Thats it...

blog much?

2011-09-29T15:09:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in a while but I've been thinking starting up again about lately. I love the fall, it motivates me to be creative. What do you think?

www.llamafont.com

Radical Homemakers

2010-05-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

I am currently reading Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture by Shannon Hayes. It is an inspiring book, not what I expected it to be. As one review I read, by Hank Will of GRIT magazine put it so well:

Radical Homemakers is eloquent, engaging, thorough – a veritable bumper crop of research, field notes and beautifully crafted arguments that are, quite frankly, tough to dispute. Shannon Hayes leads the reader through cultural evolutionary changes that reduced our homes, once bustling centers of production shared by all family members, to the cold, disconnected, consumption-driven places they are today. Radical Homemakers shows us that once we traded our survival skills and domestic skills for post industrial revolution cash, we became victims of our own need to consume to survive. And Radical Homemakers makes it painfully clear that consuming to survive, the way we do, has pointed us on a class-stratifying path of environmental and emotional destruction that is not sustainable, not healthy and not very forward looking (or thinking).

Check out the Authors website: www.radicalhomemakers.com, where you can order a copy and share your own Radical Homemaking story.

New Spring Pictures on Flickr

2010-04-21T21:01:00.000-07:00

Happy Spring everyone.

Music Together!

2010-02-06T12:27:00.000-08:00

I want to share with you another one of my winter music blessings. The girls and I signed up for classes with Heartside Music Together (which is a class from the national program Music Together).

When we signed up for our class, we received a packet of information including a songbook and CD for all the music we sing together in class. Here is an excerpt taken straight from the "about us" section on HMT website: "The familial environment created in our classes supports the idea that all children (and adults too!) are musical. In our classes, we sing and chant, we play instruments, and we move/dance with the children to music. Parents are guided throughout the ten week class series on how to recognize and reinforce musical behaviors at home with the goal of creating an environment for life long music making".

This musical experience has enriched our lives. The girls love to interact with the music on this level. I will find them singing with each other, mimicking the movement and dance that they learn in the classroom. They have a chance to use an array of mucical sounds. These kids really enjoy the instument time!

I recommend any parent of children 0-5years old take this class!(yes, there are a few babies who attend). The teacher, Carmen, stresses how important it is for adults to be role models when they interact in the class to encourage children to participate. I love it when my youngest watches me to see what I am doing and then mimics me! My oldest feels proud that she is also a role model for the younger children. It is a good experience for her in leadership, she is realizing the responsibilities that go along with that.

Please consider coming to the sample class coming up for the spring session of Hearside Music Together Classes! The Demo class is Saturday, March 27 at 10:30am! Check out the facebook group while your on the net: Heartside Music Together Facebook Group

Love and Music

2010-01-31T18:18:00.000-08:00

Happy February to everyone! The good news is that spring isn't that far away. I rest in the hope spring brings. During the grey hours of winter it is hard to find contentment. This winter I have found joy and contentment in some unexpected ways: Live music!! It has warmed my soul and opened my heart!

The Beerhorst family is hosting a series of house concerts (Wonder Wagon House shows, titled after their ArtPrize entry). The Rick Beerhorst Band has also been a new favorite of mine, I have had the privelege of seeing him perform twice this month. Rick and his band are amazing to watch.

This past concert was the band the Soil and the Sun. This is a great band. LOVE LOVE LOVE them! Here is a few pictures that I took of the concert.

More posts on my musical adventures to come! I hope you all are finding ways to have joy during the long grey days of winter. Spring is coming! It really is!

Fresh Snow

2009-12-03T20:42:00.000-08:00

First day of snow here in GR which is amazing. We've had such a mild fall/winter, I can't complain. Actually, this whole year has been fairly mild.

Here are a few pictures of our adventures this evening. We went to the annual Shop Hop. It has grown in the past years. A free trolley takes shoppers around to 4 business districts in Grand Rapids. We ride the trolley and then visit the bakery around the corner from us. Its so pretty all lit up!

Here are the girls, near the bakery. Eliana was so excited about the snow, I couldn't get her to stop eating it. In fact, she really believes that everyone should be eating the snow.

People waiting to get on the trolley, a band playing Christmas music and the snow is really coming down!

We got home and the kids couldn't wait to get on their snow pants and play!

Here are a few shots of how quickly the snow came down (this is only after about 4 hours of snowing)

Grand Rapids Urban Chicken Movement

2009-11-09T11:26:00.000-08:00

If there is anyone in the Grand Rapids area that is interested in getting involved in the recently formed Urban Chicken Movement, please consider joining us at the Eastown Neighborhood Association this Wednesday Novemeber 11, 2009 at 7:00pm.

We will be building from off of the information gathered at the previous meeting. We are all very hopeful the ordinance will be changed soon. There is quite an interest in this topic. We also have a facebook group Urban Laying Hens...Chickens for Grand Rapids

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T10:06:00.001-07:00

Have a safe and fun Halloween!

Laundry Soap Update

2009-10-23T17:06:00.001-07:00

I just had to replenish my homemade laundry soap and I thought I would give you an update.

I posted at the end of June. That would make it 4 months in total that we used the laundry soap. I made a mistake with my calculations! I used a tablespoon scoop in my laundry to be sure I didn't use too much. I used two tablespoons for each load of laundry for a family of four. It costs me 9 dollars to make the batch. 9 DOLLARS FOR 4 MONTHS WORTH OF LAUNDRY!!! That is $2.25 a month!! WONDERFUL!!

What is even better is that a friend told me I was using too much per load. She suggested only one tablespoon per load. It is very hard to change our habits. I believe we are attached to our household cleaning products and especially our laundry soap. I need that "clean" feeling and I bought into the "more is better" mindset. I used to use so much soap! My neighbor told me that her daughter worked for one of the major corporations that make soap and detergent. My neighbor informed me about how very little it would take to clean a load. I started trying it because I was broke and laundry detergent is so expensive. It worked, my laundry came clean even though I used barely two tablespoons of the liquid detergent.

My next endeavor is cloth menstrual pads, dryer sheet alternatives and toothpaste.

I have a working sewing machine still and I find myself taking on projects. I am so busy with school but it is a nice outlet to have a hobby that will help me relax in my free time. I have enjoyed myself. I plan on posting some of my projects and the website tutorials that I have found handy.

Artprizegr.com

2009-09-16T13:14:00.000-07:00

I just added my first post for artprizegr.com. It is a blog created to keep tags on the Artprize happenings in Grand Rapids.

Check out this link: www.artprizegr.com to read my blurb :)

I encourage you to subscribe to this blog if you want to keep up with the art in GR during these exciting weeks to come!!

Camping in the cold rain

2009-08-24T20:13:00.000-07:00

Went camping this weekend with the family up north to visit my Dad. Even my brother and his two boys came. My dad lives almost an hour away and is doing well for himself. I was impressed at the scenery once I got settled in. I know now why my dad wants to stay up there!

I also didn't realize how large the Amish community is up there. My only regret is that I didn't take my good camera with me to capture some of the beauty through my lens...but I was worried about all the rain. Camping is hard enough with kids but I didn't want to worry about my technology too.

Here is an Amish sign. My daughter said "mom, do they put those signs up to warn you of crazy Amish or their crazy horses?" I had to laugh because most signs are to alert you or direct you...what else could it mean to a 7 year old?

We passed several horse and buggy, several times during the day. Any time I am faced with the simplicity of others, I feel I need to identify my own wastefulness.

Here is what camping looked like most of the weekend...rain, rain and more rain.

We managed to have fun when we could :)

Summer update

2009-08-04T11:37:00.000-07:00

This summer has been cold for us in Michigan! Our weather has resembled our Autumn months of September and October. I am not complaining, it has just been hard to conceal my disappointment. There is a healing element in warmth that I crave after our long and extremely brutal winter. I don't feel healed from the winter as of yet and I can already sense our daylight hours diminishing. School starts for my oldest next week. Her school follows an alternative schedule so they get a shorter summer break. This year I find it even more difficult to send her back.

I haven't posted in such a long time, I thought I'd give a few highlights for the past month:

My youngest turned 3!

I made her a dolly with a matching skirt. It was nice (thanks Emily) to have a working sewing machine in the house. I still have it and I am working on some clothes for myself.

This picture is a little blurry but I think it sums up my summer with my girls. My camera can hardly keep up. They dance, laugh and run all the time. Just busy with their own imagination. I really am going to miss these days...

Art Prize

2009-07-19T13:58:00.000-07:00

"ArtPrize is a radically open competition [based in Grand Rapids, MI]. Open to any artist in the world who can find space. Open to anybody in the city who wants to create a venue. Open to a vote from anyone who attends." I borrowed that straight from their website...better they explain it to you then me!

Many local artists are busy at work putting together their ideas for the contest. I love hearing of the collaborations that are going on. The creative energy has been fun to observe.

I wanted to post this article and blog from a family that lives near me, I admire their commitment to being a family of artists (read the article because I couldn't begin to summarize their commitment). I thought that Rapid Growth did an excellent job on the article, Living as a Work of Art.

There is a collaboration between the beerhorst's and Vandyke's (Rachel and Cameron). Check out Studio Beerhorst or Kinship in Color and Wool for further development on the Art Prize collaboration and inspiration for living.

Life on the Farm

2009-07-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

There is a cow on the farm! Yay! Brian and Jenna moved their girl, foxy, out on last Monday. She had just had a baby the day before...and they named the calf Sunday.

Foxy had a tough few days adjusting but her baby is nursing better now.

Here is a picture of Sunday and Foxy.

Here is Sunday all nestled into, what we now believe is poison ivy...none of us are plant experts but it truly appears suspicious.

Here is a closer look at the leaves in case anyone might recognize it

Just probably wish we had noticed it prior to kneeling in it to milk Foxy.

First weekend of summer vacation

2009-06-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

My oldest is FINALLY out of school for summer break. The school that she goes to has a longer calender year. So far, I don't like it that she loses so much summer. We'll stick with it because it really is our best option right now. Ellie starts in the fall. I can hardly believe it! It seems like she was just born!

This past week has been full of adventure and strife. We went camping out at the farm, played in the sprinkler as often as possible, went on walks, rode our bikes, read books and learned new things. It was also hot and the kids were extra cranky. We make the best of it and survived!

This weekend we started our first quiet time project of the summer. I saw the idea in Amanda Soule's book The Creative Family. Bella has a journal (which she has kept for the past year, I just bought her a new one for summer).

Here is a picture of Bella's project

We made soap. Well, some other company made the ingredients that we mixed together. I looked up recipes online. I converted tablespoons to pounds and did the math. It doesn't save money at all compared to our current detergent. I get the impression from what I read, it is more economical to make the liquid option. They claim 5 gallons for about $2.50 but this time around I didn't have the proper storage for liquid. We'll start with this.

Ellie helped me mix it up.

I wanted to show you a picture of Ellie's favorite daily chore. Its putting the bag into the trash can after her sister takes the trash out. She loves to do it, she gets her own bag out of the cabinet, opens it and puts it in.

I took all the kids (my nephews and my girls) to the museum today. We went to a planetarium show geared towards younger kids. Bella loved it...not to sure the other kids wanted to sit still for it.

I hope to see all of your summer adventures through your blog! If you haven't told me of your blog yet, send me a link in the comment :) happy adventures!

Mid-June thoughts...

2009-06-19T21:26:00.000-07:00

Hot, humid, and sticky! That sums up my day! We had a few big rain storms but nothing damaging close to home.

I went to the beach with the girls last Sunday. It was worth the ride out to Lake Michigan. It was fun for the girls to dig in the sand and splash a bit in the water. We didn't get to fly our kites this time...but there is always next week :) I keep all of our beach stuff in my trunk so we can go whenever we get the urge.

Here is a picture of our little beach area, with my new cart, my beach umbrella and picnic basket.

I love the Polaroid program (free and easy) :) can't help myself. I love how it makes it look like an old Polaroid.

Here are some more farm pics. The popup camper is up on the property now. I was thrilled about it but I will never stay on the farm again...because I hate roosters at 5am. I understand farm life...blah, blah, blah. That is why, the rooster can stay and I wont. Despite the rooster crows, the camper has a pleasant location. The pop-up is in the area fondly know as "Gardenside"

The gardens in the evening, a spectacular view off the west.

Farmers Market

2009-06-11T10:30:00.001-07:00

My dream job? Selling at the market! I helped Jen and David sell at the farmers market last Friday. My hopes are that there will be stuff to sell throughout the summer. It would be my shortest commute yet! Jen and I are working on it :)

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the market.

Beautiful lettuce

Jen and David

Jens cute sign

Venders hard at work

My favorite books at the moment

2009-06-10T22:06:00.000-07:00

Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross has been a pleasure to have around. There are a couple of quick projects in the book that I am determined to do.

The Urban Homestead: Your guide to self-sufficient living inside the city by Coyne and Knutzen.

Farm on the brain

2009-06-10T21:07:00.000-07:00

It was a nice day working at the farm. The pop up camper is out there now so I will be able to spend more time working with everyone. We had fun yesterday working together in the garden as a community. Brian, Jenna, Jen, Rich and I were hard at work all over the farm. Jenna had loads of beautiful laundry hanging. Rich was out collecting wood to make a fence. Brian was out killing chickens (he is a mobile chicken processor if you know anyone who needs their chickens processed). Jen and I (mostly Jen) made a huge batch of Pad Thai for dinner for everyone and then it was back out to work in the garden for us. We planted until we couldn't see in the dark. I planted in the cool soil and waited for the sun to set. I was eaten alive by mosquitos but who cares...it was surreal!

Here is a couple of pictures from my day out there.

Here is Jen and the field.

Rich

Rich and his new trailer:

I took a few pictures with my camera as I walked around. I picked flowers before the sun set

Here is the composting outhouse, notice the rouge chicken...it's part of the farm fun

Jen and Daisy

The highlight of my evening was sitting with my brothers and sisters around the campfire :)

Catching up

2009-06-03T17:25:00.000-07:00

Spring is here and summer is coming! Wahoo! I just love how life changes when the weather warms up. It's like our house seems bigger because we partially move outside! I love it!

My garden is in finally and it looks good in the yard. Of course, this is the first year with a garden here so it will continue to evolve all summer. I am growing a good variety of foods for the year and I have been collecting recipes so that I am ready to cook when I harvest. I have been gluten-free now for 3 weeks and it's going well. I decided to try being gluten free to see if it would help some of the stomach problems that have been troubling me for the past couple of years (most recently being the worst).

Here is my lettuce, all colorful and fabulous:

Here is my compost bin that I am most proud of, it was super easy to make. Wooden pallets and wire to tie them together. I think it would be great if I could build it into my garden, I think that it would look great with plants around it (and all that good compost tea would go into the garden). Maybe next year.

Last but certainly not least. This is my great find for the week. Now that I am gluten free, I have to pack my lunch every time I leave. No more grabbing a quick lunch with a friend or grabbing something from a neighborhood restaurant while at work (unless I want to painfully subject myself to weeding through the menu to find the one item that I can eat). I was searching on line for lunch containers and came across Bento. Ever heard of it? It is a Japenese lunch box and an obsession by people across the globe. It has been fun to look through all the blogs and websites about Bento.

I am not obsessing about Bento but I do love a cute lunch. I was looking for something stainless steal (trying to reduce plastic use in my life because of the harmful chemicals, however, how safe is the the process of producing stainless steal? I should ask my chemist uncle who does that for a living). Where am I going with all of this?

I found cute little stainless steal set at World Market today. They have two sizes. I have been looking for something like this online and thought I was going to have to pay $35 for a set. The big set is only 9.99 but the small set (and completely adequate) was on clearance for $1.98!!!! Can you believe it? Sweet deal!

Surprising Rachael

2009-05-04T22:29:00.000-07:00

All of us girls flew out to Oregon this past weekend to surprise Rae. It was so much fun! We pre-planned our surprising moment. It seemed to play out the exact way I planned it in my head. She met up with her parents at a coffee shop. I had given them a gift bag with a few special items in it. Rae had left a stuffed bat (Batty the bat) with Isabella to care for when she went back to Portland. I gave her mom and dad a gift bag with Batty (who wore a brown bow) and a book that I had made. It was a very simple book with stick figures and typos (I didn't have spell check on my colored pencils). You can check it out here if you want: Batty Goes To Portland
So Rae read the book and her mom text messaged me when it was time to come in the cafe. Just at the right moment the girls and I walked up behind her as she was finishing the book and surprised her. It was great! She had no clue we were coming. It was so nice to see her again. I had heard so much about everyone I feel like I am visiting people are already know.
We have done some sightseeing and filled our time with laughter. Rae's parents are fun and adventurous. So is Sam. The girls totally love him. I am not sure it will be easy to leave this place!!
We drove around Portland today and made a few stops. Here we are at the Laughing Planet. It was a cute restaurant, I ordered the Che Guevara (a burrito with beans, rice, plantains and sweet potatoes).

This is a picture from our first day. Rainbows are apparently common around here :)

Rae's family has been so good to us! We feel spoiled rotten. I especially feel spoiled...Rae's dad fixed my computer!!! It's been broken since last October!! Now I can upload pictures...LET THE BLOGGING BEGIN!!!

Weird Saturday

2009-04-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

I had my day completely planned out before I even got out of bed this morning. Of course, we all know that life doesn't work out that way. My grand overall plan was to figure out where my garden should go. There are places in my yard that get less light than I had hoped. The plans to watch the sun path changed when I woke up and there wasn't any sun showing through the clouds. My mom asked to take the oldest with her to do some fun stuff today. That left me to find something to do with youngest. We invited her very bestest friend out. I took them to the fish ladder and then to play at the park. It rained before we got to the park so we met my dad at a restaurant instead.

Jen called me while we were eating. She was calling me because it appeared that someone tried to break into the front apartment on their house. She was concerned that someone was in there. The police came (very quickly) and went through her house. No one was inside, thank goodness. We are assuming that Luna scared them off...or the wind did it? Sometimes our day just doesn't' go as we plan. Now, I hear thunder outside, maybe I'll just make some popcorn and watch the show! I practice surrenering my plans because I am ultimately not in control here (Thank God). I find we have more fun that way!

Here are the girls at the fish ladder

Here they are in the stroller together (sweethearts)

Here is Rich with the forensic's officer. I should have taken a picture when there were police everywhere.

Starting somewhere

2009-04-21T21:36:00.000-07:00

I bought the lumber for my raised beds last week. My brother bought a truck (and he'll be happy to tell you about it or rev his engine loudly while passing your house). The truck will come in handy for hauling things. I have quite a list of items to collect in the coming weeks (dirt, pallets, cinder blocks, straw, more wood).

My goal for this weekend it to finish building the rain barrel(and position it under the down spout), build the beds and get dirt. I am motivated...now I just need my health to keep up with me.

Here is a couple pictures of my adventure get supplies:

No trip to a big box store is complete without the purchase of Girl Scout Cookies...I'd be lying if I said I didn't eat any.

My new rain barrel almost in action! I love it that it is black...makes for a good chalking

This kid is always picking out her own clothes. This one so far has been the most entertaining outfit to take into public. Lots of comments!

Spring for the Arts!

2009-04-17T21:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight was my third year attending Spring for the Arts downtown. The first year was cold, Last year was perfect and this year felt warm until the sun went down. It was still enjoyable and there was a good turnout. Great Art, music and friends...I suggest that you go next year! I know I plan on it!

I went with Kathy to get her set up at Mad Cap with her drumming group. They performed outside the shop and it was great!

Here are a few pics from my night.

Kathy:

The whole group:

Jen and Rich (doesn't Rich look different?):

Practicing :)

2009-04-16T20:26:00.001-07:00

I am so grateful to have friends and family that are willing to let me practice taking pictures of them. I wanted to post a few pictures of Sarah (my sister-in-law) and our friend. They shared a due date of only one day apart. It was fun having them in the studio together. I will have to post a few of my favorite outtakes...because its always a blast taking pictures of my brother and his boys (I think my brother has rubbed off on them a little).

This on below is Jen's shot...she is such a good friend to teach me :)

Here is the both of them (aren't they just the cutest?)

All the eggies

2009-04-11T20:11:00.000-07:00

My nephews came to my house for a sleepover this weekend. The kids spent so much time outside playing. Milder sunny weather is good for the soul. We braved the egg coloring tradition.

Nice weather

2009-04-09T20:35:00.000-07:00

It was finally nice out today. The cold weather has been a general topic of shallow conversation everywhere. When I was at the farm the other night it was quite windy. As I walked in the dark from the camper to the house the wind was blowing through the bare trees. The sound and the smell together made me think it was November. As soon at that thought entered my mind I felt sad. My soul longs to get started with this growing season. I have been drawing/planning my garden on grid paper (you can even print some off online if you don't have any, printable graph paper).

Tuesday night Isabella had a friend over. They had fun. Here are a couple of pictures form that.

How about a game of go fish...in 40 degree weather.

I set up the lady bug tent and even put up a "camp fire" (an old hanging lamp with nightlight bulb).

They had loads of fun with their wind up flashlights and minibags of popcorn.

Unfortunately, Isabella wont have sleepovers at any of her friends house's. She gets so homesick. She had a fun time with a school friend on Wednesday but as soon as it was pj time, she wanted to come home. Oh well...my baby is growing up. Sometimes its nice when she admits that she still needs me :)

Finding time to read

2009-04-08T06:47:00.000-07:00

I have been reading a lot lately. Just picking up books as I go along. I don't usually talk about what I am reading but I wanted to share with everyone Amanda Soule's book "The Creative Family". I can't believe I hadn't heard of this book before this weekend. I love this book. Check out her blog as well www.soulemama.com.

Our new blog home!

2009-04-07T20:03:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my new blog! I finally made the transition. I picked a new name and a new design :) I am feeling it out. I think it will work for now. I did figure out how to import all of my posts into this blog and it makes it feel more like home.

I will continue to update friends and family with my happenings and my new goal is to provide more inspiration and creativity along the way.

Can't wait to journey together this year!!

Sunday nights

2009-04-05T17:17:00.000-07:00

Sundays evenings have taken on new meaning at our house. Lately we have anticipated family night shows on a local radio station. We play at the table, color pictures and drink hot chocolate. It didn't start intentionally but it has turned into a regular routine.

Here is Ellie playing with her farm:

Here is Bella leaning against the speaker (her favorite place to sit and listen)

We are slowly working on a mosaic for the bird feeder. We have been sorting through rocks and saving things for Grandma because she is going to design the project:

Time for a little change

2009-04-02T18:14:00.000-07:00

I think I will be changing my blog this month. I am also going to make a commitment to posting regularly. I am very excited about my gardening adventures and all the other activities we will be involved in this year (more to come).

Blogging has been nice way to share life with friends and family.

I am posting some pictures from the SugarBush Festival at Blanford Nature Center (and Mixed Greens) last week. It was a blast. Great pancakes, great activities, great maple syrup, and fun with the kids.

Sugarshack:

The girls looking at Birds:

Me trying to get the girls to smile (they looked so thrilled):

An update about church. I have been attending a little church downtown and I really have been enjoying it. The kids like it too. It is a Lutheran Church (which is quite a change from Mars Hill). They are a church devoted to the Heartside district and all the struggles facing the marginalized. They are sandwiched in between two shelters. I am still facing in me what it means to be a servant and not just someone that gives to charity.

Here is a picture of Bethlehem Lutheran where we have been attending:

My niece Addison

2009-03-22T06:11:00.000-07:00

Here is the newest addition to the family, my niece (my brothers daughter).
She was born March 11!!

Spring is here :) time to blog

2009-03-22T05:50:00.000-07:00

I thought I would blog finally after much pressure from my favorite friends (that would be all of you).

I have a blogger jam...or post backup, however you might say that. I have too many missed posts to really catch you all up on my life. I will try to give you the short of it in this post. My next post will be about my new niece.

Spring is here even though its been cold this week. We've been planting, planning and dreaming about our gardens this year. Today I am going out to the farm to help with some seed planting. The farm? Check out Jens before and after pics if you haven't already >>> The farm before and after <<<<

We picked up pickle barrels yesterday to make rain barrels. I am excited about that. I might even want to pick up another one.

Here is pictures from our trip to Meijer Garden's. It was a trip with Rich's work and he had some extra tickets so we went with.

First of all let me tell you that this was funny...Rich found that he had a hole in his pants...thank God for the sweater because he wasn't wearing his undies.

These girls are so sweet!!! I just love it when they all find nice ways to play together!!

One heck of a year

2008-12-28T20:32:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in quite some time. We have all been sick around here. If we are not sick we are dealing with some other minor crisis. I wont be posting pictures from Christmas (computer problems) or even bragging about the great time that I spent with family. Rather, I will sum up the whole week and only highlight a few moments. The first one is that I watched mass on Christmas eve with my mom (we are not catholic). It was a telecast from the Vatican. I found it to be a wonderfully inspiring message and very memorable way to spend the first few hours of Christmas. The other highlight was hanging out with my kids. Pretty simple. The rest is just...well...better left behind.

I certainly don't want to complain about my hard year (and even harder holidays) because through this I understand that life is hard for everyone. I have it good compared to many other who suffer on this earth. 2008 has been full of trials for me and hopefully I can retain the wisdom that I received from each event.

I think what troubles me most is that I don't have a good sense of direction anymore. I think that my hopes for 2009 would be to hear to call of God in my life towards a specific direction. I have always joked about God not having a neon sign to hang in front of me. I find myself asking God if he could hang a sign for me. To say "Amy, your calling is in that direction" complete with arrows and road flares.

Who knows, maybe it's right under my nose and I just can't see it. At any rate, this late night reflecting has got me wondering what God is up to. I am a mother and that is my biggest calling for now...I was kind of hoping for some simultaneous calling I guess.

Advent Conspiracy

2008-12-07T07:54:00.000-08:00

I forgot the snow!

2008-11-15T19:40:00.000-08:00

I almost forgot to post the snow pictures from last week! It was fun to go for a walk with the kids...of course I had to take pictures :)Something about the weather change makes me miss my family in Chicago and that is the real reason I am posting today.

Then my mom had to take out a few of the Christmas decorations because that is what snow does to people. The girls thought Baby Jesus should be taking public transportation because the manger is very boring.

Making History

2008-11-05T20:18:00.000-08:00

What an election. This event, of course, is historic. I wanted to make some memories for my girls. We rode our bikes to vote in the morning.

Here is one of my sweet girls, willing to show off her "I Voted" sticker.

Later in the day we drove around to see all the excitement in then neighborhood. People were out on their porches chatting with neighbors. People from all walks of life were out just soaking in the moment.

There were people dressed up in costumes with "Vote" signs on street corners. My favorite was a crazy guy we saw on a bike. He was not wearing a shirt but instead had an American Flag on as a cape. He was yelling with one fist in the air "VOTE OR DIE!" He had us all laughing!

There was a group of volunteers that put speakers on their car. It had a prerecorded voice that played as they drove down the street. People were waiving and cheering as they drove down the street. The recording said "brothers and sisters! Vote! Get up, get out and vote! This is your chance! Let your voice be heard!"

As I was watching them pull out of the driveway the moment froze. I wanted to hold the on to the feeling because I realized I was witnessing something important.

I suppose that I live through history everyday. Big things happen all over the world. I have experienced significant history. Yes, I was alive during 9-11. Yes I remember where I was when the challenger exploded. Yes, I remember watching brand new episodes of the Smurfs. Even with those experiences in my memory banks, I don't ever remember feeling like I was a participant in history. I have always felt like an observer.

Yesterday was different.

To top off my memory making day, I saved my girls each a set of Obama Buttons and brochures. I took a few pictures at the headquarters. Maybe they will remember something about Election Day 2008.

Halloween post (a bit late)

2008-11-05T18:48:00.000-08:00

The night before we moved we went trick or treatin' in our neighborhood. It was a nice walk and we found a good street with lots of lit up houses. We went with Jen, Rich and the girls.

Here are the girls. I think its super cute that Daisy was a mouse and my girls were cats!

Introducing Shrunk Woolery

2008-11-03T19:38:00.000-08:00

I wanted to post my BFF's new blog. Jessica has started a small business of selling the wooliest mittens ever. They are great! She also has created a wonderful line of other shrunken and recycled wool products.

Check out her blog and leave her a comment! Tell her that I sent ya!

www.shrunkwoolery.blogspot.com

If it ever snows in Michigan, be assured that you will see me in my new Shrunk Woolery mittens, they are the cutest!!! :)

All moved out

2008-11-03T18:46:00.000-08:00

I moved out. I am no longer at the little house "up the road". I am back at my moms. Its a good thing, I think. There are several reasons that I am moving but the main reason is that the kid who owns the house wants his house back much sooner than I expected.

There are several perks to moving back to my moms. One reason is that I love her neighborhood. I could imagine myself in this neighborhood for a long time. Another reason I will enjoy it is because I know it will save me gas because most of my driving consisted of getting back and forth from that neighborhood to my mom's. Most of my shopping, school and friends are in this vicinity. I love being able to walk to the grocery store or riding my bike to our friends.

Well, I dislike moving more than anything I have ever done. I would rather give birth 10 more times than ever move again (am I exaggerating? Well, maybe 5 more times) However, I know this is temporary.

I will miss much about my little house. I suppose that this opens the next new adventure of my life.

Here a few of the things about our old house that I will miss! :)

Orchard time!

2008-10-11T20:04:00.000-07:00

What beautiful weather! I love it! This is my kind of fall. We had to make the most of the day so we decided to got to Well's Orchard today with Rich, Jen and all the girls.

Well's is Rich's Granddads orchard. Its a beautiful farm. We went on a corn maze and were nearly eaten alive by mosquitos. I have never in my life experienced a munch down like that. AWFUL! Thats okay, the scenery made up for it!

Got some great fall pictures of the girls.

Eliana Kitty

This is the best picture I could get of them together

We desperately tried to take the kids pictures with the pumpkins. I have a ton more outtakes on my camera than anything. This one makes me laugh. We tried to get them all to look but it didn't work. This one really makes me laugh. The rest of them are a certain variation of this.

We went on the adventurous corn maze
Here is another funny picture. It actually looks like Bella is saying "who farted?" This one really made me chuckle.

These girls did a lot of giggling together

Hillary down the street

2008-09-27T22:02:00.000-07:00

I had a teaching opportunity on Saturday to take Isabella to her school to see Senator Hillary Clinton speak. She spoke Saturday afternoon behind Central High School which shares a campus our school. It was exciting for her to go and see that, in her neighborhood, at her school. I hope that it is something that she remembers always.

We stood in the field for a while

This is the view from the playground:

Us walking home. What a beautiful fall day.

Trailer Trash

2008-09-27T21:52:00.000-07:00

It has been a nice week of bike riding. It has been fun to use our legs instead of gas. Jen and I made a big mistake last Thursday though. We rode our bikes to a rummage sale at Trinity United Methodist Church on Lake dr. I found some really sweet deals on chairs, kids clothes, a car charger for my phone, and lots of other junk I certainly could not live with out :) Needless to say I had to take my car back to pick up my bounty. We also visited our new friends at Hopscotch and stopped into the fairly new bookstore called Literary Life. It was a fun week.

Bella loves riding home from school. Here are a few shots of the bikes and our trailer (next to the trash that you can't see). She is also showing off her new tattoos from the grocery store.

Happy Birthday Mom!

2008-09-27T21:30:00.000-07:00

Today was my mom's birthday. Her birthday weekend has always been a beautiful weekend. The trees are starting to change colors but it is still warm out.

I didn't get to see my mom much today. She has been out having fun all day. I stopped over for a visit and found a few of her beautiful treasures on the counter...so of course, I had to take pictures of them :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

These flowers were Pam's

This is my favorite upload for this post. It is a cauliflower and I think they grew it on the moon. It is a fractal cauliflower

Time to take it easy!

2008-09-23T20:38:00.000-07:00

The girls spent the entire weekend at Mike's. They had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun too!!

I was able to reconnect with some old friends. I had lunch dates and coffee dates and craft night dates :) Craft night was at Pam's house this past week. I wish I had brought my camera. They have the Wii. It was super fun to watch Kathy go bowling and play tennis. She is a fabulous bowler!! We should form a team! We all went through books and helped pam figure out her sewing machine. (side note: Pam found the manual for the machine)

On Saturday I spent some time taking a few pics of Jessica's product. I had taken some pictures before and was disappointed with the turnout. I later realized that I had made a critical mistake. It was a good learning experience for me because hopefully I will never do it again!! This was a challenge to myself. I wanted to go back and get it right. It was fun because I enjoy the learning process. I included some of the pictures. I enjoy being creative.

Shrunk woolery 2

This week I have to work during the day. I hope to get the small mural in the girls room finished.

Hugs to you all!
Amy

Silly Ladies

2008-09-19T06:38:00.000-07:00

Last week when it was raining so bad I had to let the hens out of their house. The ground under them was just a giant mud puddle. So I moved it around for them and I just figured they would go back when the sun went down.

Only one of the three found their way back. The other two decided to sleep on the table.

THE biggest mistake that I ever make with the chickens is that I chase them. Yes, at 9pm I was out in my Alger Heights Neighborhood chasing around hens. Don't worry, it isn't the last time in this story that you will find me chasing hens.

I caught one of them but we had to give up on the other one. She was a goner, destined to be killed by some wild stray cats, or so we just assumed.

Six Days later, she showed up at the back fence!! She was desperately trying to get back into the yard. Crazy bird. The neighbor 3 doors down said "Is that your hen?" So then we engage in a conversation and I had to explain my chickens. He doesn't seem to care and he thought it was funny that I vowed to eat her for Thanksgiving dinner for all the trouble she's caused.

Isabella and I chased the chicken through my next door neighbors yard for about 10 minutes At one point a child had stopped to watch me with a confused look. I said "have you ever chased a chicken?" He shook his head. I said "its hard work". He smiled at me.

The chasing continued until the first neighbor came out and offered me a salmon net. He captured her for me. I bravely grabbed her by her legs (I had not ever held a chicken that way before, it made her very docile)and carried her back to her coop There she was reprimanded, at least that's what I imagine they were saying to her for escaping.

She could have been eaten in the Alger Heights Wilderness but instead that tough old bird took care of herself until she found home again.

While we were chasing her Isabella kept saying "come here beautiful". So that is her name now (even though she is the ugliest bird of the three). I hadn't chosen names for the hens yet, maybe they will all have to earn their names.

Here she is, Beautiful, the tough hen:

This one should be called "Crazy" she never comes down except to eat. This is what she does all day long. She has pretty coloring, especially in the sunlight.

This is my favorite bird. I love her coloring. It was hard to get a good picture of her though because she moves so quickly

Rainy day thanks to Ike

2008-09-13T12:22:00.000-07:00

It has been raining steady here in Grand Rapids for the past couple of days. Today especially. It is effecting much of the U.S. today. It makes me feel connected to ya'll!

We spent our morning cleaning. Then we enjoyed a nice afternoon lunch at Brandywine's with Grandma Wendy. It was nice, we got the window seat so we could watch the rain (we're silly like that).

Here a couple of pictures of the girls playing in the warm rain.

It was hard to get Isabella back inside but Eliana didn't need a lot of convincing.

One more wheatland memory!

2008-09-12T21:00:00.000-07:00

On kids hill they had a craft project and the kids had their pictures taken. Then the volunteers printed out the pictures while the kids made frames to keep them in.

It was a nice craft but I especially loved the pictures of my girls. I asked the volunteer who seemed to be in charge of the craft if he could email it to me He did! I am so happy!

Happy Wheatland

2008-09-10T11:29:00.000-07:00

We went to Wheatland Bluegrass Music Festival this year. It is our third year of attending. We had fun this year but it was a lot of work. I think maybe next year we will go with out kids (if we even go at all).

My mom and Ellie goofing around before we left

Here are some pictures of the girls all ready to go

This year we decided to stay at Jessica's cottage again because it gets so cold at night. Here are few shots of the lake they have access to:

The kids really enjoy Kids Hill. They have plenty of activities to keep the kids busy all day. There is face painting and crafts (like instrument building, painting on fabric, picture frames). There is a huge hill that is just sand for digging. My kids spent about an hour and a half just digging in the sand. It was a nice place for them to relax. There was live music throughout the day on the kids hill stage and we checked out a couple of bands. Very fun!

Here is the girls enjoying the sand, I don't think either of them said a word for about an hour. They were just unwinding and having some quiet time.

We set up our tent and canopy in the camping section just to have a place to retreat to. It came in handy a few times for meals and nap.
Here is Jessica putting together the shark tent for the kids...she was kind of like Jonah...

Here is the tent and canopy:

It was good and exhausting...Eliana says it best in this picture:

I think we were all up to some of that by the end of the weekend!

My Wednesday

2008-09-04T08:38:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to one of my usual Wednesday night hangouts. It's called the "W" (worship and prayer). It is always a great experience. I had some very wonderful encounters with friends and strangers last night, as it was especially eventful.

One of the highlights was our friend Leo brought something special for us. Leo is a wonderful 90 something year old gentleman with a wonderful testimony. He was married to his wife for over 75 years (not sure of the exact math) but he always comes and shares God's kindness. Last week he told me that he would bring me a bowl. I wasn't going to go but then I remembered his promise. So I went. What a night!!!

So, I got a wonderfully hand crafted wooden bowl from Leo that has become the new centerpiece of my kitchen table. Rachael had bought the plastic animals when she was here (martini glass decorators) They were for ice cream or some other special occasions. I filled Leo's bowl with the colorful animals. My new motto: here kids, play with your food (as long as you eat!) We'll try it for a while!

Getting back to the real world...

2008-09-04T07:50:00.000-07:00

The farm has been a fun highlight to my summer. Now it is time to get back to reality. It has taken me a couple of weeks to recover from all the days and nights out at farm camp. Now its on to the same old routine: work, school, kids, taking care of the dad.

Here are a few pictures of our last day out at the farm. I am sure we will visit a few more times this fall. Hopefully Brian and Jenna will complete enough in the house to get in there before winter. Go Farmers GO!

Demolition:

Progress:

God is so good! There have been many like minded people by to visit and share their dreams. I hope that we all continue to meet and find ways to live out these visions that we share. I know that I've said it before in other posts but there has been some question raised by my family regarding these dreams. So I feel the need to explain again.

Simply put, we are trying to be disciples of Christ, loving people, following him and living like the early church. Here are a few links of places that are doing those things I speak of, providing hospitality to the stranger, ministering to the broken and loving the Lord.

Reba Place
The Simple Way
Koinonia Partners

There are many more communities that we look to for wisdom for the movement we are experiencing in Grand Rapids.

I hope that explains a little bit!

Funny video

2008-09-02T10:12:00.000-07:00

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Farm Update August 17th

2008-08-17T20:35:00.000-07:00

Wild weekend! I spent most of the weekend with the community out at the farm (or what we call Farm Camp).

Friday: Jenna and Brian hired an experienced (and very technologically advanced) mold/house inspector. He came out and used some fabulous technology and found that the mold in the basement is not black mold and can be removed. In fact, the upstairs of the house is dry and just some minor (now dry) water damage due to a small leak in the roof. He said the house is structurally sound and can be salvaged! This was wonderful news. The house is in sad shape because it hasn't been updated probably since it was built back in the 30's.

Here is the funky orange mold from the basement, I am happy to report that the basement is about 2/3 the way cleaned out thanks to help from friends:

It was just good news that it can be reclaimed rather than demolished. Now we can get to work on the house. This was exciting news for Brian and Jenna and the rest of the community!

Saturday: Jen and Rich bought a really neat trailer. I didn't get pictures but its the most awesome retro trailer around! It become a very nice hang out when we needed a break from the chaos and the bugs.

So let the work begin! The day got off to a great start with cleaning. Lori and some of her kids came out and got right to work. Later in the evening my mom came out to help get some of the moldy wood out of the basement. They accomplished quite a bit.

Jen and I prepared dinner for everyone and kept the kids out of trouble (well, we tried anyway).

The farm is hard work. Sweat, bug bites, dirt, crying fighting kids, run away chickens, ...its good but hard. We had a good discussion about the pictures we are taking and how they don't show the honesty of the situation. We snap pictures that leave out all the mess and dirt and sweat. The reality is though, we can take time to appreciate the goodness in our labor. God is good...his goodness is everywhere.

So here are a few of the beautiful things from the weekend:

Butterfly caterpillars

Sweet love

Beauty

Children playing together (nicely)

Here are a few of the things that we don't want to dwell on:

Clutter and confusion

Shoes at the table with remnants from dinner

Kids fighting over stuff

Here is my favorite contrast:

Beautiful stack of pots

The dishes in their actual environment, quite an operation until we get running water

Thanks for checking out our update. We would like to here from you! Send a post or email amyvzee@gmail.com if you want to come for a visit or work day!

Mommy's day out

2008-08-14T11:19:00.000-07:00

Today is a great day. Jen and I sometimes realized that we need to take a work day and get creative. Otherwise all the things we dream about doing get lost in the day-to-day responsibilities.

We are sitting at Schuler Books right now and blogging and emailing (a trip wouldn't be complete with out it).

We rode our bikes from my house and made our first stop at the library because I had some holds to pick up. We had to put the racks on the back of the bike to carry all of our electronics before we left . My rack broke off of my bike when we got to the library. We rigged it up and continued on our way. It took us a bit to get going today but we made it.

There is our bikes...aren't they cute? They kind of match but we didn't plan it that way...

I am starting to realize that some of the things we dream of doing or feel called to are very difficult to integrate into our lives. For instance, riding our bikes instead of driving. I cannot afford the gas to drive anymore. I have started thinking in dollars for every trip. I went out to visit my dear friend Kathy last week and it cost me almost $8 just to drive and see her. Then I had to go to work yesterday. Even though I get mileage reimbursement it still cost me almost $20 just for an afternoon of driving. That adds day after day.

Not to mention the fact that I am usually spending money on something else when I am driving. Whether it is eating or shopping, it all seems like a big scam to me.

How is this same thing affecting your daily activities?

My dad is home!!

2008-08-14T11:12:00.000-07:00

Well, my dad is home as of last night. He isn't feeling the greatest and he has a lot of healing to do. The home health nurse has already been out today to see him. He will be fine as long as he actively participates in his physical therapy and takes his meds.

He still needs prayers for his mental health and physical healing. Keep him in your prayers.

My dad has almost died three times in the past three years...his body has been through a lot. My friend called me up the other day and suggested that maybe his new purpose in life is to be a super hero...

Maybe we should get him a cape and tights :)

(((HUGS)))
Amy

Update on my dad August 11

2008-08-11T12:25:00.000-07:00

Well, it appears that my dad is going to make another full recovery. He has been getting his mental function back slowly but surely. He complains a lot about being stuck in the hospital but other than that he seems to be on track for healing.

There are a few things they are still monitoring 1)kidney function, which is improving and he might be able to be off dialysis this week 2)how much he walks and can get around 3) his mental status (I will refrain from any jokes)

If in the next few days they think that he is OK, then he will be coming home to my house. Maybe even by the end of the week.

My dad and his nine lives...sounds like the title of the book. My friend Sarah said today that maybe my dad is actually a superhero and that is his purpose in life. Well, Lets get him a cape and tights, red ones even!!! I don't think he finds me funny but it makes me laugh!

Thanks for your continued prayers on this!!!

I posted twice today so continue reading below if you want to see pics from camping this weekend!

Amy

Celebrating Provision

2008-08-11T10:34:00.000-07:00

We had a wonderful time camping out at the Farm this weekend. The kids had an especially fun time. Saturday the homestead filled up with friends who came to not only support Brian and Jenna but provide assistance in getting settled in. It was very "impromptu" so if you didn't recieve a phone invite...don't worry, most people didn't. Word just kind of got around.

There were lots of things going on. Gloria and Mike came out. They train dogs for Paws with a Cause. They had some beautiful puppies with them and Isabella was in heaven. She walked puppies all night and the next day.

It was beautiful. There was good conversation and great food.

Here is a picture of the old farm house that is on the property. It needs more workthan its worth from what we can tell.

Here is a couple of pictures of camping activity:

It was a good time. I hope to camp again this coming up weekend and help them discern the next step. Keep this endeavor in your prayers!

Hugs and love,
Amy

A new project in the works

2008-08-05T21:17:00.000-07:00

So my friends Brian and Jenna have had a passion and desire for years to run a sustainable farm. Not just a normal ole' farm but a farm that sustains, nurtures and reclaims. We have been sharing visions of living in community and supporting one another in a capacity not yet understood (meaning, we aren't sure what it really looks like for all of us). We have been praying for this farm since we have known Brian and Jenna. We truly believe that this vision is God given.

This spring they received farm land for a long term lease (virtually free) to live on and farm. We have been rejoicing with them and wondering what that means for us to support them (and join them) on their journey. This week they will be moving out to the farm in hopes to rehab the old farm house that sits on the property.

The farm is full of potential, here is the beautiful barn that greets you when you pull in the driveway (right after the neighbors barking dogs greet you)

They will be moving out there this week to the property. The exciting part of the journey is that we will be adventuring out there with them to roll up our sleeves and help them pull this off. We are confident that this project will be complete in a couple of months.

Monday, on a whim, I met Jen and Rich out at the farm to explore. Brian and Jenna couldn't be there but we went anyways (curiosity was getting to us). My mom went with. I love having projects with my mom. It will be nice to share a common goal with her...she is my best friend.

Needless to say, we fell in love with the property. The kids had fun dreaming about the farm and exploring.

The hard work doesn't scare me! I am excited and in fact...I will be pitching my tent next door to their tent...next to the Holshoe tent...next to the Kathi and Tim family...followed by...you??? Want to come help??? :)

We'll keep you updated, the Exodus is 8.8.08 at anytime between 8 and 8 ha...I made up the last part...I don't know if there is an actual Exodus date...

Its late, I am going to bed

(((HUGS)))
P.S. Pics courtesy of Jen (the mama of flower's...the true flowermomma)

Baby bunny

2008-08-02T22:15:00.000-07:00

I just had to share these pics. This is Isabella's bunny she got from her trip out to Sarah's house last month. Right now this little bunny is living with the piggies.

Its hard to get Eliana to let go of the Bunny

Geesh, its about time!

2008-08-02T21:24:00.000-07:00

Here is an update by request. I haven't updated because I always feel like a good post always has to have a good picture. I did manage to find a couple of old ones (courtesy of Rae's picture file that I pilfered before she left).

Anyway, my dad is doing well from what I can tell. He is communicating rather well with us although he is still a little "out of it" because of the medication. He is still on dialysis and that is why it will take him a little longer to come off the sedation medication. His kidneys aren't processing the meds they way you or I would. Other than that, his infections seem to be healed and his heart is pumping fine. Its just a matter of him physically being capable of moving around again. We are hoping his kidneys will start working on their own so that he doesn't have to be on dialysis long term (he is on only a couple hours a day right now).

Its been a long week for me. I had a horrible sinus/ear/tooth infection going on. I ended up needed antibiotics and I made myself an appointment with the oral surgeon for Thursday to have my wisdom tooth pulled. What a relief that will be!

Here are some pictures of Rachael's going away gathering at Riverside Park:

Here is me pulling the girls in my cool blue wagon (Rae, were we crazy chasing down that wagon?)

Here is the festival we went to:

Isabella pulled this wagon full of kids around for quite awhile:

Here is a picture of Jenna and the kids. She took the kids down to the water. She found a lot of trash down by the water...

Here is a picture of Kathi and her boys

Thats all I got right now!

Hugs ya'll

Lots to share

2008-07-28T11:33:00.000-07:00

OK...first things first. I have Chickens in my backyard. Its a long story but they are a trio of hens (or ladies as they like to be called) that where liberated from some harsh conditions. They are at my place, the "Shelter for Abused Ladies" for some re-"coop"eration..hehe. Anyways, they are ugly ladies with attitude. I can relate.

I wanted to include pictures. They are missing feathers(abusive mates). The eggs they lay are a soft green color.

Eliana didn't want her picture taken but she was so cute with her hands folded over, I just had to include this one:

My Aunt Rose and my cousin Josh came for a visit yesterday. Today we all went out to the Wealthy Street Station for lunch. We had a good time. Too bad my dad couldn't be there.

Here is my Aunt giving me my choices of movies to watch on the ride :)

Here is a few shots of us:

Here is my favorite pictures of the Day
1)Alex behaving himself

2)Aunt Chris behaving herself :)

Oh yah, my dad is doing well. They lowered his sedation a bit more and he is going to a stationary bed. Not much else has changed.

Hugs
Amy

Sunday July 27 update

2008-07-27T19:14:00.000-07:00

My dad is now on his back all the time. They were slowly working it so that he was on his back for a couple of hours and on his stomach for a set number of hours. They did that until they could see if he could tolerate being on his back. His respirator settings are being slowly weened a little bit at a time.

They have his sedation lowered a little bit. It was troubling to me because he had his eyes open. It was easier when I thought that he didn't have any knowledge of what was going on to him. My mind understands that humans are resilient and that he will probably not even remember this suffering.

However, there is a part of me that can't stand it that this moment he might be feeling confusion, frustration, pain, fear. Right now I think that our biggest prayer is that God's peace will be with him.

I hope to put up pictures tomorrow because I have some family visiting. My Aunt is here from Texas. My Aunt and cousin are here from Chicago today until Tuesday. It is nice having everyone here!

Hugs to everyone!
Amy

I am supposed to be "working"

2008-07-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

I have sat down to start in on some of the work that I am supposed to get accomplished. It has been hard. I feel pulled in many different directions. Laundry, dishes and bill are piling for me. I am not sure how to recover again from such a traumatic set of circumstances. I guess that one could say that my faith is under fire.

At any rate, I still have two little girls to raise. We have spent a few nights at the local parks, pools and splash pads in an effort to restore some sense into our relationships. I included a few pictures from our adventures.

My dad is making small improvements. I am sure that is why you stopped by at my blog so I wanted to be sure to include an update. His white blood cell count went from 2400 to about 1600 in 24 hours which is sign that he has begun fighting the infections that plague his body. He is obviously not out of the woods and his lungs and kidneys are of great concern. His dialysis machine gives me the creeps. I guess I didn't realize that it pulled out the blood, put it back in after being filtered. UGGGG. I took one look at his blood and thought I would pass right out. At any rate, if it helps him heal then I can't complain.

Here is Isabella at Zoo camp this last week. She had tons of fun!

I will blog again when I can.
HUGS!

Update for July 23 (a few pictures too)

2008-07-23T10:28:00.000-07:00

Well, my dad is the same right now as he was last night when I left him. That is not a bad thing or a good thing. He is still critically ill. He has dialysis now and he is still in the proning bed. I included a picture of the bed. The woman who is with him in the room is his respiratory technician (not sure what her exact title it). She is awesome. All the nurses and doctors that care for my dad are awesome.

I will keep trying to update as I know anything.

Thanks

Here is the bed that he is in:

Here is the heart center:

These are a few random pictures of us visiting:

While we were waiting for them to do a procedure on my dad we went to the new cancer center across the street, here are a few pics from that:

here is looking up in the lobby, its quite beautiful:

Visiting with Aaron wouldn't be complete with out some music on the harmonica:

Upadate for July 22

2008-07-22T06:41:00.000-07:00

I just got off the phone with the doctors. They put my dad on a different bed last night that rotated him completely on his stomach (as apposed to just being on his side like the last one) in hopes of improving his lung function (getting all that stuff out). He was responding to the treatment during the night but now his saturation levels are down again (the link is to wikipedia so I am not sure of the total accuracy but I am sure it is very close). This is a bad thing.

Another problem that he is faced with is his kidneys are not outputting enough. They are starting a new medicine to help with that problem. His kidneys were doing bad right away after surgery and they remedied that with medicine treatment.

I want to remain hopeful and I have to live in each moment one at a time. He is very critically ill and the doctors are doing all they can to keep him alive.

Thank you for your prayers. Again, I am sorry if I don't call everyone individually. It is emotionally taxing to make a ton of phone calls. I love you all! Thanks.
Amy

My dad

2008-07-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

Many of you know that my dad went in last Thursday for heart surgery. The surgery itself went fine but his recovery has been very up and down. First it was his kindeys and now it is his lungs. He has pneumonia.

It is hard for me to call everyone and update about my dad so I thought that this would be the most efficient way. I don't have Internet but I am using the hospital computers (thank God for hand sanitizer :)

Anyway, he is not doing very well. His lungs are the problem. They have been using many different options to try to drain his lungs. He is a bed that prones him, which means it is a kind of therapy that helps his lungs to drain by putting him on a bed that rotates him. It is quite a complicated technologically advanced bed. I am amazed that they even have this available. Despite all that they are able to do for him his body doesn't seem to be fighting off the infection.

We don't have any projections (the most common question is "will he be OK?"). The doctors and nurses update us "in the now" meaning they are only able to tell us what is going on right at the moment. This is OK but it makes it hard to relay any of this information on to others. We are living hour to hour. It is a hard place to be but we are making the best of it.

I will try to keep everyone updated the best that I can.

Thank you for your prayers!

Amy

Eliana's Birthday

2008-07-17T06:12:00.000-07:00

Eliana turned two on the 7th of July. I wanted to share a few pictures from the big day!

Things are coming along...

2008-07-05T13:41:00.000-07:00

My mom came by the other day to help me with a few things. I spent all day on the fourth cleaning my house. I also painted a few signs for my house. Here is a sign that I painted for the dedication of my house for prayer. God gave me a couple of scriptures and I combined them together and made this sign:

Isaiah 55:1
Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.

Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare

...and when I wrote this out, I remembered the scripture God gave me when I got the house...

2 Samuel 7:27
you have revealed this to your servant, saying, 'I will build a house for you.' So your servant has found courage to offer you this prayer. 28 O Sovereign LORD, you are God! Your words are trustworthy, and you have promised these good things to your servant. 29 Now be pleased to bless the house of your servant, that it may continue forever in your sight; for you, O Sovereign LORD, have spoken, and with your blessing the house of your servant will be blessed forever.

The first storm of July

2008-07-05T13:17:00.000-07:00

I decided to stick around at home for the fourth of July. I have been running around so much lately that I feel like I am going in circles sometimes.

We canceled the "Freedom Celebration" this year (the annual free sale that we have every year on the 4th of July). It is a good thing we did. A huge storm ripped through Grand Rapids and it tore up the trees in Jen and Rich's back yard.

Here is the view from their back porch:
(you can see Rich's truck in there, thankfully his truck is ok)

This is a good picture of the new sky view (usually they don't get sunlight in the back)

And here is a neighbor on the west:

Here is the neighbors tree:

The Driveway view (Tom's driveway)

The other side of the fence (Tom's tree in the neighbors driveway)

Here is a the Cherry Market, they lost a beautiful tree:

After I dropped Rachael off at the airport

2008-07-01T12:42:00.000-07:00

Eliana was asleep when Rachael got out of the car at the airport. We said our very sad goodbyes and I headed back.

When we got back to Aunt Sharon and Uncle Bob's Eliana woke up. I went to get her out of her seat and she said "Rachael ready? Rachael Ready?"

I said "oh Ellie, Rachael is gone back to her house, she is gone for now"

She looked sad. Just then a plane flew over us and I said "Rachael is on a plane, She is going to see her mommy and daddy". We both looked up and watched the plane pass over.

Then, in a very serious voice Ellie said

"oh man"

She totally gets it...

Oh...I will miss my Rae!

Rachael is leaving today

2008-07-01T07:03:00.000-07:00

I drove Rae to Chicago yesterday. It seemed to take a long time to get here. I think that is a good thing because I am not in a hurry to drop her off. We stopped at Jen's before we left GR. It was a good weekend of saying goodbye.

We decided to stop at the beach on our journey from Grand Rapids to Chicago. I am really glad we did. We watched the sunset and it was relaxing.

We had fun on the pier. Sitting by the water, experiencing the sights, sounds and smell..it was good for the soul, a mini pilgrimage. It melted away all the troubles of the day (which seemed to be many).

It was good, I am glad we went

Father's Day weekend

2008-06-16T20:21:00.000-07:00

It was a nice weekend with my Grandma in town. I am glad that she came. We didn't do anything to exciting, just spent some good quality time together.

Saturday evening we helped Jen set up her booth at the artist market. Jen was selling her goods at the Avenue for the Arts Market downtown on division. Everyone should check it out. It runs once a month and there are a ton of vendors.

Sunday we enjoyed part of the day with and went to the beach. The kids had fun.

The clouds have been so beautiful these past few weeks. I captured a beautiful sunset from my brother’s house. He had us over for dessert on Sunday. My dad came, my grandma, my mom, Rachael, Aaron, Sarah and the kids. It was fun.

I hope everyone had a beautiful weekend!

Hugs!

Not just any old Friday

2008-06-13T19:28:00.000-07:00

My grandma came in from Chicago yesterday and I picked her up from the Kalamazoo train station. It was a nice drive. I love my grandma. Isabella lovingly nicknamed her Grandma Coffee about 3 years ago and it has stuck.

We are enjoying our time together even though I have been so busy. We have been in our house for 3 nights now and I am enjoying it. I would enjoy it more if I could actually hang out there. I feel like I have been running around from one appointment or meeting to the next. This too shall pass! I did manage to spend a good portion of my Friday with my Grandma though.

Isabella and I went on an adventure today. Mike saved a snapping turtle from an untimely death yesterday while he was driving. For some reason he decided to try to take it home for a pet.

Ummmm....they will bite your fingers off.

Isabella and I dropped it off at the river today. We didn't want our fingers to become turtle food. He is much happier in his new home. The river was high when we went. We certainly have had a lot of rain. I am glad that our flooding has been minor so far.

I hope everyone had a great week and has a blessed weekend!

I will leave you with this special picture that showed up on my camera...this is what happens when you leave your camera laying around for the kids to get a hold of:

06.07.08

2008-06-07T21:19:00.000-07:00

I had to post on this day. I really like the date. I think it would have been a good day to get married. The date itself is awesome: 6.7.8. The weather was great too, nice and sunny all day and then stormy at night. It looks like it is going to storm all through until morning. The lightening show is spectacular and I can appreciate it as long as it doesn't do anything crazy to my house.

We had to bring my dad back to his house and I had to run a couple of errands and we got caught in the storm. It was exciting to watch it roll in.

Yesterday we went down to the festival to see our friend (and my new neighbor) Sunny drum. WaZoBia is the name of their group. We watch them every year and it is always fun.

Oh yah, here is my favorite picture of the night! It's special:

Choking Hazard

2008-06-05T19:32:00.000-07:00

Eliana. My sweet 22 month old girl chocked on a penny today. This is a trend with her. I can't even begin to account for all the near chocking incidents that we have had in her life. Not to mention the time she really did choke on tape when she was about 7 months old. That incident brought paramedics and the whole deal.

Today she had found a penny in the couch and put it in her mouth. She started choking on it an Isabella saw it first. Mike got up and did what he had to in order to free her from choking. When I got there not long after she still didn't seem right so we took her in. The med station did an x-ray to find that it was lodged in her esophagus. They sent us downtown to the hospital where they had to perform a procedure to remove it. They stuck a scope down her throat threw her nose with a balloon attached.

Once the balloon was past the penny they blew it up and pulled it out. Out it came. She was so brave through the entire evening. X-rays, blood pressure, temperatures, everything...she was so brave. We had wonderful nurses and doctors. I am so grateful.

I praise God for keeping my Eliana safe.

What a day!

While I am thinking about it...

2008-06-03T15:46:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to post this picture because it is one of my favorite pictures. My dad took this picture outside of his house. It was the big day that Jessica and I were leaving on our big trip across the country. We were crazy! We drove that silly escort across the country (although it wasn't my first trip across the country in an escort but it was the funnest :)

People told us we were crazy. Some people told us that Jessica's rusty car had "car cancer". We knew it didn't totally make sense to other people but it did to us.

On the day we left my dad picked us honeysuckle and you can see it in Jessica's hair.

:) oh the memories!

Happy Birthday Jessica!

2008-06-02T21:01:00.000-07:00

Jessica turned 30 and we celebrated this last weekend! Jess and I have been through a lot together. We have been friends for about 13 years. We have been roommates, traveling buddies, barflies (although we are over that now), etc. We don't see each other as much as we should but we talk at least twice a day on the phone. Is that odd?

Well, here's to you old pal!

To Dillenbecks and beyond!

2008-05-30T19:37:00.000-07:00

It was a toss up for the title of this post. The alternative title is "westside or bust".

Tonight we took all of the kids to go see Emily Jane play at a local coffee shop called Dillenbecks on the Westside (westsieeede). Well, all joking aside, we were a serious caravan of bikers and children in trailers on a mission. Total round trip was 5.6 miles (for me anyways from my house).

Along the way we saw a parade (we planned that just right).

This is us waiting to get through the parade:

Then we made it all the way down to Dillenbecks and tossed around thoughts that we should have Rich come pick up some of our caravan. He wasn't close enough though.

It was fun. Even though we totally didn't get to see Emily perform. We hope she still knows that we think she is awesome enough for a bike trip to the strange land of the westside (we even saw their queen in the parade).

It was dark when I left Jen and Rich's house to go home to my house. I took a couple of shots along the way.

What's all this about? A story of answered prayers.

2008-05-28T20:16:00.000-07:00

So, many of you might have heard by now that I am moving. A friend of mine called me out of the blue a few weeks ago and told me about a house for rent across the street from her. I wasn't sure if I really wanted to move out and I wondered if I was ready.I went to look at the house anyways.

You see, the thing is, I had prayed for somewhere to live a few weeks prior to that. I had specifically prayed for very cheep housing.

I am learning to trust God and his plans for my life. I know that God has given me a vision for this house and I know that I am to dedicate my house to praying for others and allowing God to use the house for healing.

Immediately after I had looked at the house, God affirmed the fact that this house was for me. He used other people, scripture, and other answered prayers to line up all that he spoke to my heart. And..it is very cheap...like "too good to be true" cheap.

It is a cute 3 bedroom in a great neighborhood with a fenced in back yard.

When I told Isabella that we were moving out, she asked me for a pet. I know that she is obsessed with animals. I told her "yes" thinking that I would get her some later. This is the little girl who, when she meets new people says "hi, my name is Isabella. What kind of pets do you have?"

She wanted a Guinea Pig and that is an animal that I can be happy with. After some research it became evident that Guinea Pigs and their belongings are very expensive. I said to God "well then, I suppose that I need free guineas because I can't afford them".

The very next day, I was walking with Jen and she said that her mom was getting free Guinea Pigs but she wasn't sure if that was a good idea, thinking it might put her over the edge. I said "oh, funny, I just prayed for free Guinea Pigs yesterday." That is pretty much all it took for her because the very next day her mom called me and said that she had two noisy pigs for me to pick up.

To me, that was God confirming something he had given me.

Today, when I was questioning whether or not moving was a good idea. I was starting to think I should change my mind.I was overwhelmed with the responsibility of paying for it. I was doing dishes and was became taken over by everything that God has spoken to me over the past few months about believing in his miracles. At that moment I knew that I had to claim the promises that he had given me. As I bent down into the dishwasher I noticed the most beautiful rainbow reflecting on the inside. It was kind of orangish (my favorite color) but clearly a rainbow. It was coming from the window that was filled with the morning sunshine. Just so you know, my mom has always taught me that rainbows are a sign of God's promises. I held tight and decided that God was going to pay my rent for me by the first of June.

I called Jen because it was harder to believe God's promises than I thought. I thought obedience would be easy. It wasn't. What if I looked like a fool when God didn't provide? I started thinking about how I could get more work, how I could take another job, how I could...I could. Wait. I knew that I had to let go. God had to provide.

About 5 hours later I got a phone call from the friend that would soon become my neighbor. She called me over to her house to tell me that my rent was paid and someone committed to paying a portion of my rent each month! That is so wonderful for me and the girls! I want to share this story because the God that I serve is going to use this house for many more miracles and it is hard for me to imagine what good he will do there.

This is part of the story of my new life. God has given me visions and testimony to share with others. It is a new thing for me to share this openly with everyone. I am feeling God calling out some creativeness in my life as well. It is all exposing and painful to me because the pieces of my life that are important have been repressed for a long time.

God is good! This is my story and I want to share it with everyone!

Oh yah, I get my keys tomorrow...

Crazy busy Saturday pt. 2

2008-05-24T17:51:00.000-07:00

THEN, my Aunt Mary Jo called. Her and my Uncle were driving my dad and his new car in from Chicago. My Aunt Chris (from Texas) gave my dad a car when he was there and they drove it from Dallas to Chicago. Then she flew back home and my dad still needed someone to drive his car here. We met my Aunt and Uncle in Saugatuck so they didn't have to come all the way. We walked around a bit and ate at Wally's Bar and Grill. Here a some highlights of that trip.

Here is my brother singing the song "I need a mullet chop". It is a song he made up about his hair.

Then, we went out to eat at Wally's...where apparently "Dog" from the Bounty Hunter was visiting...the jury is still out. Here is the picture I took with my Uncle, and here is a recent picture of "Dog". What do you think?

Here is a couple other pics from that adventure:

Then I followed my brother and my dad home where he divided up the souvenirs that he had for us. We really couldn't stop laughing at this one:

Needless to say that today was quite full of fun adventure. Now I need a stiff drink and a smoke...j/k

Our Crazy Busy Saturday pt. 1

2008-05-24T16:46:00.000-07:00

I thought that I would blog about our day today. It was quite adventurous.

First it started out with a visit to the Market. Jen, Rachael and the girls came over to got across the street to the Fulton Street Farmers Market. We bought some stuff there and had a stressfully great time dragging five girls through the overcrowded market. The good new is that we felt very triumphant when we broke through the crowd and escaped at the end :)

Then Lily stayed at our house and the girls had a blast pretending and playing dress up. They put on makeup and had a play. The they had a picnic in the back yard:

The girls had fun! My day wasn't over after that so I will make a new post for that stay tuned for pt. 2 of our day.

A very inspired week

2008-05-23T17:22:00.000-07:00

I have been painting this week. It is very therapeutic for me. It is a reclamation of my dreams as a child of being an artist. I love being creative but I let life rob me of my desire to be creative. I have been working on this all year and I feel that I have been fairly successful at it, especially this week. I am moving soon into a new place and I felt inspired to make some art work for my walls. I feel that this new house is a blessing to me and I want to honor God with it...whatever that looks like!

I am working on a big piece tonight. I finally completed the idea in my mind...I am excited to get started :)
Hugs!
Amy

This is an organizer that I found for .50$ at the Goodwill warehouse, I love it!

The peacemakers is an old one I touched up and added some detail

Ann Arbor trip

2008-05-23T16:42:00.000-07:00

Jen and I went to Ann Arbor alone with out the big kids (only daisy, the smallest of our flowers). I really needed to get away for a day and she needed to got to whole foods to see if that was an option for feeding her family. We had fun. We stayed in a hotel there over night. We ate a very good restaurant called Jerusalem Garden. In the morning we were going to go back downtown but it was so cold. We went to whole foods and trader Joe's. It was good. I am glad that I went.

When we got back I spent another night without the kids and it was good. I missed them terribly but they were having fun with Mike. I spent time reading and painting (my next post).

Here is a few Ann Arbor Pics and a silly video...its goofy and I used a very silly voice :)

Meet the sows

2008-05-23T16:19:00.000-07:00

Here they are. They really are cute. They were a pair of forgotten pets. They are scared of people but Isabella is spending a ton of time them and they have already warmed up to us. I think that if she keeps working with them they will be wonderful.

I love them already, they are very gentle and sweet.

I took a couple of pictures of them. The first picture is how I usually have to look at them, they love to hide from us. I took their home off of them and got a couple cute pictures of them. Sammy is on the left and Max is on the right.

Celebrating 100 posts! Its a blogaversary!

2008-05-23T15:57:00.000-07:00

I can't believe its already been 100...although it probably should be more!

I wanted to post pictures from Isabella's concert and a video. Her spring concert was last week. Her singing was beautiful! I enjoyed the concert. At the dress rehearsal we realized that her wonderful friend (and old neighbor) Julian was a part of St. Cecilia's Children's Choir this year. We had no idea! It was great they sang a couple of songs together and I included the video of that.

It was fun and we had a very special blessing for her after the concert. A very special friend gave us two guinea pigs...My mom calls them guinea cows and well Jessica came up with the name guinea sows. Our guinea's are HUGE! We love them. Isabella was very surprised. She named the biggest Sammy (very original...she has named all our pets Sammy) and Max (he's the cutest).

So here is Isabella and Julian singing (Bella is in the left group and Julian is on the right), and a picture of them together after the concert.

The video is at the bottom :)

Food Crisis

2008-05-16T20:20:00.000-07:00

I usually post about happy stuff or just the day to day. I used to have a separate blog that I would keep my thoughts on what was going on in this world. Today my heart is too heavy to just post pictures or talk about my life. I always try to keep up with what is going on in this country and around the world. I am a recovering NPR junkie although I feel a relapse coming on. Every day I find myself needing to understand what is happening in this global village we are a part of. I am trying to make sense of things that are happening in the world. I just find myself so sad.

How is this affecting us? How is it going to affect our children's future? I think that our complacent attitudes (as a whole) are going to get us in a heap of trouble.

Food Crisis

Life around us!

2008-05-10T11:09:00.000-07:00

The trees are full of blossoms, the grass is green and the farmers market is now open!!

So much fun stuff going on around here! We took a trip last month to Kentucky. I posted our trip pictures on FLickr. We have been busy with school stuff. Isabella's Spring Choir Concert is in a week. We are excited about that. We are planning a couple other vacations and fun stuff for the summer. We just signed Isabella up for Zoo Camp for July (she is so excited, we though this would be fun because of her love of animals).

I will try to post as we go. It has been hard to keep up with blogging these days.

Hugs and Kisses!
Amy
P.S. My dad is doing well. He is relaxing in sunny Texas with my Aunt. We still don't have a decision on whether or not he will have bypass surgery and for now he is taking one day at a time.

The Farmers Market is in full swing! Stop on by!

Home sweet home!

2008-03-15T21:59:00.000-07:00

My dad is home. He is doing good. We hope that he would continue healing. My dad has to face a lot of challenges in the immediate future. God has brought him this far so I am sure his healing will continue.

Here is a picture of him with the Grand Kids (counter-clockwise from left: Isabella, Ellie, Logan and Alex)

Thanks for the prayers!

Home today (maybe)

2008-03-14T12:53:00.000-07:00

It is hard to believe that one month ago my dad was dead in the hospital. I received word that he will be released soon. Like in a few hours. I will be giving a ride to Jodi's where he will stay for a while until...I am not sure how long or if he will ever leave.

This week has been amazing. My dad says of his own recovery "I have recovered 120%". He thinks he is better than before because he feels that he remembers things he lost due to his accident. He is grateful that God brought him back and tells everyone that God healed him. Anyone who knows my dad will know that the real miracle is that he even recognized God in his life.

He has his ups and downs. He still gets tired really easy. He is moody when he is tired, hungry or lonely. He calls me all the time to tell me how much he loves me. We have some very wonderful conversations. I am amazed at how much of him has changed and yet still amazed at how much he is the same.

I thought I would leave you with this picture of him a few days after he died. It is an interesting reminder of how far he has come in the past month.

~Amy

just for fun?

2008-03-09T18:04:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you would call it fun but I uploaded a video I took of my dad (sorry, he kind of mumbles through his conversation). At the end he has his neck make a funny noise because his tracheotomy is gone.

Kinda weird but...its my dad

Over the river and through the hoods

2008-03-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

to grandfathers hospital room we go...

We went to visit my dad today. He is doing much better. He is just back to "normal" crazy for sure. He remembers pretty much everything except he is under the delusion that the city owes him money for overpaying taxes...HA!

Our decision is going to be hard this week. The hospital says that he still needs aftercare. He doesn't want to go any where but back to Jodi's to live. This is going to make transporting him to another facility very hard. I don't get how this is going to work. It is like his accident all over again. We had a very difficult time with him then and I think its going in that same direction again. He doesn't want to feel "captive" and he just wants to go on with his life. The hard thing is knowing that he is in no shape to "just go on" with life.

Ugggg!

I tried uploading a few pics but there was a blogger error so I put them all on Flickr. They are worth checking out!

Love and hugs

Normal? Probably!

2008-03-09T06:29:00.000-07:00

My dad seems to be getting back to himself slowly but surely. When I talk to him I can see that he is struggling to really remember events and people in his life. I also can have a good conversation with him. He called me at 6am this morning to ask me for something but I didn't answer it. He calls my brother non-stop but he has only called me a few times.That is our newest dilemma...the phone calls. Wasn't he just dead? Now he is calling us...at least he isn't drunk dialing.

I am not sure what this means for us and the decision making process. He needs a guardian and the hearing is set for Tuesday. My brother and I were trying to figure out how we could take it on together but it sounds like they don't allow people to split the job. It is going to be extraordinarily hard because my dad wants to go home extremely bad. I think it is going to be the fight of the century to get him into a nursing facility.

I will keep you posted! I am going to visit him today...and of course...I will bring my camera. Maybe I will ask him if he want me to relay everyone a "message" in a video (we'll see if its appropriate or not).

Love and hugs
Amy

Grandpa Grumpy

2008-03-05T20:40:00.000-08:00

Grandpa Grumpy: that is the name that Isabella kind of gave him when she was little. She actually used to call him Grumpa and I thought it was awfully fitting. So we now fondly (or not fondly) refer to him as Grandpa Grumpy. It is more fitting these days than ever.

I called the hospital to get an update and found out that he was doing better. The nurse told me that he was walking the halls, talking, they removed his restraints, and he was being cooperative. They removed his catheters and most of his lines (except his feeding tube). That prompted a family trip up to the hospital (me, the girls, Aaron, Sarah, the boys and my mom).

When we walked in the room he was happy to see us. He started gathering up a few things because he thought we had come to pick him up and take him home. He was funny...in a weird way. Today, he wasn't threatening to pee on everyone. But he still doesn't understand why he is in the hospital. At least today he knew he was in the hospital because yesterday he thought he was at home.

At one point I asked him if he remembered dying and he said "yes". He said "don't you remember what I said to you when I crossed over?" I said "no". Then he said something that didn't make sense but he did say "yes, and it took me so long to drive back" Then he looked at the nurse and said "I drove all that way and you'd think my kids would bring me a cold beer"

Aaron and my mom went for a walk with him into the hall. The kids got really bored in Grandpa Grumpy's room so we went to the lounge for a while. When we came back my dad put up a big stink about wanting to leave with us. Aaron had to "lay down the law" to my dad about listening and behaving. Apparently it worked.

There are still many decisions to make and many of them I don't want to really participate in. I am tired and stressed out. I can barely take care of my own stuff.

Oh well...

My dad is...well...um...

2008-03-05T14:00:00.000-08:00

I don't even know how to start out this post. My dad is alive. My dad is getting better: regaining strength, breathing on his own, talking, etc. The problem is that my dad is crazy. Okay, I know what your thinking. My dad is always crazy. Well, that is what makes this post so hard! I have to convince you that he is more crazy now than before. I don't exactly know how to do this so I have decided to highlight some of the finer points of our conversation over the past few days:

*Bob from town has given him 200 head of cattle
*He told me that they are keeping him hostage in his own home, he is actually a slave. They work him all day and don't feed him, just like in Egypt.
*He kept asking who I brought into the house with me
*He kept talking about the hookers down the street in the card board box
*He wants a knife and bullets because he needs to "protect his family"
*He was talking about the dog that was hanging from the ceiling and he was asking my brother to loosen the rope.

These are just a few things that we have been dealing with this week. Its like he is dreaming while he is awake. Its very strange. The hospital wants to transfer him to an aftercare facility so they can start his rehabilitation and continue his care until he is either good enough for surgery or home(wherever that is). We aren't sure about heart surgery at this point and we are still a little confused as to whether he will ever recover mentally.

Until then...it is an understatement to say we will be "entertained" by my dad for the time being.

Take care!

Alrighty then!

2008-03-01T05:03:00.000-08:00

The news for the day is that they are transferring my dad out of ICU. I don't have any details except that he is doing well enough for some kind of rehabilitation services. They want him more mobile for heart surgery.

Aaron said that my dad can talk now because his they capped his tracheotomy. Apparently though he made the 3rd shift nurse angry with all his swearing. Very typical of my dad. It seems as though he has picked up right where he left off.

It has been nice over the past couple of weeks because he has been so quiet! Oh well, I think I wouldn't be happy with everything if I was in his place. He is still can't move well and even if he could they have him strapped down; he can't eat or drink, he has a feeding tube and every kind of catheter you can think of. Its a tough time for those who die and come back to life.

I am not sure when they will move him and when exactly but I am sure it will be soon. They need the ICU space.

The Spectrum Health blues

2008-02-29T18:10:00.000-08:00

Spectrum Health is the name of the hospital my dad is at. When I went to see him and we were looking out the window at the new enormous building in progress across the street. I could see the sadness on his face as he looked out at the unfamiliar building.

I know that these days are full of ups and downs. The good news is that he has been off the ventilator for pretty much two days. He does a good job and doesn't need very much oxygen support. The nurses say that he gets better everyday.

They get him up and sitting in a chair for most of the day. It is good exercise for him. HE HATES IT! He doesn't like much of anything right now. He is very very depressed. I had an entire dialog with him. It was very difficult. He said that he wanted something to drink. I said "dad, they don't want you to have anything to drink, let me get the nurse and I will ask" He rolled his eyes at me. Its a great sign.

He tried to get me to cut off the ties that hold his arms down. I did ask the nurse if he could be free for a bit (he wanted to scratch his face).

They told me I could give him ice chips. I spooned him ice chips and that gave me a lot of anxiety because I thought that he would choke on them. I don't know much about tracheotomy's and it seems difficult to swallow.

He told me that he loved me again. I told him that I was sorry that he was suffering. I thought he was going to cry. He just shook his head. I asked him if he remembered dying and he said yes. I asked him if he wanted to come back here (after he had died)and he said "yes".

I joked with him a bit and asked him if he "saw the light"...he smiled at me and shook his head "no". I said "NO? Where were you going then?" He pointed down. I said "DAD, thats not true!" He rolled his eyes at me again. I do not think he was serious because he is in such a sour mood. He is just like that...for those who know him will understand.

I said "its too bad that you had to come back to all this pain". He shook his head again and looked away. I said "dad, you'll keep fighting to live right?" He shook his head no. I said "dad, I can't imagine how hard this is for you but I am glad that you are alive". He shook his head no again.

Pray for my dad's struggle. Ir is so hard for me to watch. I have been sad ever since I saw him. I took me all day to process my visit. We still don't have a full assessment of his condition (brain injury, etc) but we will continue to wait.

I will keep you updated. Thank you to all who have been writing and praying. It helps!

P.S. Just a side note: they had him on this drug called Heparin for a week and a half. Its been in the news that they are recalling it. Its the exact kind that he was on, the injectable kind. And yuck! its made from pig intestines Check out the article

Interesting Day for my Dad

2008-02-26T19:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was amazing. In the evening yesterday, I went to the hospital to visit my dad and was quite surprised at what I saw! When I walked in the room they had him sitting up in bed. He looked right at me! He was very active compared to before. He was trying to talk (mouthing words because of his tracheotomy he cannot make sounds). I understood when he told me that he loved me and he asked about his dog. Here are some of the miraculous things I witnessed yesterday:

He laughed, cried, puckered up his lips for a kiss (my favorite is that he also did that to the nurse :), he told me he wanted to come with me home, he waived at me and he could see me out in the hallway, and he got mad that I couldn't understand what he was saying. He had a very wide range of emotions to share! MIRACLES!!

I know that my dad has a long way to go. This was just a miracle for a man who has basically been mostly unresponsive until now. I know we still don't know if he sustained any brain injury...he is still confused about a few things but it could be medication too.

They said that they wanted him to get up today and sit in a chair. That seems unbelievable to me. I haven't heard at all today whether or not they met that goal. I will keep you updated!

Thank you all who have been praying. He still has to undergo bypass surgery when they feel he is recovered enough. This is a risky procedure. One day at a time though...

February 25

2008-02-25T11:56:00.000-08:00

This weekend was rough for my dad. He was fighting off an infection so he experienced a very high fever on Saturday. They managed his fever with medication and he is now on antibiotics. They say that today he is stable.

Yesterday they had him off the ventilator for about 6 hours before he started struggling and they had to put him back on. This is good because he improves everyday.

I will do my best to keep everyone updated!

Love ya'll

Here are a few pictures of my nephews that I thought were cute. I always feel then when I post something there should always be some picture accompaniments however...there was no good option directly regarding this post :)

Update on my dad

2008-02-21T05:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday the doctor informed us that they want to put in a tracheotomy and a feeding tube in my dad.

This is the next step in his care. This will allow him to start breathing easier on his own when he is ready. The tube is irritating to his airway and difficult to manage long term. They have taken him off his sedation and only give it to him when absolutely necessary. Which means that he is alert more of his day which gives everyone a better picture of his capacity. Seems promising still at this point.

It's a miracle that he is alive and a miracle that he has made it this far. I look forward to the coming miracles that we prayed for last night. God is mysterious!

Update for February 16

2008-02-16T20:56:00.000-08:00

Today my Aunt (my dad's sister) went back to Texas. It broke my heart. I enjoyed the time we spent together. It was nice to have her here making decisions with us and helping us understand what was going on. I miss all of my family. I wish you all could be closer....

My dad was moved to spectrum on Friday. He needed to have more specialized care. He is still on a ventilator and will be for quite some time. He has been through a lot physically especially as health problems arise from his condition (like having a blood clot removed from his lung and needed his tube replaced because of equipment failure).

As the days stretch on, my brother and I are feeling the stress of our normal day-to-day pressures compounded by the desire to be at the hospital with my dad.

The ICU at Spectrum Butterworth puts suffering into perspective for me. That hospital is incredibly crowded. This world is so full of suffering and the waiting rooms are crowded with proof of that. Families waiting and setting up camp just to be close to their loved one. It makes me extremely grateful for what I have.

So go and hug those you love. I am not trying to sound Hallmark-ish but really...life is to short to take anyone for granted!

Love to you all!

Here is a few cute pics of my Aunt Chris and my cousin Julia with my girls