summer round-up: august

I wanted to finish "journaling" about August. 

I mentioned in my last post that I went to an overnight 11-year-old scout camp. It was fun to be with my friends and some nice ladies, but there wasn’t a lot I needed to do so I maybe didn’t even need to go. Maybe next year I can get out of it! It was cool to get away for a night. I like camping. I’ve liked camping ever since I was a kid. One of these days I want to sleep under the stars.

Here are the boys with their marshmallow shooters, haha.

And me and the other Primary presidency members who went. Love them.

The kids loved the beach. All summer we went to the beach a lot. In September, before school started, we were going to the beach every single day, for a couple of hours. I’d bring a camping chair and a book, and the kids would wade and throw rocks and laugh. It was divine.

Every year in the summer the local municipalities host these “Night Out” events centered around crime prevention, healthy living, happy communities, etc. We’ve gone to Edmonds Night Out for the past couple years, but this year we missed it. Luckily we could hit Mukilteo Night Out, haha. The best parts were a booth telling you not to speed, where kids could take a softball and throw it and this monitor thing would tell them how fast the ball flew – it looked like one of those things that tells you how fast you’re going in a school zone, you know? Anyway, that was fun. 

Wesley did the bouncy activity, which put him in a Velcro suit and encouraged him to stick himself to a wall like a fly on flypaper. It was funny! He jumped! Check out the video, haha!

 

This is them eating otter pops in a vintage 1960s community transit bus. About 10 second later Laurel spills her whole otter pop on the floor of this very-important-historic-vehicle. I was mortified. And found some paper towels, stat.

Cuties in the cop car...

Laurel got all suited up to skateboard (thank you YMCA), but then chickened out and didn’t do it.

We had free hot dogs and chips. Wesley spun a wheel and won a HUGE gift bag from Walgreens which included a – ta-dah! – pedometer! Which provided us hours of fun and the fastest pedometer death to date. He left it outside overnight two days later and it got wet with dew and was toast.

We also did a downtown adventure. Seattle art museums have a Free First Thursday every month, and I like to take the kids every once in awhile. I like to encourage them to think about the art, notice the pictures and shapes, talk about what they think. It doesn’t always work but sometimes it does. Of course we also rode the bus – a double decker bus!! – and played in the Westlake community center. They do special stuff during the summer I guess for families like us. We visited my old company on the 32^nd floor and Wesley got ahold of my phone and took some pictures! 

I love hanging out downtown. Of course we hit the bakery, too, and got some gigantic cookies. (Not pictured. But believe me, they are gigantic.)

Obviously it was a wonderful day if this is how he looks after.... we love that he takes the cordless phones to bed. We use them as intercoms (no house line), so he just plays with them. It's funny.

The next day was Friday and I went to book club. The next day was Saturday and my father died. I’m kind of looking back at my life in a “before August 9” segment and “after August 9” segment.

When we left for Maryland I had to cancel a lot of our plans for August, so there was a decent list of things we didn’t get to do this year that I’ll try to fit back in next year. Summers are wonderful and I love spending time with my kids.

• Taste of Edmonds… I like to get in during the early free admission part
• Evergreen State Fair
• Camping with the Cub Scout pack
• Playing in Lake Goodwin and spending the night at our friend Vicki’s cabin
• Kids Bowl Free
• Free Parks Days at any of the State of Washington parks
• Greenlake wading pool
• Picking blueberries
• Regal $1 movie or movies in the park
• Canning 50 lbs of peaches…. Bummer to miss that, haha!

It’s nice to think about happy summers during this cold winter. Well technically the first day of winter is Sunday! It’s going to be a long one, I can feel it.

little lady turns 3

I have a lot of blogging to do... I'm behind on some of the biggest events of the year. For now, enjoy this lovely post from when Laurel turned 3. Her birthday was 12/12.

First up, here is her adorable preschool picture.... she chose the clothes.

Laurel is really into sharks. I know, kinda funny right? So she asked for a shark party and a shark cake.... my personal plan is usually "make one thing and buy the other," so I bought the frosting and made the cake. I like this chocolate chip cake recipe since it's fairly dense which helps with "creating" something. So, here we have a cake and a half...

Cut and pieced using a Pinterest example...

White frosting tinted "gray" (i.e., looks pretty purple to me) using black food coloring...

AND a shark.  The teeth are white chocolate chips. I don't know why I didn't just make him a real tail and instead had it curve inwards like that. Mine doesn't look nearly as good as the Pinterest girl's shark cake. Oh well, Laurel was thrilled.

As you can tell by her licking some of our frosting tools :-)

In the afternoon it was sunny for the first time in DAYS so we hit the park. We love the park. I just LOVE THIS GIRL.

Dinner was spaghetti and meatballs, one of the Top 3 meals. Plus green peas.

When her presents were all ready she was kinda running around being a little silly and just muttering to herself. She looked in that pink bag there and I heard her say, "there's a shark in there! I like sharks!"

I got her the shark beanie baby, his name is Crunch. She LOVES it. In fact, we let her take it everywhere and it went missing on Saturday (less than 24 hours after she got it). We FINALLY found it maybe Tuesday afternoon? She had put it INSIDE the Christmas tree. That's right, Crunch was taking a nap on one of the branches. I've requested our toys don't take naps in our tree anymore.

Anyway, you can tell Crunch was a welcome addition to the family.

Shane got her a 787, also a requested item. You can see her airplane shirt and her purple pants in these pictures, yes she chose her clothes and they are her FAVORITE items of clothing.

Some other gifts were a Minnie Mouse dress up dress, a card game called Spot It, Little Mermaid Legos, and the BIG gift was the Ikea Mala easel. It's was inexpensive and perfect. Grandma Gottula made her a shark bag (which she carries around everywhere) and a shark hooded towel. What a great birthday it was.

The shark cake! Yay!

And it was great with ice cream.

Oh, and for some icing on the cake (haha) here are two adorable videos. The first is of them singing Happy Birthday to her in preschool. She is so smiley!

And the second is of her opening Grandma Gottula's shark presents.... yay!

Oh Laurel, you bring me so much joy. I positively love you. 

oh my father, part 1

Well, I suppose it's about time to talk about August. August started out as could be expected; I went to 11-year-old camp with others in the Stake Primary and folks from the Everett and Shorelines stakes. It was fine, I had a nice time getting to know everyone and camping and leaving the kids with Grandma. Thanks for Eileen for coming by for the weekend.

On August 9, Saturday, I got a call from my brother Kurt. We were in the middle of grilling some chicken and corn on the cob for a BBQ. Kurt says to me, kinda frantically, "Um, you need to go upstairs and pray, right now. Something's wrong with dad and he's in the hospital in Atlanta. Brad called me. He's there with Mom."

My heart skipped a beat... I definitely wasn't expecting this. Over the next hour I was upstairs, praying fervently. I posted a plea for prayers on Facebook. I called Brad and his wife Leslie and Kurt probably a million times. Text messages from Brad said things like, "they shocked him a few times. unresponsive. not good." I just couldn't believe my eyes or my ears!

It had been less than an hour of frantic praying and short, partially informative phone calls, when in the middle of sitting down and trying to eat I finally got a call from Brad himself.

I went into our laundry room, where I listened to him say, "Angela, our father has passed away." I stared at the ceiling, at the fluorescent lights that my father put in less than 2 months ago. Lights I really love. And I heard those words echo, "Angela, our father has passed away."

When you hear those words, your first reaction is just unbelieving. They must be mistaken. They must still be working on him. This can't be final. This can't be happening. It's not real. Not real. Not real.

It had been 45 minutes total, from Kurt's phone call warning me there was a problem to Brad's phone call telling me he was gone. Less than 1 hour for my whole life to change.

Dad was 57 years old. I was 33 years old. I'm not ready for this. This wasn't supposed to happen yet. Shane's father is well into his 70s... Grandpa Twining died in July and he was 87, that's 30 more years on this planet that my dad was supposed to have.

I came out of our laundry room and my face had fallen. Shane knew and he came and held me as I sobbed. The rest of the day just passed. I don't think I ate anything. I curled up on my bed and stared at the wall. The tears came and went. I posted something on Facebook, not to get attention to myself, but in the process of tagging Dad's name then all of HIS friends would see this big status update for his life. It was more to make sure everyone knew. Close friends called to offer support, but I didn't have much to say.

It was awful.

I called Brad a few times, because I wanted to talk to Mom. When she finally called me, she told me I was the first person she talked to. Oh my mom, I love my mom.

Here is Dad's story:

Brad moved from Maryland to Atlanta. They needed some help, so Brad drove his minivan down to Atlanta and Dad and Mom drove the moving truck. They had a lovely trip, they did it in two days I think. They got to Brad's new place in the afternoon of the 9th, and the local missionaries helped unload. Afterwards, they sat around talking about missionary work (Dad was the Ward Mission Leader in Salisbury) and eating pizza. Mom said Dad was having a great time, he loves being social and visiting. Everything was 100% ordinary.

Mom and Dad had a hotel room for the night, and they were going to drop off the U-Haul. Mom was going to just follow Dad in the minivan when Dad dropped off the U-Haul, and Brad was going to stay behind and get some rest, but something told Brad to go along. The plan was for Dad to put gas in the U-Haul and Mom and Brad took the minivan to the U-Haul place and wait for Dad.

Mom and Brad passed Dad at the gas station, filling up the U-Haul. They got to the U-Haul place and waited. and waited. and waited. Brad even remarked to Mom, "wow, what's taking Dad so long?" Finally, the U-Haul pulled in and Dad stumbled out of the U-Haul, struggling to get over to the minivan. He said to them, "I can't breathe, I can't breathe, go to a hospital."

I should interrupt this story to say that I knew my dad was struggling with congestive heart failure, as a result of having decades of undiagnosed, untreated hypertension. He was diagnosed with the heart failure and high blood pressure in October 2013, after having some serious problems and finally searching for answers. His doctor had been working with him to get things under control, and his doctor never expressed concern that his life was in danger. Well, maybe that is only somewhat true... my dad has a physical job as an electrician, so the doctor explicitly stated that if it wasn't for the physical nature of his work, he would probably be dead.

Congestive heart failure can be symptomatic in different ways according to which quadrant is affected, but my dad's failure featured symptoms of fluid filling in the lungs. He'd get fluid in there after exerting himself, and he'd have to calm down, lay down, hack and cough for awhile, etc., while the fluid went down. He'd had several "attacks" before but they were more of a nuisance than a real medical emergency, I think.

Well, Mom and Brad were surprised to see Dad having an attack, and a super bad one at that. It was raining cats and dogs. Just pouring buckets. Dad got into the car and Brad went over to the U-Haul to lock it up, grab the keys, etc. He found a hospital 6 miles away, but at 6 PM on a Saturday in Atlanta, it was an impossible drive. Mom said she'd never seen Dad have an attack this bad. Mom started praying while Brad kept trying to keep Dad responsive. Brad said he was back there coughing and groaning, saying things like, "My God, My God." Before too long Brad noticed Dad was quiet, which was a bad sign. He was slumped over and fluid was coming out of his mouth.

Brad pulled into a gas station and called 911. One kind person held an umbrella over Brad while he did some chest compressions on Dad. A nurse was there who was helpful. The gas station attendant gave Brad the address since he had no clue where he was.

It hurts to write this story. I can only imagine how Dad felt. I know we all have to go through death, and for most of us it will be uniquely personal, and it just pains me that Dad had to face this on his own. It makes me so very glad that Mom and Brad were there, and that they were there together. They needed each other, as much as Dad needed them. Or maybe he didn't. Maybe when we go, it's just us and God working out the details. Although, I still feel responsible in some way, like I should have been there to hold his hand and give him strength during this major life transition.

The paramedics showed up. Mom and Brad were shooed into the gas station to give their reports, and Dad was whisked off to the hospital. Dad's doctor later said he was probably already gone.

This is when Brad called his wife Leslie and Kurt, and Kurt called me.

When Mom and Dad got to the hospital they were ushered into a private room. At first a kind nurse visited with them, he was very gentle and sympathetic. He told them that they had shocked dad a couple times, but it didn't look good. I remember them telling me that they got Dad's heart started working at least once, but couldn't keep it going. After that he was unresponsive.

The doctor finally came in and said that they did all they could do. He was pronounced dead at 9:44 PM on August 9, 2014. It appears that dad's lungs filled with fluid and his heart just stopped. His brain was robbed of the oxygen it needed. Essentially, his cause of death was congestive heart failure, from hypertension, which led to cardiac arrest.

Our entire lives turned upside down in literally minutes.

I'd like to record here on this blog at this very moment that my life has CHANGED. Everything feels different. EVERYTHING. I can't get a grip. I feel like such a mess. All of these things that were constant for me, that made me happy and kept me warm and cozy, are just in upheaval. I'm slowly working through my grief, and believe me there are lots of things to grieve. I'm grieving my father, grieving my childhood, grieving the passage of time, grieving my innocence. Grieving.

We booked crazy expensive flights to Maryland the next day. I took both kids and we stayed from August 11 to August 26, more than two weeks.

My tale will continue....

happy halloween!

Happy Halloween from our clan!

Some pictures from the ward party on Wednesday....

Laurel is Mike Wozowski from Monster's Inc. After pinteresting ideas for the costume, including a paper mache exercise ball and sewing from a pumpkin pattern, I caved when it was less than $20 at Babies R Us. It's just a 2T, so I feel like it barely fits her, but hey, that works.

Wesley was a "real live" traffic light. The lights work, they are tap lights from the dollar store. I spray painted them and got them adhered to the box with TWISTY TIES! Awesome! I HATE glue guns. I started with a glue gun but it just wasn't strong enough so I ripped them off and started over. PLUS with the twisty ties, I was able to change the green batteries in the middle of trick-or-treating tonight when we came home for a potty break.

The box was covered in felt. All in all, I was about $15 in, since the spray paint wasn't cheap. But I have a lot left over, so in total the costume didn't cost that much to make. $5 for lights and batteries then $2 for the yard of felt in the remnant section! He loves it. He just loves it.

This was Wesley's first costume appearance... and his "friend group" aka social therapy session...

And then his class at school. I was lucky I got to volunteer while Laurel was at preschool. Yay!

First they made "bats" with moonpies and chocolate wafers :-)  His teacher is a crayon!

And a group pic... serious and then funny faces....

And I brought home a bat kit for Laurel. I should have brought one home for myself!

We trick-or-treated in the RAIN. LIKE A LOT OF RAIN.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly, Laurel...

Trick or treat, Dad!!

While I'm at it, here are some more "fall" pics... Laurel went to the pumpkin patch with preschool.

And I decided to be adventurous and do a "craft" with fall leaves. We collected a bunch then let them dry out... they probably got too dry since they were somewhat brittle. Anyway, Wesley just likes Elmer's glue and he glued and glued and glued.

While Laurel really got into the paint :-)

Here's the finished product, mostly. I hang it near the fridge. We made it on a paper bag!

Happy Halloween, and happy fall! Bring on November, my birthday month. I also ventured and have a hubbard squash I need to figure out how to cook. That should be wild.

what else can we add in here

I want to brain dump my life. It would help me. Here are all my balls in the air:

• Health and fitness:  I try to exercise, count calories, be good. I'm in a volleyball tournament currently. I'd like to go to hot yoga. I make dinner for my family and grocery shop & plan. I clip coupons. Shane and I have talked about eliminating artificial dyes and processed stuff. Can I possibly do this? Did I mention I'm getting an MRI on my foot tomorrow? Ha.
• Book club: We meet every other month. I like to read. I want to read. Do I have time to read?
• Church, the necessities: I need to read my scriptures. I need to pray. I need to grow spiritually. I barely have time to breathe but I want to fit this in. I'm two sessions behind on the last General Conference; sheesh where am I going to find four hours to fit that in? When's the last time I went to the temple?   
• Church, the responsibilities: My calling in Church is in Stake Primary. We do activities. We do trainings. We go to Ward Conferences and Sacrament Meeting Programs. I do Cub Scouts. I have 2-4 meetings every month. Plus a bunch of other stuff. And then they tell me to read other things to feel inspired and I can hardly read the minimums. Plus I sub in Primary all. the. time. I didn't even mention Visiting Teaching; I have four ladies to check in on every month. 
• Church, the extracurriculars: I love family history and I want to do it. I need to update our emergency kits. I should be better about missionary work. 
• Co-op preschool: I do the newsletter. It's a huge job. We have two Wednesday night meetings a month. I volunteer in the classroom on Fridays. 
• Wesley: He currently has three after-school therapy sessions, one in-school therapy session, and another one being added. This is called "aggressive interventions" to curb some symptoms of undiagnosed autism or attention disorders. We do homework every day. I need to read with him. Plus in his downtime I need to help him do productive things; I feel guilty when he plays Angry Birds because I just want some peace and quiet.
• Mothering: Being a Mom is hard. See the aforementioned Angry Birds comment, and add in Frozen and lightning videos on YouTube. I am trying to be a better Mom using tricks I'm learning at co-op and in Wesley's therapy sessions. It's hard stuff. So hard. And then I hear about people (my age!!) on Facebook having their 7th child and I feel so guilty that I can barely handle my two. No, I will not be having any more children anytime soon. Sometimes they fight and sometimes I yell and sometimes I put myself in timeout and cry. I feel like it's worth it, I just wish I handled it better and was proud of the "work" I'm doing. I feel like something is wrong with me because my personality doesn't fit what I think a "good mom" should be. 
• Marriage: I have a husband. I like to talk to him sometimes. I've been thinking we should go on a date. So yeah. 
• Family Activities: Sometimes it's nice to go to an airplane show or plan an adventure on the weekend. I haven't done that in awhile but it's nice when it happens. It's a goal of mine. The Christmas train? Mt. Rainier? Trips to Grandma's? Yes, those would be nice. 
• House: I need to do my chores. Fall is happening and Shane will need my help raking leaves. I wanted this house so badly dangit and I need to take care of it. 
• Money: I hate money. I need to save money. I don't want to spend money. I'm worried about money. I really appreciate Mint.com but it's another thing I need to do every month to keep tabs on things. 
• SEFW: This is Job 1. I work 15+ hours a month from home and sometimes go downtown.
• ACE: This is Job 2. I added in Job 2 because it pays more than Job 1. Maybe I'll discontinue Job 1. But because of Money, I am keeping both. I have no idea how crazy this will be, as it just started -- yesterday. 
• Ugh: Maybe this should go under Health & Fitness but I need a root canal. I am SO MAD I CAN HARDLY STAND IT. Like I need three 2-hour dentist visits between now and the end of the year. 
• My Dad Died: This sucks and I think about it a lot. Sometimes I want to do nothing.
• Facebook: Why oh why am I addicted to this stupid site? 
• This Blog: This is probably my most kept record at the moment. Journaling in general has gone by the wayside. 
• Hobbies: Hobbies? How dare I even say it? I want to sew sandwich baggies for Wesley's lunch. I want to make birthday cards to mail people. I want to paint my toenails sometime. Halloween is coming up for crying out loud and I'm cooking up a killer costume for Wesley. Laurel's I caved and bought for $20. 
• Friends: Sometimes I just want to go karaoke with my friends. Or celebrate someone's birthday with Thai food. Heck MY birthday is coming up. I suppose my present to myself will be a root canal. 

Sigh. That was therapeutic. Thank you for listening.