Nature Part 2

I guess it's been several months since I've blogged on here.. but I am continuing with the nature theme I ended with back in um, August... :) Between then and now, we've managed to get hit with oh, an earthquake, hurricanes, tropical storms, and flooding, not necessarily in that order. The earthquake was a surprise and the hurricanes were not unexpected, but it was the tropical storms and rain that finally did us in in the end. It pourrrred for approximately 7 days straight without ceasing, day and night. I have honestly in all my life never experienced anything like it. It was hard to drive anywhere, do anything, be outside at all. And at some point, the ground had had too much I guess, and the water began to pour in through our basement. Everything we had moved out here from Colorado but had yet to unpack was stored in the crawlspace of our basement. In cardboard boxes. And as you can imagine, it All. Got. Wet. Sooo, skip to a month later and we finally had sorted through everything and thrown out the bad, re-stored the good, and gotten new carpet downstairs and up. Life got back to normal eventually, but that was a rough lesson in the power of nature. Since then we've kept a close eye on the back drain and been more aware of weather in general! It's just such a difference from Colorado... I was telling our neighbors, we could leave our bikes outside year-round out there and then one day bring them in and they'd pretty much look about the same. When we first moved here, I left our bikes outside for a couple of months. When I went to bring them in, they were covered in cobwebs, leaves, nests of sorts, gunk in general, had started to rust, and the seats were peeling.. they honestly looked as if they'd been sitting out there for years. I am not kidding! My dad has always complained about this kind of stuff but I always sort of thought he was kidding! Seriously?! So this is the kind of thing we are adjusting to.

And then, one day after all the weather madness, I walked out into the backyard to find this little guy:

And so - life goes on......

~ Our house in the fall ~

Tadpole update - exciting!

Had to post on the excitement happening in our tadpole pond!

I am pretty sure these are tree frogs, based on the other frogs we've seen around the yard, but I am not totally sure. They have the spots and coloring of frogs now. and even seem to respond to my voice! They've kind of become pets, but I guess we're going to let them go in a stream near here.

Nature in our yard

"Tubby" the turtle
Our resident deer

The tadpole pond

Think they'll notice me ?

Summertime Update

It's been awhile since I've rapped at ya (prob only Todd will get that joke) :) but I thought I'd try to catch up on here a bit. I never know who still reads the blog (or remembers it from the "kfunk.org" days), but it is fun to write on here nonetheless!

We've gotten settled into our new house, settled into a groove, and been enjoying the summer. We have already managed to make 3 big trips to the beach, which have been awesome. One was to Pawley's Island, SC (near Myrtle Beach), and the other two were to Cape Charles, VA (Chesapeake Bay). The Pawley's Island trip was to visit my BFF Meredith and her parents, hubby, and kids, and to celebrate her son Anderson's 5th birthday at the beach. Her parents did an "Under the Sea" birthday theme for him and all the kids had a blast. My mom & dad came for the week too, which was nice to hang out with them outside of Nova, and to see them be able to enjoy themselves at the beach and relax. Actually, my dad doesn't even really like the beach (I know-- I ask myself if I am truly related to this guy), but he liked being on vacation and seeing my mom have fun. Also, I think we were all glad to get away from everything that reminds us of the cancer, doctors' visits, hospitals, etc. It was nice to be away from all that and have something else to focus on. My mom has had quite a bit of "time off" this summer from actual chemo or radiation, but the doctors' visits are relentless. There is always some test to undergo or results to review. For someone who hates hospitals and has never even been sick, it has not been fun. But she is doing what she has to do and putting up with it all. So anyway, it's been so great to see her at the beach just hanging out and relaxing.

Our other beach vacations in Cape Charles were to join my brother Brian and his family (along with my mom & dad). They rented a house down there and we ended up driving down there two consecutive weekends! The drive can vary anywhere from 3-9 hours (ha - not kidding) so on average it took us about 4 1/2 each way. Somehow it took my brother 9 hours to drive there from McLean, but you also have to factor in that they have 4 kids. Glad I wasn't in that car- ! Cape Charles is in VA and is really on Chesapeake Bay (not the ocean), but it is a pretty mellow scene and the water is calm and shallow, so in a way it is a parents' dream. I could actually hang out on the beach and read magazines while the kids had a ball. Although even on the "real" beach (SC), the kids mainly just dug a giant hole and played in that the whole time. ha. Hours of entertainment!


In the rest of our Nova existence, Todd is still liking his job doing climate science and has been very busy working on a report most of the summer about climate change and health impact. They presented it to various Congress people on Capital Hill and he's been mingling with the politically aware, of which I am not. He has been enjoying doing the political thing and working for a good cause. When we moved, I also went back to work as a contractor for my old company in Boulder, and work from home in Springfield. It really isn't much different than it was working in Boulder, although I do miss going into the office and seeing all my friends at work. That was always something to look forward to about working. Madison is doing great and going to preschool "camp" a couple days a week. They call it camp because I guess they just mostly hold hands and sing songs, rather than learning their ABCs or things they would normally do during the school year. I get the impression it's more "fun" than regular preschool and they also go to the pool once a week (!) and ride on a van and everything. Madison loves it. Although in the fall she'll go back to her old preschool again. It's in a church and has smaller classes (10-ish), which I like. Right now there are about 20 kids in her class and it's a little OOC. I just feel like the teachers know her better at the other school. And it's a little more real learning, altho it's hard to compare to "camp."

One other thing that's been keeping us afloat during all these big changes in our lives, is the support of all our family and friends during this. I've stayed in touch with all my buds out in Colorado, and reconnected with old friends from HS and college here in Nova. It's made for an easier transition to this whole thing, and I cherish my friends and family to no end. We've had quite a few visitors already -- thanks Heather & Dave for coming, thanks Jen Chen for meeting up (twice!), and thanks Nana & Pawpaw for visiting too -- we love you guys and am happy we've been able to see you. It is nice that DC is a little more central than Colorado for that reason! And to anyone else who might want to visit or will be in the area - please look us up! We love visitors! I promise we are getting a couch or a futon soon, and you won't have to sleep on the floor like Heather & Dave did! ;) Enjoy the summer and feel free to leave a comment if you read this~~!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all those moms out there! This Mother's Day was an exciting one for me. I feel like we had a weekend-long of festivities. On Friday, Madison's preschool had a Mother's Day "program" and my mom came too! The little preschoolers sang in the church auditorium, then had a little party afterwards in the classroom when they gave us gifts they had made for us. Madison's was a painted picture frame she made with buttons glued on & a picture of her in it. She was so excited to be in on the surprise, it was great! Here is a picture her teacher took of her giving me my gift:

And here is a short video I took on my mom's camera!






It was great that my mom was included -- 3 generations. It was very special to me this year for a lot of reasons -- everything that's been going on with my mom's health mainly, but also that Madison seemed to "get it" and know it was a special day just for honoring the moms.

We went to church this morning and they had carnations for all the moms, plus a little breakfast afterwards w/ donuts! Anytime there are donuts involved I get excited. :)


Then we spent today over at my brother Brian's having a cookout and watching the kids play in the yard.


Oh yeah and we also spent the weekend ***moving*** into our new house! Yes, we finally found a place and moved our stuff out of storage & into the house! Now the fun part.. unpacking... We have to deal with that next. So at the moment we are still staying at my parents. But hopefully this week we'll get to the point where we can sleep there! I think my parents are ready to have their house back! The cats have made themselves right at home tho and my parents have really gotten used to them, so that will be one of the hardest adjustments for any of us, I think! We told my mom we were going to leave Madison & the cats with them, and we'll just live in our new house circa 2004-style. She wasn't buying it.

Three Year Stats

In some ways it's hard to believe Madison is a walking, talking, crazy, fearless, full-of-herself three-year-old -- especially when I think back to her baby days and the early days of this blog. But, in other ways, it seems like she's been going-on three for so long that it's finally here. She has really become her own person over the past year or so and it's fun to see her personality blossoming. We signed up for a new pediatrician when we moved here and had her three-year checkup. It was funny to hear the doctor ask things like: Does she look where you're pointing? Can she throw a ball? Does she group words? As she was sitting there giving a dissertation on the little mermaid and why she has to sleep underwater. I guess the questions are standard but they seemed a little more like for a two-year-old. Regardless, I was happy with the doctor and she passed with flying colors. She's now 37" tall and weighs 30 lbs, which is apparently 50th percentile for both, so that was reassuring. For a while she was low on the weight charts and is still a little peanut but is definitely getting up there.

I hope to keep posting about Madison's evolutions and our time in Virginia, including my mom & everyone here, so feel free to add comments if you feel the urge! That way I'll know if anyone still reads.

Grandma

Hi to everyone who still reads my blog. I forgot about writing on here for a while, but I'd like to catch those of you up who may not know what's been going on in my life.

Right before Christmas, we found out the devastating news that my mom has cancer. The doctors were not sure what kind, but they had found it in a biopsy done on a lump near her shoulder. Further tests revealed that it is a very rare form of small cell carcinoma cancer, that usually occurs in the lungs with smokers, but my mom is not a smoker and also it is throughout her body. When we found out, I had just gone back to Colorado after Christmas break. We understood that my mom quite possibly had only a few months left to live, and so we packed up our things and hopped back on a plane heading back east: me, 2 cats, and a 2-year-old! My friend Aimee took us to the airport and my wonderful neighbors have been keeping an eye on our townhouse for us. All in all, things went amazingly smoothly. You'd be surprised how quickly you can define what's important in your life when you need to, and just sort of drop the rest and go from there.

The short part of a long story is that we were planning to move here this spring anyway. Todd had just moved out here (living with my parents!) and had started a job as a climate scientist in DC. We just put things into overdrive a bit.

So, over the past couple of months, we have all gotten to know each other a little better... me, my parents, hubby, kid, and cats all under one roof. We try to help out when we can and try to stay out of the way when we should. My mom tries to stay upbeat while undergoing chemotherapy and radiation for the cancer. It is still hard to grasp that she has this disease sometimes, because you can't see it from the outside. She would look perfectly fine if it weren't for the side effects taking her hair away. And I think she would act perfectly fine too, if it weren't for the side effects making her tired, nauseus, etc, as well. She never had any actual cancer symptoms, other than the lump and her hand pain, which has been ongoing and may or may not actually be related. So we are all doing the best we can, taking things day by day, as we try to process this strange diagnosis and hope for the best possible outcome.

In the meantime, Madison has started Preschool nearby and is doing just great. She is the youngest in her class but of course any child of mine is gifted and talented and therefore in the advanced program. She turned *3* on Feb 18th and we had a party last Sunday with her and her little buddies. She is getting quite grown-up and chatty these days. We have been browsing a bit for places to live nearby that will hopefully be close enough to my parents and brother's house, but also a shorter commute for Todd into DC. There are definitely a lot of places to choose from so I feel pretty good that we will find something when the time is right.

Thanks to everyone for your love and support during all of this. We couldn't do it without you. We've had so many visits from family and friends lately, it's unbelievable. Also, I think you probably all have seen the Caring Bridge site, but if not, let me know.

Here is a picture of the incredible sledding Grandma with Madison in December when we were here for Christmas. :)