40 Years

So after moving to Texas from Georgia and driving out to California and back, I figured why stop there - I may as well put another 2,000+ miles on my car. So about a week ago my parents flew in to Texas and drove up with me, Finn, and Roscoe to Colorado (unfortunately Miles had to work). My whole family (sister, brother, brother's girlfriend) was there as we celebrated my parents' 40th wedding anniversary!

We rented a cabin near Breckenridge, Colorado. The weather was beautiful, the high was in the low 70's the scenery was amazing - it was perfect. I really wish Miles would have been able to come. Maybe he would have fallen in love with Colorado, wanted to ditch this Army gig and search for a forever home in the Rockies. . . .sigh. . . a girl can dream.
 

 Our rental for the weekend.

Anyway, it was just a wonderful time. Great to be with my family and celebrate my parents 40 years of marriage. We haven't all been together since Finley was born and even then it wasn't only for a day or two. Roscoe loved running around up in the mountains. His new best friend is his cousin Bisbee (my sister's Boxer):

 See that Deer? I bet we can get him. Wanna get him? 

Nah, you're right - we should just watch him. We'll get the next one.

While there we went on a nice long hike. The elevation at the cabin was 10,700 feet so it was pretty easy to get winded. I snapped this cute picture of my dad helping my mom during our hike:

 And we saw this when we got to the top:

 

 

 

This made me dread going back to Texas - Colorado is gorgeous.

 Finley is too big for that Bjorn, but it was the only carrier I brought. 
So I made my brother carry him up hill. Good practice I figure.

 

Oh, you didn't want us to go in that nasty pond? I thought you said to go ahead and get muddy. So we got muddy.

 The below picture was taken just after we gave my parents a book comprised of 40 stories/messages/well wishes from my parents' friends and family to help them celebrate their 40 years together:

 

And one of their friends requested they listen to a song "Grow Old Along With Me" as it is "so us older folks" so I pulled it up on my phone for them to listen to . . .What this picture doesn't catch are the tears in my dad's eyes. The big softy.

And more pictures from the weekend:

 Lots of Pat-A-Cake with Nana

 Just need to check my stocks real quick. Don't touch my beer.

Walking around in Breckenridge. Being all snooty like with our coffees.

 

Bisbee had a little encounter with a porcupine.  

Sibling Love

The Nichols Clan

One quick fact about my parents. . . they met when they were working in Lake Tahoe, NV at a Harrah's Casino - my mom was a Blackjack dealer and my dad a Craps dealer. And they were engaged only two months later. Another fun fact - my dad proposed to my mom on an airplane (flown by their friend) on February 5th which also happens to be my birthday (12 years later).

And in closing, here are a couple of pictures from their wedding - July 29, 1972. Looking forward to helping them celebrate many more wonderful years!

On the sole of my dad's left shoe was "HELP" and on his right, "ME" which could be seen as he was kneeling at the altar.

God Bless the 70's egh? I wonder what I will think when I look at my wedding pictures in 40 years. . .

 

Random, Hodge-Podge of a Blog

Lots of random things will be dumped in this post. Not really sure where to even begin so I'll just jump right in . . .

First and foremost, our little boy took a few steps tonight! Miles claims he kinda did this already when we were out in California. Not being there to see it, I have my doubts (or am just in denial), but he said that in CA he was kinda falling forward while stepping. So that doesn't count. But tonight, with mom and dad present, he very clearly took a few steps in a row before grabbing on to Miles. Whole new world out there we are about to discover. Can't wait.

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Last weekend we had crazy bad storms. I guess central Texas isn't used to very hard rain because I realized, when fretting over my flower beds, that none of the houses here have gutters! I also am realizing more and more how much I am turning into my mother as I hurried outside during the rain to place buckets and watering cans under the ledge of the house to collect rain water for my potted plants. At night the power went out a few times when there was some loud thunder and lightning. It totally freaked Roscoe out. Finn was sound asleep thankfully. But Roscoe was shaking for a good 30 minutes. I told my mom about it and she said I needed to get him a "Thunder Jacket". . . I had never heard of one before. Have you? Kinda funny. Apparently they reduce anxiety that some dogs get during storms. No, we did not order him one. Roscoe just needs to man up.

Image from here

On Monday I went to the local library here which is really nice. I got myself a library card (evidence #2 from the week that I am my Mother) and I got the information for story time and toddler activities I can bring Finn to. It was a total "Mom" thing to do - I loved it. Across the street from the library is a nice looking pet adoption facility. . . I'm afraid if I step foot in there I will come home with three new dogs.

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While pinning a billion things on Pinterest during the week, I came across these two things that I just thought were really, really funny. It was also pretty late at night.

So very true:

Random. But funny at 11pm (yes, that's my definition of late):

..........

Texas is hot. I know, surprise, surprise. But seriously - it's miserably hot here. I thought that it would be nice to escape the humid and muggy summers of Georgia and figured that Texas might be more like Arizona in that it's a "dry" heat. But no. It's muggy here and the temperature routinely is in the triple digits. Sick. Makes me so thankful we splurged a little extra for the remote engine start for my car. Also, I often take Roscoe with me when I run errands (he loves car rides) but I leave him in the car with it running (and locked).  Yet I'm always paranoid that someone is going to see me getting out of the car and think that I'm just going to leave him trapped in that sweat box instead of the crisp 68 degrees it's set at, so I always say in a loud voice, "ok buddy you hang out in this nice air conditioned car" or something along those lines so total strangers don't judge me. But really, they probably don't even notice and I'm just paranoid because I totally would call animal control on someone if they left their dog in a hot car and it wasn't running.

 ..........

Finn and his buddy Maddux went to Sam's Club a few days ago. I bought Ziploc bags and Boogie Wipes. Exciting times people, exciting times.

  

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Lastly, I am making these tomorrow and cannot wait. 

Happy random weekend everyone.

God Talk and Luck

Finn is one of the lucky ones. He made it here safely and is healthy. He's a beautiful boy who I soak up every day. He drives me nuts at times (like when he is sassy and swats my hands away at dinner or squirms all over when getting his diaper changed - "oh, I'm sorry - am I taking too long wiping YOUR butt and cleaning up YOUR nasty poop?"), but regardless of his sass or (or his ass), I am so incredibly lucky. And he's so lucky to be here. Because we aren't all this fortunate. Sometimes I get sad and upset about what happened to Cale and make it too much about myself but really, it's about him. It's about the little boy who never got to even take one breath after he was born. Whose luck ran out far too soon.

My friend's friend just lost a baby. Every time I hear of a new loss my heart just sinks. It just doesn't end. Some people, some babies, just aren't lucky. But some, thankfully most, are.

I wrote her friend a note as she hadn't yet given birth at the time. I just wanted to share my experience and arm her with some information before it was too late (such as Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, etc.). I also told her that I am sorry for all the well intentioned comments that she will hear that will hurt regardless. People will say things like "This is part of God's plan" or "Everything happens for a reason" and regardless of what you believe, it doesn't change the sadness you feel or the grief that you have for losing your child. I believe in a God who has never left my side. I believe in a God that I can pray to and give my thanks to, but I don't believe Cale dying was part of His plan. He didn't take my child from me. Bad things happen. I don't blame God for them. When Cale died, and when bad things do happen, I believe that God is there. To provide comfort and love and support, but the God I believe in is just as sad that my baby died and grieves along with me. I believe that God, with sadness in his heart for the pain in ours, took my son in His loving arms. Not because he planned to take him away from me after nine months, but because something awful and unforeseeable happened, and He was there with us in the midst of all of it.

I had so many plans and dreams for Cale. Just as I'm sure this poor family I just learned of had for their baby. The loss doesn't end with the child. The loss extends to all the things you wanted for them and wanted to do with them.

I have plans and dreams for Finn too. I dream that he will be happy and successful and kind. I dream that he will never know loss the way his father and I have, yet will be compassionate to those who unfortunately will. I dream that he will outlive me by many, many years and will get to have dreams for his own kids some day.

I dream that he will be lucky all the days of his life.

 
 

The Pre-Digital Era

Ok, it's been a little while (not really), but my friend Jodi wants updates so I must oblige.

It's been a busy few weeks. We made the 12+ hour drive from Georgia in one day and got our keys to our house the next. My mom came to help us unpack a couple days later - only our furniture didn't arrive as planned and there was nothing to unpack for a week. So when our stuff did show up we had two days to unpack and set up as much as we could before we headed out to Arizona on another 12+ hour drive. We stayed there one night, left Roscoe with my parents, and then drove out to California to be with Miles' older brother and his family. Great trip there - Jenny is cancer free! - and after about a week in lovely, beachy, I-wish-I-was-richy, CA, we made the trip back (with another overnight in AZ).

So for the last few days we have been continuing to work on the house and get settled. We also went down to Austin yesterday to check it out and I made my first trip to an Ikea, which felt like an amusement park.

In the process of moving in, I have been trying to weed through things I don't need and get rid of some of the clutter. Probably would be a better idea to do this before moving, buuuut it is what it is. While working in the guest room I came across a large Tupperware bin full of old pictures. I took most pictures out of frames that can be donated to Goodwill (I swear I never need to should buy another picture frame in my life), and sorted through all the hard copies of pictures I had . . . back when hard copies were all you had. I ended up throwing out a bunch of negatives, too. I decided if I really wanted a copy of a picture, I would just scan it and didn't need to bother hanging on to old negatives I probably will never use (can you even get pictures printed from negatives?).

Anyway, here are a few of my favorite pictures from back in the day:

 When my sister and I were younger, my mom would put our hair in those pink foam curlers so it would be nice and curly the next day - usually this was done before Christmas pictures and dance recitals. Thankfully it wasn't a regular occurrence because we slept in those!

 I guess my poor posture started at a young age. And why wasn't my brother Superman to go with the theme? Besides, I'm not sure if the Devil really wears knee-highs.

 Playing dress up. Notice the cross-stitch hanging in the background? That's now in Finn's room :)

 

One of my favorite things about growing up in Arizona was being on a summer swim team. I was never very good, but I have always enjoyed swimming and attribute it to starting at a young age. It's something I'm looking to do with Finn in the near future.

Somewhere there is an even better picture of Kate in her "Me Old Bamboo" attire and me in my "Hot, Hot, Hot" outfit. I'm so glad we took tap and jazz lessons. Clearly, they've attributed to my dance skillz (which is probably a mix between a 60 year old doing The Shout (ahem, Mom) and someone you'd see doing Ellen's Dance Dare)

......

I'm going to fast forward a decade or so to high school. Won't really share too many pictures as there were too many that made me laugh and I obnoxiously sent text messages to a lot of my friends while going through those anyway. Here's a cute one with my three closest high school friends. To this day we are in touch and email each other once a month (unless you are Dana and are two weeks late for your July email).

The main thing I wanted to share from high school was part of a "High School Time Capsule" journal I had written in. It was just this cute book to document things from high school and life at that time - such as how much did a stamp cost ($.34), what were the popular crazes (Tae Bo), what was the homecoming theme (Viva Las Vegas), and so on.

There is also a part called "My Future Life" and in it you write what point you think you'll re-read this book and what you'll be doing at that point in your life. Apparently I shouldn't be married for another year, but looks like I was pretty damn psychic about Miles:

Pretty funny huh? I guess that was my idea of Prince Charming back then and still is today (especially the buys random things for me bit). Not sure if Miles will be career military, but I was right about Rob (although he's a pilot). However Kate is not an Interior Designer. There was also a part about kids. I wrote that I would have two or three and said either three boys or two boys and a girl. I guess if we have another I will be right about that too regardless of what we have.

So there you have it. This isn't really an update so much as a blast from the past. Happy, Jodi?

 

Happy FIFTH of July

While the 4th of July was a happy one, the 5th proved to be even better. We are out in California right now to help my sister-in-law Jenny as she undergoes chemotherapy. Before her chemo today she met with her doctor who read some scans she had taken a couple days ago. He told her that the scans show that not only is her treatment working, but after two months of chemo, she is cancer free!! She still has to have four more rounds of it to ensure treatment is successful, but what wonderful news! Thank you so very much for all of you who have continued to think of her and her family and pray for this great news we just got.

Happy 5th of July to all!