me sleep in until 8:30, which was nice, but still not nearly enough!

I decided to enter Cory in a baby model search to see if he could get on the cover of Parents magazine. Here's the link to the pictures I entered. Tell me what you think of them or if you feel really generous, "rate and recommend" them and they might at least get featured in the magazine!

Let's see... here's the start of picture randomness...

What happens when you leave boys alone at home?
Why, they make Kix trails for babies to follow around the house!

Here's Cory playing with the bottle of baby shampoo that Amber sent us. It's Burt's Bees and it smells heavenly!

I can stack up these cups and if Cory even hears me clink them together he comes quickly. If I manage to get them all stacked up before he gets there he then takes them off one at a time. With toy friend stuck in his mouth!

Walking with Grandpa

Cory's really good at pointing now and it's super cute! He also LOVES to go outside and check everything out.
Okay, so you noticed the clothing in the last few pictures. Not real warm. Well, we went from average 50 + degree days to 90+ degree days this week. Ugh! I guess summer is here with a vengeance! At least we can go to the park in the morning and evenings and not have it be too cold though!

This is my adorable son watching some neighbors move in.

In the middle of this 90 degree heat wave... we had a garage sale this weekend to raise some money for mom's Bible study (to pay for child care). We all brought stuff to Rachel's house and had a "pricing party". I hear the sale went well, but I wasn't there for that part.

Here's Jenny and Karen sorting clothes!
Our fearless leader Carisa taking a lunch break!

Oh, and here's a website I found today that I've spent a lot of time on. I found it through the Story of Stuff website. (If you haven't checked that out, please do!) It's called Skin Deep and it lists product ingredients for your toiletries (any shampoo, conditioner, lotion, sunscreen, make-up, etc.) and their possible hazards. There's some nasty stuff in some of the things we put on our skin and this stuff isn't regulated by the FDA or anything... I was mainly looking for a non-toxic sunscreen because Cory's been reacting to the water babies Coppertone sunscreen we're using. I think after looking at this I'm going to see if our local Target carries the California Baby brand. They usually scent their stuff with lavender (which I can't stand), but they do have a fragrance free option. Otherwise I might order it online.

And finally, we met with the life group couple that I mentioned in this post. They apologized and we talked about the mis-communicating and assumptions that caused this whole situation. It sounds like they're not so much into the life group thing right now so we're probably going to go with the other couple and start our own group. We went and had dinner with them tonight and just hung out. Good times!

Flabbergasted

I'm so blown away right now I don't even know where to start. I just got off the phone with a girl who's in our life group from church. Let me give you a little background.

There have been 4 couples in our group this year and we've mostly been meeting on Sunday nights due to one guy's working nights during the week. The other two couples have wanted to switch to a week night because the feel like it's "too much" on Sundays with church, Sunday school, and then life group, too. But they nicely kept it on Sundays so this one couple wouldn't be left out.

Then 2 weeks ago his schedule got switched to days. Without really asking the 2 couples just decided to have our monthly potluck on a Wednesday night. And then the following week again on Wednesday, but oh wait, a new couple has been invited to join the group (they're new in town) which I don't mind, but now we're meeting at their house and he doesn't get off work until 6pm so let's meet at 6:30 (in the town across the river). Cory's bedtime is 8 and this is not going to work. But we went last week. And we had dinner and basically a "social hour".

Lately Brian and I have been feeling like we just don't fit in this group. And this maneuvering of the schedules has just left me feeling pretty bitter - which I realized at church yesterday. So I had decided that this week I was going to bring it up at the group (on Wednesday) and just say what I was feeling and that we felt like this group wasn't really what we wanted, something more than a social hour. But how do you say that without hurting someone's feelings?

Well, the phone call this morning just solved my problem. The girl who called me - she and her husband are the only ones from the "original" group of 2 years ago that we joined - said that in order to facilitate earlier bedtimes for the kids and this new guy's work schedule (he works late Mon-Wed) they would be meeting at 6 on Thursdays. It works out the best for almost everyone... except us, because Brian has tutoring at school from 6:30 to 8:30 on Thursday. She said they would only be doing it for the next month and a half because they want to reach out to this new couple and help them get to know people. And then we can "re-evaluate" after our summer break. And after she asked me how I felt and I said that well, we were kind of feeling like we wanted more out of a group she even had the gall to say "well, maybe this is God's way of saying I have something different for Brian and Krista". As if that's going to soften the blow of them basically saying "we care about arranging the schedules for everyone in the group but you".

I'm so frustrated/angry right now I'm shaking and can hardly type this. Maybe I shouldn't even post this on the off chance one of them will see it. But I just feel, I don't know, used. Like this is the story of my life. I/we're so different that we don't fit in anywhere and after awhile no one really wants to have us around.

Young Marrieds becomes Young Parents

Tonight was our first "official" meeting of our small group. There are 4 couples, 2 with children, 2 with girls on the way! We're going to tell the pastor in charge of small groups that our group is growing... from within! It's so fun! But we're going to have to move since the lovely Wares who have been hosting are the next due for an "addition" in about 3 weeks. I guess that means I'll have to clean up around here a little more often... or at least in December and January since that's when we're on the schedule to be hosts!
And I hope Leana and I didn't scare Hawley and Katie with all the things that happen to you when you give birth... and there was so much to talk about that we didn't even get around to praying for our prayer requests. oops! Guess we should be a little better at that. Like the leader of the Mom's Bible study that we're all in said this week. If we don't pray first it won't happen because we women like to talk (nah, really?). The other cool thing is that Katie and Leana and I are all in that Mom's Bible study! (Hawley's still teaching)

In other mom news... if you ever feel the need to vent and you worry about who might read it... there is a new blog called Mom's Turn. (I'm sure you don't even have to be a mom to vent!) Somehow this sort of seems like gossip or something. But I have run across the feeling myself. Sometimes it might even be a funny story I want to tell, but don't want to hurt someone's feelings. So this is the anonymous solution. And maybe you'll have an ingenious solution to someone else's problem...

On another note: we went shopping today (hooray for a 50% sale!) at Macy's and bought me a real live suitcase! Now, before you wonder why I'm getting all excited about this... let's just say running through an airport trying to catch a plane connection and having to carry all your stuff is not exactly fun! I have personally had this experience (we missed the plane anyway) and it would have been waaaaaay easier with this handy suitcase on wheels! And of course it's fun to have a new suitcase since I'm still using a sport bag from high school. The last suitcase I can remember having was when I was a kid and it was a sky blue hard case that was a hand me down from my grandmother... wonder what ever happened to it anyway...
Here's to traveling more in the future!