New Stuff

Life is such an adventure! I love it when new things happen, especially at home for some reason. Yesterday was full of different-ness, from beginning to end. It started with a trip to the orthodontist for Katherine, who got pretty new turquoise bands and these funky crossing wires around her brackets that help straighten her teeth. You know how hard it is to keep your tongue from exploring something new in your mouth? Well, I'm in the front yard and Katherine comes running out with her mouth tightly closed, motioning madly about something. She then gingerly opens her mouth to reveal the tip of her tongue, stuck between the crossed wires of her front braces. That happened probably 5 or so times, but she figured out how to un-pierce her tongue each time, poor thing.

Later that morning, my sweet friend Danielle came over for a wedding makeup consultation. We spent a couple hours fine-tuning lipstick shades and eye colors while chatting about her plans for the future. What a precious time we had enjoying the art of enhancing feminine beauty while sharing little pieces of each other's lives. How blessed I am to have little jewels like Danielle pop in and out of my life.

Shortly after, another jewel stopped by - my mother-in-law. She heard that I was sick (with pneumonia) and wanted to help out. She offered to take the kids to the free lunch program down the street and give me a little break. The kids went, ate, played on the playground and enjoyed time with their "Lola." Another unexpected blessing.

Shortly after they all got back from lunch, our new refrigerator arrived. We exploded into action, clearing out food, mopping up old fridge leaks and wiping up the lint and grunge off the floor. Kudos to the Riegelman's crew who deftly moved our old fridge to the garage and brought up and installed the new bottom-freezer model (a tight squeeze coming up 2 flights of stairs). Katherine stocked our new fridge with food and creatively arranged magnets and the chore chart on the clean walls of the lovely new Amana. I was hoping this new unit would hold everything from from our old top freezer plus all the extra stuff in our full-size upright freezer (which was really only a little more than 1/2 full). I was not disappointed! I still am amazed at what we fit in there.

Everything was going great as we positioned the old fridge down in the garage (long story short - it needs to stay working and plugged in until Friday when the Energy Trust guys come PAY US $30 to haul it away). Then the delivery guy plugged it in and POP! - everything went dead. Well, just everything in the garage (which included our FIOS phone & internet service, outdoor lights, garage door opener and outlets. After a house-call by our handy-hero Rick (who determined there must be a GFCI outlet somewhere that needed to be reset) and a call to Uncle Savin (former owner of the house who led us to the hidden GFCI), power was restored and everthing was "cool." Blessings #3 and #4.


Can I also just say that I love my family? My kids have been great, helping out around the house and doing their chores plus feeding their minds with reading and leftover schoolwork. OK, now I'm bragging, but I feel the need - they have also volunteered to help in the yard! J.J.'s a pretty awesome weed-puller, Grace loves watering my potted plants with her little can, and Katherine hauled branches and helped dig and move dirt around without complaining!! Yesterday was no exception, and as different things arose that needed to be done around the house and yard, my little blessings (#5, 6 & 7) jumped right in to help.

After dinner (which Katherine fixed), I decided it was time to cut Grace's tangled locks. I made Sovann promise not to cut her hair while we were gone last month because I didn't want it too short. My goal was to trim the ends and even it up to the sections Grace had chopped off herself a few months ago when she wanted to have "Mary Marvel" hair. I found those short strands in the front and moved to the back at that same level.

I watched the first strands fall to the floor, about 5 inches long. I knew it was too short, but evenness was what I was after so I kept going. I thought Grace would look in the mirror and cry. I wanted to cry. I asked Grace, "Do you know who's going to love your short hair?" I was sure she'd say, "Daddy!" But instead, she said, "Yes, ME!" And she does love it. It must feel good - light and bouncy much like her spirit.

As the day ended, my husband (blessing #8 today) came home from battling the demons of broken relationships. This man works everyday with people who are either severely sleep-deprived (grumpy and irritable at best) or severely wounded (counseling clients, many dealing with intense "stuff"), and he genuinely cares for them and often shares their emotional pain. He is my hero. He works three different jobs to provide all we need and still comes home and empties the trash and does laundry. Not only that, but he serves consistently in leadership at church and feeds his mind and soul regularly by reading and listening to podcast sermons and worship music. Did I mention that he loves to play with the kids and teach them stuff like wrestling and tennis? Last night, he came home and sat on the couch with Katherine to connect with us after a long, tiring day at work. Not many men I know would willingly sit through "My Girl" with all it's coming-of-age girly stuff, but Sovann did. It was a sweet moment to look over and see my daughter tickling her dad who took it all in, tired as he was, and engaged with us in what we were enjoying. He didn't run away and hide, he didn't make fun of us, he just loved us where we were in that moment. I am so blessed.

My Garden

Here are some pictures of my garden and the hanging plants on the deck. On the deck, notice the beautiful "beehive" hanging basket from Todd at Christmas.

Between the green Adirondack chairs on the deck is one of the Japanese maples mom gave me last summer.













On the patio below you can see the 2 new rhodies I just planted that will hopefully grow up to wall off that end and to the left is the new wisteria going up the deck beam.














Next is a pic showing my baby blueberry bushes (along the red fence) with peas, pumpkins, cukes and squash to the left.














My flower bed on the east side of the house is filling in nicely and all the foxgloves are blooming right now (but I still need to plant a few more things around the weeping pussy willow).














Our cherries are just about ripe and we'll have LOTS of persimmons this year (but very few apples, and last year we had a bumper crop of those). In the front, the lilies are blooming and the cannas are just coming up.














I planted two ornamental crab apple trees to help block out the neighbor's hideous orange van that is permanently parked behind my rose garden. They don't do much now, but the green leafy part is supposed to branch out and grow bigger.














By the front steps, the thyme is blooming and nicely filling in between the square pavers to make a little patio area in front (where the overgrown spruce that dad took down for us used to be).














So that's what I've been working on since we got home from the road trip.

Road Trip Day 28, Yellowstone

Awoke this morning a little weak and weary, but a shower and lovely hotel breakfast did wonders. We stayed at the King's Inn, which had a display of African trophy animals that the owner had shot himself. There were lions, gazelle, a huge rhino, elephant head, zebra and ostrich.
We were treated to an impressive drive through Buffalo Bill State Park from Cody to the East Entrance of Yellowstone. We drove through a gorgeous valley with snow-capped mountains all around. Just under the lush green grass was bright red soil. Kevin declared a no-media day, so the kids could take in the surroundings.
As we climbed the mountains and entered Yellowstone National Park, we saw more and more snow, piled 5+ feet high in some places. The lakes, solidly frozen over just a couple weeks ago, were now breaking up and slushy with big islands of ice and snow in them still. Despite the gorgeous scenery, I lost my fight against sleep and drifted off as we wound around Lake Yellowstone. At some point, the group stopped and went on a short hike to see the bubbling paint pots and colorful hot springs, but I slept through that as well. After that, we drove to Old Faithful to watch it spout (which we were told was a little more frequent than usual because they'd had quite a few earthquakes lately). We were given money to buy lunch in the cafeteria in the lodge there, and I couldn't resist sampling the bison meatloaf. It was OK, quite lean, in fact, but I must admit I enjoyed the mashed potatoes and gravy that came with it more.
We drove North through the park and our our next goal was to see some wildlife...we weren't disappointed! Along the road we came across many small herds of bison with hefty little babies - tan little calves just resting and chewing their cud along with their mamas and papas. Before the day was done, we also saw lots of elk and dear and one black bear foraging for food in the woods. We also stopped at Upper Falls and walked a short trail to view the river, swollen with fresh snow-melt, roaring over the cliff in a tumultuous boil. J.J. and I went back up near the parking area and did target-practice with his cool, new hand-carved eagle sling-shot, flinging pine cones and pebbles at the tree trunks.
We went back up into a snowy mountain range and down into grassy valleys filled with sparkling streams as the sun set and turned the puffy clouds various shades of pink. Just as we were leaving the park through the North Entrance, we were treated to a herd of buffalo running along the undulating hills, the little calves romping along as quick as the lumbering cows and bulls. It's the first time I ever saw these huge creatures moving that quickly and I couldn't help but think of the brave native peoples who hunted the bison not too long ago.
After another hour and a half of driving, we stopped in Livingston, MT where Junior's grandmother fixed us all burgers and fries at her restaurant, "The Dawg House." It was a short half-hour drive to Bozeman where we stayed at Kevin's alma mater, an SDA boarding school. It was past midnight as we unload and flopped into our sleeping bags for our final night on the road!