What I Did On My Summer Vacation

I find myself, at age 41, and with a husband and four children, frequently clueless but concerned about what our family life should look like. I've had enough therapy to know that this is largely due to my parents' divorce. To compensate, I look to other people's families for a model, or resort to my own sky-high ideal based loosely on movies and television. This actually works out okay some of the time. (It helps that I know Jesus, have a phenomenal husband, and am intelligent enough to spare myself too many mishaps.)

Sometimes, however, I am in really unfamiliar territory. Summer vacation for instance. My own childhood summer vacation memories consist mainly of spending weeks with extended family without my parents; going to camp (again, without my parents); or taking long trips with my dad and my brother and sleeping in hotel parking lots in my dad's conversion van. You can see how I might not know what I'm doing, or how this is supposed to go.

Summer, 2011 began and I knew it would be fun and healthy to get out of my house and out of Las Vegas for more than a long weekend. But the idea of making that happen paralyzed me. Facebook gave me some ideas of what people do: The beach. The lake. Washington state. And I talked to people: One friend was packing up her pregnant self and her two small children to fly to New York for two weeks to visit both sets of grandparents. Our teacher friends, with the summer off, spent four weeks on the East coast and included a Bermuda cruise. Our neighbors took three weeks to go to the Virgin Islands. My brother and sister-in-law planned a cross-country camping and sight-seeing trip in their Honda Odyssey.

By late July, the most we had done was pick a week with no major obligations and in early August, Kevin requested the time off work from the 19th through the 26th. Our only semblance of a destination was Carson City, to visit our state capitol since Joe studied it this year - and maybe Lake Tahoe, owing to its proximity to Carson City. My friend Michelle, planner extraordinaire, sent me an inboxful of links to help plan this trip that stubbornly refused to plan itself.

Unexpectedly, on August 12, our friend Rachel Hamilton passed away. She had battled an evil stomach cancer for four months. Her funeral was planned for August 20th in Denver. It was a heckuvan event to plan a vacation around, but it rapidly came together.

One night shortly before the trip, I sent out a deluge of texts and facebook messages to anyone and everyone who might help me with any aspect of this trip. One particularly helpful response came from the Dixons, a family we know with family in Denver. Not only are they in the habit of pulling off this crazy one-day, Vegas-to-Denver road trip, but they do it with four kids! I was incredibly pleased with the detailed itinerary that Rob Dixon sent to me. So much so that I gushed about it to other friends and to my husband. Looking back on all I learned over the past week, I think that it not only fed the scheduled, planned, controlled part of my personality (a sizable chunk) - it also relieved some of my extreme anxiety over what a family vacation looks like. I had it right there spelled out for me on my iPhone in the form of a facebook message! Now if only I could have hit up other friends for plans for the other six days of the vacation... I might have been much more relaxed to start with.

We rolled out of our driveway last Friday the 19th right on schedule at 5:30 a.m. And we were able to stay on schedule until maybe a couple hours out of Denver when we hit a LOT of rain and some unavoidable bathroom stops in unfamiliar towns. Overall, I think we all did remarkably well for having spent roughly 15 hours in a minivan.

The funeral was both sickeningly sad and wonderfully warm and inspirational. It was healing to see our friend, Jeff, (Rachel's husband), and their two daughters Jane (4) and Cate (2). We spent hours afterwards in their backyard while our kids played and watched a movie and we talked and told stories and visited with a bunch of friends.

From there, our vacation week was mostly marvelous, the stuff of postcards. Mass at the Denver Cathedral with the sunshine streaming through the stained glass. A drive to Glenwood Springs, 160 miles west of Denver. Setting up camp by the Colorado River. Swimming in the Hot Springs, tubing on the waterslides. Touring a cave. Racing down a mountain on an alpine coaster. Dining high above the canyon, with breathtaking views from the restaurant and from the tram that delivered us. Playing miniature golf. Getting ice cream downtown. Riding a zipline across the Colorado River. And back. Watching the kayaks and rafts go by, and keeping John from throwing rocks at them.

When I list all those things, doesn't it sound delightful? It really was, in part. But there were also numerous instances when Kevin and I bickered. Or the kids bickered. Or the restaurant sucked. Or we took a wrong turn AGAIN. Or I wanted a shower. And I didn't handle it well. When my ideals aren't met, sometimes I spiral downward into a pit of despair and am absolutely convinced that we are ruining our children and our marriage is done for and the six of us will one day make a cautionary tale told by psychiatrists across the nation.

All I can do during those times is pray. I might initially be miffed at my husband, but the hope and forgiveness that is part of leaning on Jesus gradually takes over. Then I'm able to recall the countless stories I've heard from other families, older than mine, that tell how family vacations are often quite challenging - but years later, either the bad stuff is forgotten or it becomes a really good story.

On the way home today, on the curvy roads of the Colorado highway we were on, Cayna finally succumbed to the motion sickness that seemed to be manifesting itself the entire trip. She barfed all over herself and the back seat. Alarmed by the spewing, Bethanie screamed as if she had witnessed a murder, which scared John, who burst into tears. We pulled over, put on the hazards, and furiously dug through our forty-two bags to find our towels. I soaked up the barf and Kevin stuffed the towels into a trash bag to be dealt with at home. And Cayna got a lesson in motion sickness from her father who suffers as well. And Bethanie quieted down, as did John. And we eased back onto the highway. Crisis managed. And not once did we bicker. (Well, there was one tiny dispute over whether to use paper towels or real ones for the clean-up.) It is a joy and a relief to realize we handled the barf incident way better than some of the issues that came up only days earlier. We're learning. It's funny that it took an unplanned, unprecedented, and unpleasant event to prove that we are making progress in figuring out this family thing. I didn't need facebook help or a text to get through it, and I'm proud that we worked together, cared for Cayna, and then got back on the road.

Underwater Birthday Moments

I think at the moment I officially turned 41, I was reclining on the couch watching my son's home video of my daughter being loony in the car. Then I went to the grocery store.

My official position is that no birthday girl or guy should have to grocery shop. But I have other official positions that supersede that one, such as: no family should be without food. But thankfully, Kevin took off work early so at least I got to grocery shop alone. And also thankfully, the grocery store wasn't the main feature of my day.

Main features of my day:
1) Snuggling with kids in bed since it was a lazy Summer morn. I will spare you the full truth about how this ended in strife when Bethanie and Joe decided to start slapping each other.

2) Going to McDonald's for Egg McMuffins. Because we had no food in the house.

3) A morning swim. With the Egg McMuffins still digesting, we plunged into our backyard swimming hole. It was marvelous. I hope to always remember how the water sparkled in the July morning sunlight. And how my children are trouble-free when we are in the pool.

I am a swimmer. I even lettered in swimming in high school. And MANY of my childhood memories are in my grandma's pool. But even with efficiency in all the main strokes, I still love swimming underwater best. It is so quiet and peaceful and otherworldly beneath the surface. I have never SCUBA dived, but I am convinced I would like it if I could get over my fears of the bends and terribly poisonous fish. In the pool this morning, I purposely kept swimming the length of the pool underwater. And noting how quiet it was. And how blue and shining. And how risky considering any one of my children could cannonball right into my spine without warning. But no one did. And I reveled in the experience.

4) Purple Penguin with Pinneys. (Can't resist alliteration from time to time.) My good friend Michelle and I took all the kids to the snowcone shack and ordered up some flavored ice. It was tempting to order "Birthday Cake" flavor, but I went with my usual, Pina Colada. Memorize this bit of trivia as it may appear on a pop quiz at my 50th birthday party.

5) Dinner with Dad and Vivver. BBQ flavored grilled chicken. Foil pack buttered asparagus, and roasted red potatoes and olive oil. It is a RARE thing that I cook my own birthday dinner, but it just sounded good to me, and no particular restaurant did.

6) Driveway dessert with 21 of our neighbors, plus my parents. It was scrumptious. And sitting out on a night as splendid as this one, with a faint breeze, but mostly just the coolness of the shade - I had to concede that maybe it's not the most insane thing in the world to give birth to a baby in July in Las Vegas, Nevada.

7) A homemade necklace from Cayna. I will treasure it, and this day.

On the Eve of My Forty-First Birthday

I'm hopeful. Isn't that the best way to be?
Kevin and I had our first counseling session together in a long time. I want to work on anger issues and how they affect my parenting, and he wants to support me, and we BOTH have tremendous loads of crap from our childhoods to deal with - and the good news is: it's possible! It's possible to deal with it. And to heal. And to improve. That news is the highlight of my year.

I'm loving my children. On the eve of turning 41, they are ages 10, 8, 6, and 3. They are funny, sweet, smart, loving reflections of the joy of the Lord. I can't wait to hug and kiss them on my birthday tomorrow.

I'm able to run. For yet another birthday. And I have a neighbor nice enough to run with me each time we are both willing to put down the snack foods and put on the running shoes. I still love running more than I hate running, and that keeps me getting out there.

I'm excited about the cake and ice cream. From age one aaaaaaaaaaalllll the way until tonight, I have loved cake and ice cream. And it's even sweeter when it's in honor of a birthday celebration.

I have purpose. I seek to grow in my love for God every day. I want to be a better wife, and have fun with my husband and our kids. I homeschool with conviction (and am ELATED when next year's pieces of curriculum arrive in my mailbox one by one). I maintain and improve our home. I buy portions of grass-fed beef; strive to improve at sewing; read good books; want to grow closer to my friends; try to do Weight Watchers, then screw up, then try to do Weight Watchers again; organize closets; analyze relationships; and continue to pray for everyone I love and plenty of people I don't even know.

All that oughtta keep me going another year, huh?

And Just Like That...

... She's Eight!

Cayna turned eight today. There was a little fanfare, not too much, but plenty of feeling special.

My morning rosary for her. Prayed in bed with her sitting next to me, then snuggling and remembering newborn her with her rosy skin and how she tried to suck on her whole hand.

Good friends in a toy shoppe playing in 3,000 pounds of recycled milk carton product. A tree at the back of the store sang "Happy Birthday" to her, called her by name, and knew her age.

Spent too much at said toy store, on a toy that she will outgrow soon, but it's noteable that she's not an OLD age eight. And I'm just fine if she wants to play with "young" toys rather than Justin Bieber stuff for a while longer.

Went to a park. She wrote "I Turned 8" on the ground with sidewalk chalk. And used her characteristic 97 colors to do it. She also went barefoot, her favorite way to be; played in the sand; climbed on the jungle gym; ran along the snake wall; and proclaimed that she is not afraid of dogs. Her choice of movie to watch on the DVD player on the drive across town was "Pocahontas." She is enamored by all things Native American and has coerced her Daddy into constructing a teepee for her birthday.

Chose IHOP for dinner and sweetly asked that someone sing for her. The whopping two servers on duty in the near-empty restaurant rallied with the hostess and presented her with a scoop of ice cream and a little song with enthusiastic applause. They were so sweet to her.

Dragged BaBa through WalMart, then Toys R Us and ended up going back to WalMart for the bike she's been searching for high and low. It's a 20-incher. Blue, pink, sparkly, fenders, etc. All I care about is that she'll feel LOTS of wind blowing through her hair in the coming years and if she falls down, she'll get back up. That about sums it up.

What Not to Eat While Giving Blood

At the end of the 9:30 Mass yesterday, Father John announced that the Knights of Columbus were sponsoring a blood drive at the church.

I have this funny habit. When I want to do something, but maybe feel unsure about it, I try to get millions of other people to do it, and then I can just join in unafraid. So I turned to Kevin, "You should give blood!" To my surprise, he said, "I'll do it."

From there, my campaign had a different look: "Hey, so-and-so, Kevin's giving blood. Wanna join him?" I asked eight people and was rejected by eight people. Bravely, for me, the needle wimp, I decided I would join him. Thankfully, my mother-in-law was visiting and took the kids home.

It was a long wait, but finally I went "behind the curtain" to answer questions about my sex, drug, and health practices. The funniest moment was when my interviewer asked if I'd ever been pregnant. I said yes. She asked how many times, and I answered eight. You should have seen her face. And she seriously thought I was joking (we'd already established a rapport, which is good when you're divulging whether or not you've had sex with someone with HIV - and we'd been joking a little bit). I told her I had four kids and four miscarriages and she was still shaking her head as we went on to the next question.

It was determined that I could donate "a double". I was tall enough, heavy enough, and had high enough iron to do it. After my finger prick revealed my super-star iron level, the interviewer goes, "GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL!" at the top of her lungs - announced my double donation and all the volunteer Knights on the other side of the curtain were clapping. (Just a note, the "double" means they can take double the blood because they pump your plasma right back into you and you can give more that way. It's also more readily usable, if I understood right, and just takes 45 minutes or so to give.)

I was actually having fun at this point. There was lots of attention given to the donors, and I like attention. Kevin and I were hanging out without the kids - nearly like a date! And my interviewer told me I had permission to eat a cheeseburger while I donated. I was hungry, having not eaten since breakfast about four or five hours before, and the Knights were sponsoring their monthly cook-out after Mass and all donors got a free ticket.

My plan was to have Kevin go fetch me a burger after he finished his donation. This went awry when time flew and he had to go get Joseph for a meeting back at the church at 1:00. So Ken, my new best friend, and one of the nicest Knights, brought me a scrumptious burger.

This blood donation thing seemed easy-breezy. I do hate needles and get faint at the sight of blood, but I had promised my interviewer I would not be dramatic and would keep communicating with the techs if I had any issues. Plus, compared to the thousand times I've had blood taken during my pregnancies and pregnancy losses, this was like a cruise ship compared to a row boat. The phlebotomists were friendly and jovial, the chair was like a La-Z-Boy recliner, and, for Pete's sake, I was saving a life or two! You can't beat that!!!

I was all hooked up and had enjoyed a small bag of pretzels and two water bottles by the time the cheeseburger arrived. It was delicious. I chewed it slowly while I focused on relaxing and NOT looking at the tube coming out of my arm.

I remembered labor with each of my pregnancies, and how successful it was to employ the mind-body connection. When I heard a tech say my blood had "slowed down" I visualized a river flowing. Even got a random old, old song by Joel Weldon going in my brain: "Still the River Flows". This river visual might have been the beginning of my demise.

It's frustrating, as the whole world knows, to do everything right and still have your body betray you. Despite all my prayer, visualization, happy singing, and relaxation - I started to shiver. Then get light-headed. It was annoying. But it was easily solved. Two blankets and a further reclined position plus two ice bags on my neck and I started to feel better. The guy told me that the saline pumping back into my body was twenty degrees cooler than my body temperature, so that explained the shivers. But I was starting to look more like a hospital patient then a calm, collected, breezy blood donor.

Ken had brought me such joy with the cheeseburger that he decided to bring a whole tray for other waiting donors. I remember when he walked in, my stomach turned. Then turned again. Then started somersaulting and cartwheeling and no amount of forced relaxation or trying to talk myself out of the nausea would work. I told my friendly phlebotomist that I was REALLY nauseous and before I knew it I was barfing endlessly into an orange biohazard bag.

Perhaps you're not fully appreciating this scene. I was wearing a pretty pink dress, left over from church. My friend Andrea had even complimented my hair. I was trying to save a LIFE! And it all came crashing down with a whole lot of wretching into a plastic bag held by a stranger.

Imagine also the orientation of the room. The donor recliners faced straight toward the waiting area. So I had an audience of like a dozen men and women. My buddy phlebotomist mostly blocked their view of my puking, but it had to be evident what was going on when other techs came running with napkins and chorusing, "Is she okay?"

I was okay. My pride was wounded, but the moment I started vomiting, the phlebotomist said, "Your blood came rushing out!" So maybe the visualization HAD worked! (A little TOO well.)

I was given extra time for recovery, and Ken gave me an apple juice. Another man insisted I couldn't drink it from a can, and brought me a cup. My pink bandage tape matched my dress. There was only the faintest hint of barf stench emanating from my cleavage where I hadn't thought to wipe. And as soon as I could walk, I went home where I could change clothes and recline on the couch.

Whether or not they wrote "Puker" on my donor record remains to be seen. I can donate again in September. If I avoid the cheeseburger, and they can put up with me, I'll give blood again. People go through way worse than this to save a life. Just call me the hurling heroine!

He's Three

Through various turns of events, I found myself on a porch swing in the backyard next-door to my old backyard. John, age 3, was with me. He wanted me to swing higher, but a porch swing isn't the same as a playground swing. He didn't get that. I tried to make conversation, nodding my head toward our old house: "John, there's our old house. You were BORN there!"

And his reply: "How old was I?"

Plastered

The good news is that ALL of the inside projects we wanted to do in this new house are now complete. Anything else we do is like icing on the cake.

The bad news is that plastering the ceiling was WAY more difficult than I bargained for. Plastering, in and of itself, is pretty basic. It was made more difficult by yours truly - thanks to the Easter deadline I imposed, the "side projects" I had going simultaneously, and my perfectionism. Fortunately, when one grows increasingly desperate and anxious, the perfectionism starts to go out the window. Passers-by hear statements like: "I don't give a rat's @$$ anymore about the air bubbles! I just want this stupid project FINISHED!!!" (Sadly, for my husband, he is really the only passer-by.)

It all started with this:

You'll have to squint a little. See that pale spot just past the air vent? That was the former site of a truly ugly medallion which was screwed into the ceiling with many VERY LARGE screws. And a light fixture. But, since we removed the light fixture, Kevin patched the damaged drywall, etc. And that is where he stopped. He kept procrastinating the texture job. Partly because it's messy and partly because on any given weekend we already have 250,000 OTHER things on our to-do list. You understand.

I, the brilliant wife, had the economical idea to finish the ceiling with Venetian Plaster, which can be obtained at your local Home Depot. (You don't have to be even a little bit Italian. They just sold it to me!) Plastering would kill two birds with one stone - release Kevin from the pesky texturing job and accomplish re-painting which would be inevitable.

And here I insert a HUGE thank you to Neal Kellen for loaning us his scaffold, Tammy Kellen for posting a photo of their scaffold on facebook during their painting job (or else I never would have known anyone owned such a thing), and Kathy Litto and Kendra Green for coaching me (in person and on the phone) in the fine art of Venetian Plaster. I still didn't get it entirely right, but I think it looks pretty good, it accomplished my goal, and on days when my perfectionist beast is subdued, I live in happy satisfaction with a job done.

Here is the scaffold, which joined our family for a little less than a week. The kids loved it. They played on it, lunched on it, spilled juice on it... (whoops! didn't mention that to the Kellens!)

And here is the "after" picture.

Please do just enough squinting to appreciate the texture and the effect of the "burnishing." What is "burnishing?" you ask. Burnishing, loosely translated, means: to scrape a steel putty knife across endless square feet of ceiling surface to make it shiny and give it "depth" and color variations; it often results in sore arms and shoulders, plaster-dust in the eyes, vertigo (depending on the height of your ceiling) and a deep need to tell everyone you meet about the job you just did so they can pat you on the back and be impressed.