Lets Get Together.......

Although it was for a sad reason, My cousins and I enjoyed being able to spend so much time together last week. Since then, we have been able to get together and hang out a little more than normal. I know Grandma Rosina is smiling down at us from heaven.....she loved when we all spent time together. One of the best parts is that our 'long lost' 2nd cousin, Larae, came back into contact with us! I have enjoyed having her back in my life!

While together we were able to 'reproduce' a picture that was taken over 10 years ago in Grandma's back yard.

Other than Skyler and Damara being switched, the picture was exactly the same. (sorry about the quality of the first picture....its just a cropped version of the bulletin boards at Grandma's viewing)

(Left to Right)

Me, Wray, Damara, Skyler, and Larae

Many Years Later......

(Left to Right)

Me, Wray, Skyler, Damara, and Larae

My Grandma.....and My Pap

My heart hurts.

There is a void, a hole that can never be filled again. In my short 20 years, I have never lost someone as close to me as Grandma Rosina.

How does one recover from something like this? I watch my Pap coming and going on his own...arriving at his house to find him eating lunch alone with grandma's home-made CD playing in the background.

I watch him standing by her casket, tears streaming down his face; I can't recall a time that I have ever seen him cry.

I know grandma is in a place that she never wants to leave again, she is happy. She can hear out of both ears.....she never has to worry about being cold, taking an extra pair of gloves along.

But what about Pap? His constant friend, companion, lover, soul mate........is no longer at his side.

Is there anything to say to him?

"It will be ok Pap. We're here for you"

Nothing we can say to him will ever heal the hurt in his heart.

Grandma is dancing on streets of Gold, while my Pap is hurting.

I love you Pap!

My Grandparents on their 25th Wedding Anniversary

October 1986

For Your Enjoyment

Well, blog readers, I don't have much time to post but I have several pictures that I've been wanting to share with you. Enjoy!









My family's Thanksgiving day table. Before we ate Cosette and Eli both said their 'thankful' Bible verse and then Cosette said the blessing on the food

Afterwards a stressful game of Cooties was won by my mom.....aka Grandma Karen. Grandma Rosina (background) was an amazing referee.

In the end, the winning and losing teams kissed and made up :-)

We celebrated my cousins birthday on Thanksgiving too. Grandma Rosina was quite creative and brought along a pumpkin shaped birthday cake.

Cosette and I after a long evening of playing. She spent the night with us a few nights ago and I realized even more how much she is growing up

My dad with his namesake, Noah Shaun.

On November 1st I took a bus trip to New York City with some friends. We had an amazing time! We were very amused, however, to discover that the only place you can find trees in NYC is on top of buildings! And even then they're more like little twigs stuck in the ground.

On September 27th, I took a bus trip with my friend Lacey to Washington DC. We spent the day visiting the Lincoln Memorial, World War 2 Memorial, Washington Memorial, the Arlington Cemetery, Vietnam Memorial, the Tomb of the Unknown soldier, and the Holocaust Museum....quite the busy day! We had a blast though...

You probably won't hear too much from me in the next week or so. This is where you will find me....comfy on the couch studying for finals next week. It seems like just yesterday I posted about the beginning of the semester....now its finals week already!

Well, I'll post next week when my stress level has dropped a little...probably Wednesday around 3pm, after my last final.... :-)

Have a blessed week!

The Best

This is my family..........

Ok, so ithis is my family almost 19 years ago.

This post is dedicated to my Mom, in honor of Mothers Day. She has dedicated many years of her life to not only raising her children, but also giving them an education....which isn't always easy ;-)

When Wray and I were still just toddlers, she would be trying to explain fractions to Jaime while the two of us were pulling on her arms asking for play dough, cookies......

an-apple-peeled-cut-up-and-put-on-the-yellow-plate-with-salt......:-)

(just for you mom :-) )

While Mom was careful to make sure we all understood fractions, carbon, horizontal vs. vertical...etc....she was even more concerned that we all had a strong faith in our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Hours, Days, Weeks, Months she spent with us studying memory verses, going over practice questions, and loooong drives to quiz meets where she spent her entire day dedicated to us. With some friends from church, we put together a top notch quiz team (if I may say so myself) and she was always the first to encourage and support us. This picture shows Jaime with a quizzing trophy.

Mom always wanted her three children to have close relationships with each other. Her dream was for the three of us to stay close once we were grown. And I can honestly say that she did an excellent job. :-) We obviously had normal sibling squabbles when we were young, but we remain close to this day.

Even when Jaime went off to college, we were still a 3some......

So heres to you Mom! To the years of your life you dedicated to your family ( and the years to come ). We may not express this as often as we should, but we all appreciate every thing you've done for us! From putting extra salt on that apple :-) to late night talks when we needed it most. You definitely are the Best!

We Love You Mom!

Happy Mothers Day!

Got Variety?

I got home from work tonight a little tired and ready to relax. It had been raining most of the afternoon so my family decided it was a good night to stay in and watch a movie. As I'm sure a lot of you already know, when its time to choose a movie that the whole family will like...well, things can get a little sticky.
We elected mom to make the choice ( since being a mom seems to give you a good sense of what will please all your children.:) ) Most of the DVDs we have are owned by either me or Wray, kept in our rooms respectively. So, mom goes back the hall to check out our selection and a few minutes later she comes back to the living room with an amused look on her face. She then goes on to explain what she found when she was searching for the 'perfect family movie-night' movie.
She went to my room first and this is what she found:




Titles such as: The Chronicles of Narnia, Father of the Bride, A Walk to Remember, The Wedding Planner, Princess Diaries, What a Girl Wants, My Best Friends Wedding....to name a few. Obviously nothing that Wray or Dad would enjoy.
So, she ventures over to Wray's room and finds:


Titles such as: Gladiator, The Island, Miracle, We are Marshal, When a Stranger Calls, Maverick, 3:10 to Yuma......this time, not much that she and I would enjoy.

She arbitrarily chose a movie that she had never seen before. It was one from Wray's shelf....Ted DekKer's Thr3e. We all enjoyed it


Black and White. Up and Down. Cats and Dogs. Wray and Kristin? Of course not. I actually do enjoy some of his movies and ......well, ok. He hates mine.

Got Variety?

Snowboarding Clutz

The first day of spring is just around the corner (March 20th) and there is a nice fluffy 8 inches of snow on the ground :-)
Growing up living in the mountains was a lot of fun. There is usually a good bit of snow on the ground for most of the winter......which makes for lots of fun 'winter memories'. Yes, most of you have probably been reading my blog long enough to know whats coming.........

• Me (at age 10) and Wray (at age 12) are trying out his new snowboard in our backyard. The house we lived in at the time had a backyard that started on a small slope that led in to a large yard that also sloped....right into a cornfield, and then a rather steep bank and deep ditch. Wray, who was pretty good at snow boarding was able to keep it under control and stop before ending up in the the corn field. Wray takes a few rides down the hill and then decides to give me a turn. I get strapped in and am feeling pretty confident....that is until I start down the hill and realize I have no idea how to stop this thing! I fly down the slope, through the yard, across hundreds of cornstalks, down the bank and land face first in the ditch! Put me on a stage with lights, and I've been told that I can be very graceful......but don't ever ask me to go snowboarding :-P

• My family and a few of our neighbors used to go sled riding in this big field every winter. Corn field by summer, sled ramp by winter. One time we decided to go at night, so my neighbor put up these huge lights that lit up the whole field. The hill was a sheet of ice that night. So icy in fact, that me and a friend didn't even need a sled. We just slid down in our snow pants :-) We tried a sled but about killed ourselves :-) It made for an easy walk back up the hill!

• My home school group went on a Cross-Country Skiing trip one year. We had an instructor with us who took us way back in the woods on some pretty nice trails. Now, I'm a bit more stable on skis than on a snowboard so I had a lot of fun. We got to this really big hill, and I remember not many of us made it down the first time without falling. At one point I think about 5 of us were piled up in the middle of the hill. We were all so determined to make it down without falling that we climbed back to the top to 'try, try again'.

• Just a few years ago, mom and I ( and our car) ended up in the middle of a cow field. We came over the top of a hill and slid right through a fence and into a mud pit in the field (at least, I've always told myself it was just mud :-) ) Good news: it was right at the top of our friends driveway. Bad news: Their driveway is a mile long! It was really cold that night and really really windy. The driveway had so much ice on it that I just stood there and the wind pushed me the whole way to the house :-)

• Another home school group trip, only this time we were going snow tubing. You know the big wires that you hook your tube to that pull you up the hill? (If you've ever been snow tubing you know what I'm talking about) Anyway, there was this big line of us being pulled up the hill when the tube that was closest to the top came unhooked from the wire, came flying down the hill and pulled several friends along with it :-) Tsk, home schoolers causing trouble on the slopes.......

I am determined to get my skis out this winter! I've been avoiding them because of my hands, but I really want to go skiing...so, I'm going to! Probably by next week this time I'll be posting a story about something weird that happened while skiing this week :-P Don't worry, lots of gloves will be worn with hand warmers stuffed inside. But I'm sure that the thrill of being back on my skis will be worth some extra hand therapy........

Smile! You have crazy grandchildren :-)

Hi Grandma! I thought you might need some cheering up since you're stuck inside with this silly weather. I'm sitting here at work trying to decide what I could say to make you laugh........then it hit me.....the one thing that I'm sure will bring a smile to your face is your 3 youngest grand-daughters, Damara, Kristin, and Skyler :-) The three of us always seemed to do something to make you laugh.....I think it was because you were trying not to cry, but thats not the point :-P Anyway, I'm sure you will remember all these occasions......

1) Sky, Mara, and myself were all spending the night at your house. We insisted that we could all fit in the bed in your guest room, and you agreed that we could stay in there ( what fun would grandmas house be if you actually had to go to sleep, right ;-). You sat up with us for a while and told us stories....and we quickly discovered that all three of us could not all fit in the same bed. The idea occured to us, for some odd reason, that if we put the matress on the floor we would have more room. I still can't figure that one out, but I remember how much fun we had trying not to wake pap up while we basically rearranged your guest bedroom so the matress would fit on the floor. The next morning we tried to convince pap that Sky had moved it by herself (I think we picked her because it was believable that she would have actually tried :-) To this day, I still don't know if we convinced him or not ;-)

2) The occasion: One of many 'birthday shopping trips'
The place: Riding down the highway in your red Tracker
The goofiness: The entire ride from my house to the mall, Sky had her head out the window singing,
'99 bottles of coke on the wall' I think we all walked 10 steps behind her the rest of the day :-P

3) There is this one other story that I could tell, but the 4 of us have sworn to secrecy. All I will say is that it involves a red light.............ok, you can stop laughing now........:-P

4) I will apologize on behalf of Skyler for all the gum wrapper that ended up in your hair from the backseat.......it was trouble to put the two of us back there.....

5) Did you know there is a sign in the store in the mall now that says, "No cameras allowed in store" ? Just kidding :-) There should be though; I thought that lady was going to kick us out!

6) We came out of "Long John Silvers" and you discovered that you had locked your keys in the car. We were there for about 15 minutes trying to figure out what to do when you suddenly remembered that you had an extra key in your purse:-) That time you made us laugh!

7) Its Easter Sunday, and we're all eating lunch at your house. Wray, Damara, Syler, and I all have a game of ping-pong going in the basement. Sky and I were on the side of the table facing the steps, Wray and Mara on the other. Mara hits the balls towards Sky who whacks it as hard as she can.....right through the curtain and into the toilet :-) I'll never forget the look on her face as she says, "I'm so glad nobody was in there!" Pap came down and made her put on big rubber gloves and fish the ball out of the toilet......after that we made her stand on the other side of the table when we played ping-pong.

Well, thats all for now. Hope this made you smile :-D

1 Ice storm, 200 cookies, and 1 nervous little sister

Wray and I had an 'ice storm' adventure on Friday. Our area had freezing rain all thursday night, and by the time morning came around everything, including the road, was covered in a nice sheet of ice. When I pulled myself out of bed I called and cancelled hand therapy and then found Wray in the driveway chipping about an inch of ice off my car. If you could have lifted the ice off you would have had a perfect ice sculpture of my car :-)

Then, we watched a movie in the kitchen while I baked a double batch of chocolate chip cookies.....we have enough cookies to feed an army :-P We then decided to 'live on the wild side', as Wray put it, and take some cookies to Joel and Jaime on the snow covered roads. He went out to warm up the car and I discovered when I went out a few minutes later that when he said 'live on the wild side' he meant taking my car! Funny how that worked out, huh?

He drove so it also included taking the back way home, "to test your car in the snow." I was perfectly happy with never finding out how my car did on the back roads with snow, but we had fun :-P Or rather, he had fun laughing at me everytime I would cringe or cover my eyes. We took the back way with the agreement that he would pay for any damages that occured when we slid into a ditch and I would drive his Sunfire until my car was fixed.....he laughed at that too, so I'm not sure if he realized I was serious :-)
Wray is a pretty good driver though, and he parked my car safely back in the driveway at which point he turned to me and said, "See, no reason to worry." I then pryed my fingers off my dashboard and exited the car silently
:-)

So that is the story of our ice storm adventure