I thank Thee Lord...

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

How this Autumn is, in a way, also a Spring for me

As I sit on my comfy new couch looking out at the front yard I see the beautiful golden colors of the cottonwood trees in the woods behind the houses across the street. The clouds are sinking to enclose us. Only the trees closest to me can be seen all the way to the tops. The ones in the background are shrouded in mist and look like water-color paintings. The continuing rain has added a glossiness to the plants in the yard. I can honestly say I have never noticed before that my little pink dogwood tree has beautiful red fall foliage. I see the little chickadees checking out the birdfeeders and the drooping heads of the sunflower flowers that grew from bird dropped seeds. Although the growing season has wound down, my yard is still alive with life and colors.

With renewed eyes I am learning to appreciate this season, autumn. In the past, it has only been the precursor to my dreaded winter. This year, autumn marks a new beginning for me and those who share my homelife.

I have come to the point with my fibromyalgia pain and it's ever-present fatigue, that I need to increase/change pain management medication or try a drastic change in lifestyle in hopes of staving off more meds and the accompanying side effects. So, after many tears, prayers and long talks with my DearHusband, we have decided that it is time for me to retire.

I have one week left to wrap up an almost nine year career and will be returning to the 'career' that has always been first in my heart: fulltime wife and mother.

I am excited about the prospect of having time to devote to getting healthy and regaining some strength and stamina. I am really excited about the prospect of having energy to return to my love of heirloom sewing and needlework! I am even looking forward to the challenge of re-learning how to live on one income and keeping a frugal household budget.

I have to think this is going to be a marker in the timeline of my life. There was childhood and pre-marriage, marriage pre-children, the years of raising our family, and now, a new chapter. One I hope to share with a return to blogging and sharing with friends and family.

Day 2 in Aruba: Monday, June 22nd

We slept in, much later than we expected. Although we intended on keeping our early to bed, early to rise routine, I turned my 7:30a alarm off and suddenly it was 11:30a! We spent the early afternoon exploring a bit of the island, went down several dirt roads along the coast and drove along the water's edge for quite a while.

In spots the coast was rocky and wild, big surf and carved weathered beach. In one place the beach was ALL coral pieces instead of sand, bleached white by the sun. It was very musical stepping down closer to the water it sounded like chimes as DearHusband walked down ahead of me. Footing was tricky as the fingers of coral tended to roll and shift as we stepped on them. It was very charming, almost a magical sound.

We went to the famed California lighthouse, nice view from there. There was an expensive restaurant up there, along with a vendor selling shaved ice. Much welcome shaved ice. It was hot!

The scenery wasn't what we were expecting. Not much vegetation other than cactus, some of which were pretty impressive! I guess we were expecting a tropical island but found ourselves instead on a desert island. It seemed incongruous to us to be loooking at a beautiful coastline and a great blue ocean, in the same lines as we saw in Hawaii, to turn 180 degrees and see nothing but sand and cactus in the lines of Arizona. Took us awhile to get used to it. That and the wind, not a breeze, but a hot wind that blew constantly. I can see why they warn you about not getting sunburned as you don't realize how hot the sun is with the constant wind blowing to cool you off. It was refreshing--would be unbearable without it!

Today I saw my first pelican in the wild. Maybe it was a small one, but I thought they were bigger. We watched it feed, diving all the way into the water then paddling around for a bit before taking off to fly for a short time before diving again. It was impressive. We also saw lots of lizards with blue spots. Wild and very skittish, very hard to get close enough to take a good picture. The ones I did get were too grainy when cropped to show any detail of their spots.

Then we made a trip to the grocery store to pick up some breakfast, lunch and snack foods. After last night's dinner, we knew we'd need to economize on breakfasts and lunches. We were starving, not having had breakfast before we started out exploring so we stopped at a Wendy's before going to the store. The cost was very close to the same price as at home, only priced in Dutch Guilders. We also saw alot of other American restaurants: Pizza Hut, Tony Roma's Benihana, Taco Bell, Dunkin Donuts, and Subway, the last two being on the premises of this resort, along with a Baskin Robbins.

Dinner was more than a bit of a disapoinment. We went to the much touted, Driftwood Restaurant, which the chef himself is said to catch the special of the day. The service was terrible, the food overpriced and overcooked and worst of all, after spending more than $25 USD roundtrip on a taxi, so we could both enjoy rum cocktails, the drinks were lacking much rum and horribly overpriced. Unfortunately for them, Texas de Brazil is a lot to live up to in both first class wait staff and five star cuisine!

Impressive cactus! See the ocean at the left of the picture? This was just yards from the coast.

Day 1 in Aruba: Sunday, June 21st, Father's Day

After leaving at 4p Saturday for SeaTac, we arrived in Aruba shortly after 1p on Sunday (20 hours of travel and waiting in airports), rented a car and found our way to Playa Linda in Orenjestad. It is a cute little condo. 1 bedroom with a single daybed/couch and a double sized sleeper sofa in the kitchen/dining room.

Inside views:

Outside views:

We quickly unpacked and went for a long walk on the beach. It felt good to wade into the warm ocean water, it is a beautiful turquoise blue. Even the sand is different. It is white and powdery soft.

Look SisterA, Mrs Toes in the white sands of Aruba!

This is a view of the condo from down the beach a ways. It's shaped like the pyramids in Mexico, each balcony has a full view without being blocked by a balcony above your head.

Although we were really tired after our overnight flight across country to New York, then another flight down to the Caribbean , We didn’t want to waste a moment of sunshine, as our trips to Hawaii has taught us that it gets dark much, much earlier than our 11pm at this time of year! Upstairs to the 3rd floor to change, then back to lounge poolside. Nineteen months after our last swim (Maui), we enjoyed a little bit of swimming before our lack of regular meals began to register. Mostly because it was close by and we were starving, and the fact that there was a line, which told us it was probably worth a bit of a wait, we went across the street for dinner at Texas deBrazil. An excellent decision! I will tell more later…

A couple shots of the pool area:

Here we go...

Leave SeaTac 9:58p on JetBlue. Great airline! I would fly them again in a heartbeat! In fact, when we fly again, they’ll be the first airline I check for! We paid for extra legroom but even those seats available for less money seemed pretty roomy! All you can eat refreshments, after making the usual trip down the aisle offering beverages and snack items, the stewards put a nice display out on the galley counter and encourage you to help yourself! Each seat has it’s own TV, they encourage you to use your own earplugs or headset, no need to buy headsets that only work on a specific airline, oh and did I mention plenty of legroom! Very important for a claustrophobic like myself!

Our first glimpses of Aruba

Surprise! An Early Father's Day Outing

We did it! We surprised him! The kids and I planned an early Father's Day outing at the Woodland Park Zoo and we actualy pulled off the surprise without DearHusband guessing what was up! Until we got off at the zoo exit off of I-5, he thought we were heading to Auburn to spend the day at DaughterS's and then to enjoy a spaghetti dinner!

Here's a couple of photos of our outing:

After weeks of sunshine, this day was cool and cloudy. Even SonMySon gave up and used an old sweatshirt found in the trunk of his sister's car.

Zebra's are my favorite animal at the zoo. I almost wore the sterling silver zebra earrings I got at the Denver Zoo but was afraid it might offer a hint as to our destination!

DaughterS posed on a boulder overlooking the zebra viewing area.

All in all is was a wonderful outing. We wrapped up the day with a delicious spaghetti dinner before our long drive home. Hope you had a Happy Father's Day, Lover. One week early.

Lord, hear our prayer, ease our hearts

I normally try to only post about things that bring me joy or make me laugh. But today I feel I must share a tragic event.

Today, DearHusband, DaughterA and I did something we and close to a hundred other people should never, ever have to do.

We attended the memorial service for a former teammate of my daughters', a bubbly, sparkly and joyful young woman whom my husband enjoyed coaching, and we had the privilege of sharing ten years of our life with when it revolved around tournament softball.

Chrystal Anne Hansen, age 22, engaged to be married and six weeks pregnant was killed in a car accident, only 3 minutes from her home, by a drunk driver who blew through a red light and t-boned her in an intersection with such force that it pushed her car through the intersection and into the roadside ditch. Her fiancee later suffered a brain aneurysm. The drunk who committed double-murder with a ton of moving metal, walked away without a scratch.

If so moved, you can read the newspapers articles here.

The service was a wonderful gathering of friends and family, and I feel we were again privileged to be in the company of those who loved her, to listen as they shared stories of laughter and adventures enjoyed by Chrystal. I thanked her father for having the service and for giving us the opportunity to share in the obvious love that abounded in the room full of people.

It must be true, that God gives you the strength when you need it. I don't know how her parents were able to be there, dry eyed and calm, actually giving comfort to others as well as, hopefully, gaining comfort from those around them.

Her father said something, while we stood near the table that held lovingly made posters and collages of photos taken throughout Chrystal's life, that continues to reduce me to tears each time I think of it. It a quiet voice, he said to my husband, "I was going to be a Grandpa..."

All I can say of the man who killed Chrystal and her unborn child, injured her beloved and forever changed the lives of their families, May God have mercy on his soul. Because, believe me I certainly would not, do not, will not ever. In my humble opinion, I believe we should bring back public floggings for people who deliberately get behind the wheel after drinking and cause the death of another person. It wasn't an accident that he drank and drove, you cannot accidentally get behind the wheel while impaired. It was a conscious choice he made, and now others will continue to suffer for it. The current slap on the wrist these criminals get isn't sufficient. They should be flogged, and perhaps, if they survive the shock and injury of having the flesh stripped from their backs, the memory of the pain and humiliation will keep them from drinking and driving again.

Please forgive me if I sound hateful, if my words injure you, my innocent readers, but justice needs to be served and examples set.

An example DearHusband and I have set for our children, friends and family is a zero tolerance for alcohol consumption in relation to the privilege of driving motor vehicles. Knowing the alcohol impairs judgement, we have removed the danger of inaccurately judging our level of impairment by making it a HARD AND FAST RULE, if we have even so much as a sip of alcohol, we do not get behind the wheel! Is that an inconvenience? You bet it is! It means only one of us can imbibe when we are out to dinner by ourselves, as we live too far out into the county to take a cab. But let me tell you, I and my beloved, will never take the chance of injuring ourselves, or worse yet, someone else by a poor decision that might forever change the lives of those we come in contact with.

I know this is, what some may think, an extreme attitude, but once again, a drunk driver has taken a life, two lives actually this time, and I hope my children will remember this event and our family rule when they are out for the evening and choose to have a drink. Honor the memories they have of Chrystal, remember the terrible impact on the lives of all who knew her, step up and be responsible for their own decisions, and put the car keys away when the alcoholic beverages come out.

I pray God give comfort and strength to the families and friends of Chrystal, may they find comfort in shared memories, may time ease the pain of separation, and the promise of seeing her again, restored and in heaven give us peace.