Life Goes On!!!

Here we are at the end of September, the summer just went whizzing by!!  For our family it was jam packed ~ good things, family changing things, happy things, endings and new beginnings!  I have alot to report on, so I'll get started.

The last post I wrote was about our oldest son Mike and my attempts to become a Mother.  The next day after Mike's birthday, my husband's Mother died.  It was a death we were all praying would happen and finally she found peace.  That she wanted to let go of her life made it so much easier on all of us, but still, life changes.  She had been living in Redding for the past 3 years in order to be closer to her oldest daughter Louise.  Louise did a herculian job dealing with her Mother in the final year but care taking is a very demanding job when the one you're caring for only wants to die. The picture above is one of our favorites, my mother-in-law and father-in-law (a long time ago) and one taken later in life.  I also want to mention that I'm going to try and figure out how to make a link to the dvd I made, if any of you would like to take a peek.  I will add it later, so check back if you're interested!

In July the family all gathered together in Santa Rosa (where my mother-in-law had lived with her husband and children since 1955) and we all honored her by all coming together and having a memorial service exactly as she had planned it.  We had a nice family luncheon at Legends and we all got together several times over at our house.  We shared photos, stories and eventually I made a nice dvd that celebrated both my mother-in-law and father-in-law and how much their love created this wonderful family.  And as you see above, here we are!

In more July news, our grandsons finally got to go "scouting" with their their Dad, Mike and their Grandpa, Kenny up to Chester, CA to look for deer, shoot their bb guns and get incredibly dirty!!!  They haven't gone scouting for a few years due to busy schedules for them the last couple of years and Kenny's heart surgery but this year it all came together.  This was Benji's first scouting trip and I think he got kinda bored, it's not much fun to ride around in a jeep and look for deer but not see any.  But they had family time together and made some memories, which is always a good thing.

Also in July, July 26th to be exact, our beautiful granddaughter Chloe had her 9th birthday!!  We got to have Chloe up in Santa Rosa for a whole week during July and we had so much fun with her.  Our daughter Tina was visiting from Mississippi and she was thrilled to have a whole week with Chloe.  They are so similar in personalities, funny as can be and they both love to talk!!!  We had a little birthday celebration for Chloe here after her birthday and she had a great time swimming and fooling around with her boy cousins!!  It was a really fun family get together!!

Two weeks after the memorial service, our beautiful great niece, Alisha Thompson, had her beautiful wedding to Virgil Woods.  Alisha and Virgil have been a couple since they were in 9th grade, so we've all known them together for so long that Virgil's been a part of the family for years!  They also live in Redding, so it was back up to Redding, we were commuters there for a few weeks!!  Alisha had just graduated from Chico State in May and Virgil is finishing up his degree at Chico this semester, both great kids with a wonderful future ahead of them.  Obviously this is not a great picture, but I didn't get any great pictures, hoping for one the "real" ones!

The weird part for me is that Alisha's mother is our niece Renee.  Of course we've known Renee since the day she was born, love her to death and now she was mother of the bride!!  It didn't seem that long ago that we watched Renee get married to Craig and yet this year was their 25th anniversary 4 days after watching their oldest daughter get married.  Time marches on!!  But I don't know if I will be able to wrap my head around it when Alisha and Virgil decide to have a baby, Renee a grandmother!!!  Well, I think that's quite a ways in the future!  I do have a little something to add here, it doesn't really fit in with the time frame I'm working with but I want to mention that in June, our Cassie (Rhonda's daughter) graduated from high school and is now going to Shasta College and I'm sure she's making her presence felt!!  She's a cutie, she's in the family picture above
with a black dress on, kinda scrunching down.  Congratulations Cassie!
Here's our Renee, Mother of the bride!!  Beautiful!!

August continued with a lot of stuff happening around here.  On August 15th I had an appointment in San Francisco to talk to a doctor about the possibility of having a total ankle replacement surgery.  As I'm sure everyone knows, I broke my ankle and leg severely way back in 1980.  This year it's been 32 years and it's been bone on bone the whole 32 years because I crushed all the cartlidge in my ankle when I had the accident.  Talk about a life changing event!!  That accident during a camping trip definitely changed mine!  Anyway, I got an appointment and my sister, Connie went with me and we met Dr. John Schuberth.  He is a big deal doctor in the business of installing what is called a STAR ankle.  People apparently come from all over the country to have him to their surgery and he's very big on instructing others how to perform the surgery.  I didn't know if I would be a candidate since I have some health issues.  But he asked me to try and lower my blood counts some, got out his appointment calendar and I said "how bout October 8th"!!!  He said okay and now here I am 2 1/2 weeks away from another life changing event!!  I am very nervous about having the surgery, I've read a lot of info, check in on a forum of people who have had the surgery, found an excellent blog done by a lady that had the exact same surgery and feel I am ready.  I have lowed my blood counts, lost some weight and tried to think of every possible "thing" I will need for my convalesence.  So, I would appreciate it if everyone that reads this blog will offer up some good thoughts, prayers (if you believe in praying) and general good wishes of a successful surgery and recovery for me on October 8th.  I, personally, believe that someone will hear all those good wishes and I will be able to enjoy the rest of my life without the pain that I've lived with for so long.  So THANK YOU in advance I know you guys will do this for me!!!

On August 20th, more new beginnings ~ our granddaughter Cyrah started her senior year at SOTA in San Francisco (she continues to work as an intern at the Academy of Sciences building and had a great summer with the other interns camping and doing nature stuff).  Her sister, Chloe started 4th grade at Clair Lillenthall and loves her teacher and most of her class!!  Matt, our oldest grandson started 8th grade at Rincon Valley Middle School and likes all of his classes and will try again for those A's he so loves to get!!

On August 22nd, more and more new beginnings ~ our little Benji boy started kindergarten!!!  He was so ready to go to school with his big brothers!  It was a long day for him, they start at 8:25 and don't get until 2:55!!!  Whatever happened to half a day of kindergarten??  Anyway, unfortunately about 3 weeks ago, he tripped over a something, fell and broke his wrist after school.  So, he's been stuck in a cast (and it was his right hand) so writing has been kind of tough for him, but he's made a few friends and seems to like it.
Zach made it to the "upper grades" and started 4th grade.  He really likes his teacher and is doing quite a bit of reading, I hope he becomes a "reader'.  I LOVE to read!  Joe Joe is the the cool 6th grader, top dog, at his school this year.  He also really likes his teacher and he drives the girls crazy with his Justin Bieber haircut and being the silent type, he loves it!  He made the basketball team and I will get to see him play 2 practice games before my surgery.  I love basketball and last year I saw every game, I am so bummed that I won't get to see Joe play much.  I could probably make some games on crutches but the elementary school gyms double as the cafeteria and they aren't very big so there is limited to room to watch the game.  I'm sure he'll understand the game much more this year after playing last year as a 5th grader.

In September we've been doing some changes for the house and we've been getting rid of a lot of stuff and donating to Salvation Army.  When all the work is done we should have a nice new space to have the family over and room for the kids to play.  We look forward to seeing how it's going to turn out!!  September 27th Cyrah will be celebrating her 17th birthday!!  I know she would love to start driving but Erik & Seni think that public transportation is working just fine for her!!  She needs to have her college apps in by November 1st (fast approaching) I'm sure some college is going to offer her a ride!!  Big changes in store for our Cyrah girl! 
Kenny, Erik, Jeff and our nephew Rob are up enoy the wilderness somewhere around Bucks Lake.  Eric loves the thrill of the hunt, buck fever is his friend.  Kenny was going to pass on going this year but changed his mind, he figured "how many more years will I be able to do this, better enjoy our time together while I can!"  I think he remembers his Dad not going what turned out to be his last year of being able to go, so hopefully they'll have some luck!  Here's a picture of Kenny with the jeep.  We got that jeep brand new in 1972, we've had a lot of fun in it and our nephew Rob (he's a mechanie) keeps it going for us!  The picture below is Erik and Kenny, Erik LOVES hunting!

Now, in October our little Rhone will turn 2 years old and he will be switching from daycare to pre-school.  I think he's going to love it.  He is a people person and cute as can be.  Joe will turn 12 October 3rd and 13 (another teenager) will be right around the corner!  Kenny will be 67 and continues to golf and walk 3 miles every day.  He's so diligent about it.  More power to him!!!

Tina is back in Mississipi.  She went back just in time for Hurricane Isaac, they didn't really get much weather from the hurricane but Tina had everyone well prepared since this was her first hurricane.  They actually got a huge storm a week later that overflowed their creek and flooded their garage ~ weird!!  The weather has been a little better - less humid and not so hot so Tina and Max went out fishing and had a great day fishing!!  If you would have ever told me that Tina would enjoy fishing I would have told you you were crazy, but she does love it, paddles a canoe and they eat all the fish they catch.  So things are going well for them.

I don't really have a kinda close up of Zachy, so it's not great but he's giving me a lovie, I'll take one of those any day!

I think that catches everyone up on the goings on around here.  Everyone needs to find something to enjoy and be thankful for every day.  For my friend's birthday I gave her a simple homemade gift, heartfelt to be sure and I think everyone could use this idea.  I gave her a jar, tied a pretty ribbon around it, cut up some pretty paper in different sizes and put them into the jar and told her when she had something that made her happy she should write it down, put it in the jar and a year later relive her happy moments.  But I think they could be thankful moments, sad moments, thought provoking moments . . . etc.  So I'm making one for myself!! 

The title that I put on this blog is Life Goes On!!!  It's a hard lesson to learn.  I learned it when my Mother died.  I wanted the world to stop!!  I wanted people to not live their everyday lives, my Mom had died.  But, obviously that didn't happen, and Life Went On!!  All of us have so many examples of that in our lives.  Change happens, new beginnings happen, sad things happen, happy things happen ~ all of those things are part of the game we called LIFE!!!  So know in yourself, we can get through the hard things, the things that change us, the things that let us know that life as we know it will never be the same.  But we survive!!  We remember the hard times but our spirit always looks ahead for the next cool thing on the horizon!!  LIFE IS GOOD ~ GO OUT AND LIVE IT AND MAKE SOME GREAT MEMORIES (and fill that jar up)!

Whoa!!!  Talk about new beginnings, we have a big one to report ~ our niece Katie is pregnant!!!  She and her husband Jared are expecting a little boy around January 3, 2013!  Talk about Life Changing!!  Along with diapers of course!!  No pictures this time but next time you will see our little Mama-to-Be!!  Congratulations Jared & Katie!  Can't wait to meet little Mr. Kinzel!

My thought to leave you with:  Do something you enjoy doing, I enjoy writing this blog, it fulfills something in me, the need to write something down, communicate, and someday look back and read these posts and enjoy "The Days of Our Lives."

Until next time . . .