12 years ago

I wanted post real quickly about my feelings today.  Twelve years ago my mom went to be with Jesus at the age of 45.  I only had her on this earth for 181/2 years of my life but she taught me so much and continues to teach me.  I want to be that kind of mom, the one that her children look back on and can still learn from her actions.  I never imagined that 12 years later I would be in the midst of learning that I have the same heart disease my mom had.  I never imagined that 12 years later I would be thinking so much about how my mom dealt with her diagnosis,  how the doctors treated her.  There have been so many questions I have wanted to ask her through out these last months.  So many questions have arisen.  My mom's heart condition was unknown, they thought a virus had most likely attacked her heart..  They didn't know it was genetic.  She didn't know it could kill her suddenly.  I have the benefit of knowing.  Unfortunately I had to lose my mom in order to know.  Tonight I am praying that I can take what I know and do the very best I can do to take care of myself, to educate myself and my family.  I can live a long, healthy life with this disease and I pray that that is God's plan for my life.  I remember after mom died that I had an overwhelming feeling deep in my soul that she had died for a reason.  I knew that I might never know why, but God knew.  Could it have possibly been to help us realize the depth of our situation, the seriousness?  To save other's lives.  I always search for a reason for things and when I can't find one I know I just have to trust.  I feel like I have finally come to the point where I can have peace knowing that I can just trust God.  I don't have to analyze, doubt, search, just trust.  I pray that you can find that peace in whatever situation you might be facing.

Dining Room

 Here are the Dining Room pictures.  The walls look kind of white in the pictures, but they are actually a khaki/gray color.  I painted much of the downstairs this color, a nice neutral color.  The above picture is taken when standing at the front door and looking toward the left.

This one is taken standing at the front door looking straight ahead toward the living room.

 This is taken while standing in the doorway to to the kitchen.  The room on the left side of the picture is the playroom, which is just the 4th bedroom.  It is so nice to finally have an extra room for toys!

 It was Lane's spring break this last week.  We went swimming and Reese and Lane went skiing and snowboarding a lot.  We have also been going sledding.  We got Lane a snowboard last week and he is doing really awesome.

And of course Lane has been climbing trees in the backyard.  We had a really nice week, lots of sunny weather and some snow.  Beautiful!

Going Away

Before we left Coronado in January we had a couple get togethers with some of our wonderful friends.  It was fun to hang out with them and the kids always have a blast together.

Max, Daniel and Lane eating their charred marshmallows :)

 Daniel, Lane and Seth.  Lane and Daniel have been friends since preschool.  It was hard for me to separate these two.  I know that Lane will always make new friends, but you can't replace the ones you already had.  Daniel's mom Kelly has been such a dear friend of mine since I moved to Coronado too.  It was hard to leave them.

 Avi, Estelle and Cara.  These little girls (Audrey is missing from the picture) are all around the same age and had such fun together.  Our coffee dates were full of little girls running around.

 Kelly, me and Susan.  We had a fire out by our house a few nights before we left.  These girls are dear to my heart.  We keep talking about missing our coffee dates.  I have to laugh, over time we all switched to decaf for different reasons.  Our coffee dates may have been a little less "energized" but special none the less!

 We got together at the Roy's house quite a few times before we left too.  This was our last get together.  The Mendenhall's came too.  Tyler, Charlie, Lucy, Lane and Estelle.  These kids all hold a special place in my heart.  Lane was just 3 1/2 when we moved to Coronado and now he's 8!  I have loved watching these kids grow.  Charlie and Case were just a few months apart.  I have loved hanging out with Charlie and watching all the things he says and does, he is such a good hearted little guy.  And Estelle and Lucy our "twins" that are just 4 days apart.  They have been so cute together!

Leah bribed the kids with candy to get a good picture of them.  Man, I already miss all these friends!  One thing I have learned from moving around is that God has always blessed us with wonderful friends wherever we go.  And the awesome part is, although we move away from them, we have kept in contact with everyone.  It's so fun to have friends all over the world.  In fact I just got a cherry blossom Starbucks mug from my friend Katie who now lives in Japan.  This lifestyle is hard, but full of blessings!

Kitchen

I've had kind of a yucky last few days.  On Thursday of last week I got a call from the cardiologist in Anchorage to set up an appointment.  Turns out they wanted me to do the consultation and the defibrillator implantation the next day, to save me an extra trip over there.  To make a long story short, due to childcare and insurance reasons I can't do that.  So I am in the process of rescheduling everything.  The whole situation makes me depressed.  I am frustrated in many ways.  Having the actual appointment to get the defibrillator makes it very scary and real for me.  I realize that it could be worse, but either way, it is an adjustment, a lifestyle change.  So I just need a little time to adjust :)  So in an effort to feel "normal" I am posting pictures of our kitchen!  I really love this house.  I have had lots of fun decorating and pulling things together. 

 I really like the bar part of the counter.  The kids eat breakfast and snacks here.  Lane does his homework there etc.

 I am excited about the paint color we painted.  It is a True Value color called Samuel.  And of course my new refrigerator is something to be excited about too!

 The white door on the left goes out to the garage, the closet in the middle used to hold the washer and dryer but we moved those to the garage and we put the computer desk and all my craft stuff in there.

 I ripped down the Winnie the Pooh valance almost as soon as we moved in (I wonder why?).  I just made this valance last week.  Reese's brother Jordan was here when we moved in and watched me rip the old valance down.  He said he'd wondered how long it would take for me to do that.  He knows me all too well!

Before we moved I scored two (new) old windows from Reese's dads shop.  I backed the panes with the left over fabric from the valance and made it into a menu board.  Just write on it with dry erase markers and it comes right off.  Stay tuned for more pictures of the house!