Pictures from Opal's 1st Birthday

Opal playing with the alphabet drum that she got from Aunt Nancy and Cousin Oliver


Opal sitting in front of Grandma Wendy. Grammy Alice is taking the picture ~ we were playing bounce the balloon.


Opal's My Little Pony Birthday Cupcakes (what a cool idea, order a cupcake cake and then you don't need forks, plates - great idea Suzanne!) Opal sitting in her new chair and Grammy Alice giving Opal a bottle.

Isn't our little precious Opal just beautiful! We thank God for this little miracle. Opal weighed 16 lbs 11 oz on her first birthday!! No more feeding tubes or O2 tubes ~

Today, February 24, 2009!

Today is Opal's 1st birthday. Her party is this evening. I will post pictures after we get home. I have been thinking about her and the last year. She has definitely come a long way. She started out at 1 lb 15 oz and 13 1/2" long. She now weighs, I think, close to or over 15 lbs. She is no longer dependent on O2 or her feeding tube. She loves to stand and has the biggest grin. She is definitely a joy in our lives.

Celebrate Winter

"Celebrate Winter" that was the title of my devotion this morning. My first thought was to celebrate the beauty of winter: the snow, the crisp morning air, and the evergreens that stand so tall here in Washington. My thoughts couldn't be farther from what the writer of the devotion had in mind.

First I turned to the scripture that goes along with the title, Psalm 42. The first thing I noticed was a note I had written on July 16, 2004 - from Charles, so many times when I am struggling and once again today as Jamie returns to Iraq and JC's funeral. I immediately found myself back to that day. Feeling sad and anxious about Jamie going back to war. I had struggled so much in the previous months he was there, worry of would he return (he did on 3/11/05) and feelings of sadness about the loss of a dear friend and a friendship that had suffered over the previous two years (mine and Julie's, JC's daughter ~ another story in itself). I remember praying for Julie that day and my decision to stay away from the funeral out of respect for Julie. I heard later she had wondered if I would be there...

Psalm 42 is filled with questions regarding despair and hope. So many reminders that God is with me whenever, wherever and however I am doing.

...as the dear pants...so my soul pants
...my tears have been my food...men question "where is your God"
...these things I remember...how I shouted with joy and thanksgiving
...why am I downcast...put your hope in God
...deep calls to deep...when I read this I think of being overwhelmed, in so deep not even sure how to get out
...by day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me...
...I call unto God who is my Rock "why have you forgotten me?" and He replies "I am here my child"
...put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God!

words of reminder that God is with me, even in my greatest despair and hardest struggles. Never forget Alice, that God loves you and will never ever leave you! Thank you Lord for this strong reminder on this chilly morning.

So now as I think of "celebrating winter" I think of celebrating the dark days of depression (not wanting to be in those days but acknowledging they are a part of me), that even though some days are so difficult for me I can remember and remind myself that God is with me every step of the way and He will never leave me. Though I stumble and fall, He will pick me up again and again. Though my mind wanders to places of major despair he replaces those thoughts with memories of my dear children and delightful grandchildren - reasons to live and celebrate each and every day.

So I close with a thank you to the Lord this morning: thank you for the reminder that you are always near, that your love will never leave me and all I have to do is call on your name and you will be beside me.

A Rainy Morning

It is a cold and wet rainy morning here in Blaine. I don't think I am complaining just commenting. Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day.

I have not posted a lot lately, not sure what to write. So thought today I would just drop in, add a couple pictures of the kiddo's, and say hello.

When we were in Las Vegas last fall after my sister's death, we were able to go to the cemetery where Royce is buried. Here is a picture of his marker. Sometimes it is hard to believe that he has been gone for over 31 years. Sometimes I wonder what he would be like had he lived but then I remember that he had many health complications and life would not have been easy for him.

In reflecting about Royce, I am reminded how blessed I am to have Jamie and Brandon here with us. Jamie is doing well. Busy working at Fred Meyer's in the electronics department and helping Suzanne in raising Opal. Opal is almost a year old. She has been the trooper and is growing stronger every day. She is now off of all the oxygen and is trying hard to walk. Here are a couple of pictures of her from earlier. I will get lots of pictures on her birthday to share.


The above picture was taken around Thanksgiving. Because I was so sick with a bad cold at Christmas time we were not able to spend any time with Jamie, Suzanne or Opal.


Here is a picture of Max and Christopher taken at Christmas time when we were in Boise. I hope to get more pictures from Danalyn & Brandon that I can share with all of you.




Well, I guess this is all for today. I will write more later. Hope everyone has a good day.

Reflections

I woke this morning thinking about my cousin, John Johnson. I heard from my aunt that John had passed away at the young age of 45 in early January.

Memories of times spent together as we were growing up flowed through my mind. Playing a game of jumping over the heater vent that was between the kitchen and the living room in the house on West Park. Going swimming in their pool ~ I was quite impressed that they had their own swimming pool! I remember having picnic's at Grandma & Grandpa Johnson's place - it was like a huge park in the middle of town. I am sure if I were to go back to Grandpa Johnson's place I would find it to be just a large lot with lots of trees surrounding the house.

When I married, I lost contact except via the mail and later email and phone calls between my aunt and her family. I would think of them often and wonder what John, along with his sisters Lee Ann and Bonnie were doing. Then Ron and I reconnected with my aunt in the 90's. Many things had changed, my aunt was remarried. Uncle Don is a sweet and loving man, he reminds me of a big teddy bear. They now live on 1500 acres in Lake County, CA. They have a real cool place: it has the main hunting lodge (that sleeps a lot), the caretaker's quarters (where my Aunt Joan and Uncle Don live), and then the cottage which is a two bedroom comfy place to stay (the bed is the most comfy I have ever slept on). Lee Ann, a teacher, has a daughter, Marcy and Bonnie & Kent have three little girls and also live in Lake County and John was living in Winnemuca, NV, and Chris lives in the Bay Area, she is Uncle Don's daughter from a previous marriage.

We were able to see the whole family except for John at Thanksgiving 2005. That Thanksgiving I also reconnected with my mom's Uncle Jimmy & Aunt Barbara. We were sorry John could not make it for the holidays. Yet, it was good to reconnect with so many family members.

Then last week I got an email from my Aunt Joan saying that John had passed away. I feel for my aunt ~ it is not right for a parent to have to bury a child, no matter how old the child is. Since then I have thought about John a lot. I feel sad that as a part of my family I didn't really know him. I wonder what kind of conversations we might have had with each other. I wonder if we each did things in our lives that the other would be proud of. I wonder what he liked to do for fun? If he liked movies or more physical stuff. All my wondering will not give me any answers.

Now I just wonder he if is with the Lord ~ I believe he is as I believe God is a Fair and Just God and will honor the prayers of those who cry out to him during his life time. What I hope to learn from this is to reconnect with family, and friends who are like family for we never know what our lives will bring.

Alice

Just a note to catch up...

Here it is past the middle of January and I have not written since the 27th of December. In just four short weeks lots has been happening here in Blaine.

First we returned from Boise on January 1st. When we signed in at Boise airport we were asked if we wanted to volunteer to get bumped ~ Ron and I looked at each other and said "let's go for it!" So for giving up our seats on a 3:00 departing flight we were put on the 4:30 departure flight, each of us received a $200 voucher for future travels. Ron immediately starts thinking of Disneyland or Denver or ???? but I immediately think "yeah, we can go to Boise again!" We arrived in Seattle at 6:30, had to wait for the 9:00 shuttle from the airport to Ferndale and arrived home about midnight to more snow and super cold weather.

We jumped right back into our daily life: Ron working or trying to work (with so much snow and ice there were places he could not get his truck into) and me working at the church and making plans to return to work at the C Shop.

But then I hit a glitch. My depression started spiraling down and the decision was made that I would check back into St. Joseph Hospital to address the deep depression I was in. I was in the hospital from January 12th to the 17th. Since being discharged I have been taking things slowly and trying to come up with some tangible things I can do to keep from going down the trail of depression. I would appreciate your prayers as I work on this and Ron supports me during this time. I thank the Lord for a loving husband, great kids, daughter-in-law's, grandchildren and church family for all their support these last weeks and in the weeks to come.

I want to share about an upcoming event BUT oops, it's a surprise for someone who reads this blog so I had better keep quiet. I will tell you all about it in a later blog. Keep tuned!

Well, we are off to a Blaine boys basketball game against Sehome so I will close for now. Just wanted to let you know how we are doing.

Hope this wintry month you are able to keep warm and not have to deal with too much more snow ~ at least those of us in the Pacific Northwest.

Love, Alice

Christmas Activities

Greetings on this snowy day in Boise.

We had a pretty hectic week before arriving in Boise on Christmas Day. Let me tell you about it.

Dec. 18th found me thinking about my mom. It would have been her 73rd birthday. She has been gone for just over three years. I thought of the things she enjoyed about Christmas...peppermint patties, Christmas lights and watching us girls open our stockings! Santa always made sure that there were four or five gifts in those stockings. I sometimes wonder what our relationship would have been like if she had not gotten cancer. I am thankful though for the hours I was able to spend with her over Labor Day Weekend before she died the end of October.

Dec. 19th I worked at Northwood on the bulletin, the script, the power point presentation (realized Power Point 2007 is not that bad of a program; I just needed to be patient with myself as I looked for the necessary tools to do the overheads for Sunday) and continued working on the Christmas Dinner Box list ~ confirming families and reminding them when to pick up their dinner box.

Saturday, Dec. 20th we celebrated 33 years of marriage. You can read my reflections with the previous post. To update, we did go out for lunch at Olive Garden and then ran some errands and decided not to go to the movies but spent the evening at home and enjoying being together and watching Christmas movies.

Sunday, Dec. 21st woke to more snow! We made macaroni & cheese for the potluck at church and then made our way there. There was lots of discussion about do we go ahead with the children's Christmas program? the potluck? It was a a wait and see time. It was finally decided the children would sing the songs they had been practicing and we would have a potluck with the food that was brought. The children did a wonderful job of singing songs from around the world and then a great potluck was had by all. Many kinds of soup, rolls, salads and of course traditional Christmas cookies rounded out the meal. It was fun to visit with friends, share a special service with the children's singing and end with a delicious meal.

In the evening Ron and I went the Clemon's Annual Egg Nog party. Great conversation with good friends made for a wonderful way to spend the evening. After leaving the Clemon's we headed to Bellingham airport to pick up Gilda, a friend's mom who was arriving as a Christmas surprise. Well the snow, wind and cold kept the plan from landing and she went back to San Diego. We heard later they were just an hour out of Bellingham when the pilot turned the plane around:(.

Dec. 22nd we awoke to more snow!!!! Ron did a couple of jobs which included getting the pick-up stuck 6 times trying to get to and from the jobs. I picked up Kristen and her daughter Jade and took them to Bellingham for Jade's doctor appointment. She is fine, just had a rash break out due to her cold. On the way back we stopped once again at the airport. Rumors had it that Gilda was actually going to land! She arrived at 12:30 p.m. I drove to Dan & Tina's (Dan didn't know his Mom was coming) and Gilda trekked through the snow to the front door. She knocked and Charlie and Dan opened the door, staring in disbelief at seeing his Mom at the door. Needless to say he was pleasantly surprised! Yeah!! Tina pulled it off!!!

I then picked up Coral (Jade's sister) from day care, took Kristen home and then the girls and I went to lunch at BK and then shopping for Christmas gifts for Kristen. The girls gifts were at school which had been closed on Thursday and Friday due to the frigid cold and snow. Being a mom myself, I knew how important it was to the girls that they have something under the tree. We had a good time and then stopped and picked up Montana (another young girl from our church). After taking Jade & Coral home, Montana and I went to the church to help pack the Christmas Dinner Boxes. There were many helpers and it didn't take long to get them all packed and ready to hand out on Tuesday. It was fun to be with so many people, working towards a common goal and being with friends.

Dec. 23rd we woke to more snow. Ron took me to the church to work and then he and Dana went to Costco to pick up 200 pumpkin pies for the dinner boxes. There was absolutely no room for anything but the 200 pies, Ron and Dana! Everyone gathered at the church around 1:00 and put the pies in the boxes and got ready to hand out the boxes. I don't know the exact count (the papers are on the desk in the church office just waiting for me to return from Boise) but we did give away 200 Christmas Dinner boxes. The last delivery was made at 10:10 p.m. The day was busy but I would not change a thing; it was lots of fun being together with friends and sharing with those in our community. Ron even got his picture taken by the mayor of Blaine!

Christmas Eve we woke to more snow and feeling like there was too much to do and not enough time to do it all in! We wrapped gifts to take to Boise, delivered the last two Christmas Dinner Boxes, got some great coffee from the Blackberry House (Aaron the peppermint mocha was delicious!), went to the church to get the keys from the pick-up for the storage unit (wanted to have the chains for the suburban in the suburban before getting on the road to Sea Tac), stopped and did 3 loads of laundry, picked up suitcases from the Alesse's (thanks Patrick & Patricia), made a trip to Bellingham to get last minute prescriptions and snacks for in the car and on the plane (found out we don't need to bring our own snacks on Alasaka Air), grabbed a quick lunch. Found out the Christmas Eve communion service was canceled due to the weather (mixed feelings - we so enjoy the service each year but was thankful for the extra time; Margaret is right ~ cancellations are a gift of time), returned home, packed the suitcases and two carry on's + the computer, took Charlie Brown to Lynn & Tanya's (thanks for being the best dog sitters around) and made another trip to the church to print up our itenerary (I had printed it up once but who knows where that copy went!). Waited for the phone call from Jamie that he had made it safely home ~ with all the snow that fell during the day all were concerned that once he got off the freeway he might not make it on the side streets in the Honda Del Sol. We then made one last stop before heading out of Blaine ~ we stopped at the Gibson's to celebrate Christmas Eve sharing scripture, singing some traditional Christmas carols, taking communion and prayer with their family and Sam & Norma Jean Crozier ~~~ it was a special time to reflect on Christ's birth and a wonderful way to begin our Christmas. Thank you Gibson's for allowing us the privilege of being with your family on such a special night!

It was close to 10 p.m. when we began the drive to Seattle. We got about 10 miles down the road and Ron asked "did you turn the hot water heater off?" I said no. As we debated do we turn around or not, we came to Slater Road; Ron got off the freeway, turned around and we drove back to the motor-home. As would happen he had turned off the hot water heater but as we both said "better safe than sorry." Both of us felt relieved that we knew for sure the hot water heater was off. I kept imagining that on our return the hot water tank would have burned out and there would be NO propane ~ a very chilling thought! So we got back on the freeway and made an uneventful trip to Seattle. We arrived in Seattle and were settled into our motel room about 2:00 a.m. I wish I could say we had a great night's sleep BUT we can't; we were both restless and up/down off and on through the night.

Christmas Day we woke up to freezing cold weather and snow falling!!! All we could think about was hoping that our plane would take off and we would get out of the snow! After driving around the airport for almost an hour looking for a parking spot we went to the hourly parking lot (cost John $35 to get the suburban to drive him and Miriam home) and had no problem finding a spot there! We trekked into the airport, found out our flight was delayed 2 hrs, got our boarding passes and checked our luggage. We then made our way to the gate and made ourselves comfortable. We boarded the plane in Seattle 20 minutes after we were supposed to land in Boise, but that was OK, we were just glad that we were finally on our way. We arrived to falling snow in Boise! and more cold weather!! but most of all we were glad to finally see Brandon and know that soon we would see Danalyn, Max and Christopher. We had a delightful dinner at Danalyn's folks and then went back to B &D's place where we opened gifts. It was fun to see the excitement of Max and his enthuisiasm in playing nerf basketball with his Dad, Christopher playing with his new bus and Danalyn taking lots of pictures!

On a side note: due to my bad cold we made plans to be with Jamie, Suzanne and Opal after our return from Boise. We are thankful for Opal and her improving health every day and definitely didn't want to expose her to a cold that could be avoided. Jamie, Suzanne and Opal spent a quiet Chirstmas Eve together and then on Christmas Day spent time with Suzanne's family (they had made the trip from Burlington and Bellingham to Blaine to be with Jamie, Suzanne and Opal). I can't wait to see pictures of Opal's first Christmas and of course be able to spend time with them when we get back.

Ron and I are so blessed to have the children and grandchildren that we have!

Friday, Dec. 26th found me in bed for the whole day ~ my cold has hit full force so I hunkered down in the blankets, reading and sleeping throughout the day. Brandon, Max and Christopher came over to go swimming with Grandpa. In the evening Ron went over to Brandon's place for dinner.

Which brings us to today, Saturday, Dec. 27th - I am still not feeling well so have taken it pretty easy. I have napped twice today and am once again beginning to feel a little human. Brandon, Danalyn, Max and Christopher are coming over to hang out and then we are going out to dinner. Tomorrow or Monday this Gramsdude gets to spend the day with Christopher while the rest of them go play in the snow and go snow shoeing! and snow boarding! I can't imagine Ron on a snow board but we will see. I am sure Danalyn will take lots of pictures and I know Brandon and Max will be sure to share all the details with me upon their return.

I don't know much else so will close out this blog for today. We do want to wish each of you a Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year! I will make sure to post pictures once Danalyn sends them my way.

Love to you all!!!