Fall 2013: September and October

The fall brought many more adventures, along with several visitors! Here are a few highlights. Lots more photos are in the Fall 2013 Picasa Album. I only had time to get to September and October tonight, so November and Thanksgiving to follow!

Taking photos to use for her school placemat and locker. Had to have them ready to take on the first day and we had fun playing outside and taking a few. More in the Picasa album.

Insane rain caused a lot of flooding in the area. We were lucky. I think at we had 13" in just a few hours when this was taken.

Street totally covered in places. A 7 ft. deep lake that did not exist previously formed on post in one of the parks, just about 5-10 min from our house.

Visit from April and John, AKA AA and Uncle John. Having a blast in the park.

Garden of the Gods

Headed up to the top of Pikes Peak on the Cog Railway!

Did you know Katharine Lee Bates wrote America the Beautiful while making this trip up to the summit of Pike's Peak? So beautiful indeed.

Oh wow, it was sooo cold at the top!

With April and John. Lots more photos of the view from the top in the Picasa album.

 

Our train car. There is no heat, so this time of year is about as late as we'd want to go. It was warm and in the 50s down in the Springs. And I think it was 20 at the top? I cannot remember.

 

Reading to AA and Uncle John on the train ride back down.

Put seeing the aspens change on your bucket list. Absolutely stunning. More photos of them in the Picasa album, I could not choose more to delete.

Love this photo of these two.

Picked out our pumpkins at the pumpkin patch with Aunt Sarah!

Royal Gorge

Gorgeous at the Gorge! The huge bridge was closed due to the fire over the summer.

Mueller State Park

First time singing in the Cherub Choir for church!

So glad Aunt Sarah was in town!

Loving on Adelaide

Cooking fun

After Aunt Sarah left, Jason and Josh came to town for a couple of days. We had to show them the Garden of the Gods.

Then we headed to the Cliff Dwellings. Photo bombed by Emmy at the teepee at the entrance.

  

This was how the people got in and out of their tiny homes. Good thing they were small people!

Reading to her baby in the bike trailer while we did more yardwork.

Ready for Boo at the Zoo

Keaton, Miller, and Emmy

Halloween 2013

She drew the face on her tiny pumpkin. So cute!

Lots more photos are in the Fall 2013 Picasa Album.  Enjoy! If you have trouble with the link, let me know!

Summer 2013

I thought I'd play some catch up and post some older pictures. Here are some of our trip home, then July and August adventures.

Buried in the sand supervising the adults digging a "hot tub" at the beach this year.

After dinner in Sneed's Ferry

Emmy loooves "Uncle" Josh

Cracking crabs Josh and Jason cooked for supper.

Dr. Dixon, veterinarian.

Augusta! Micah 20 months, Annabelle 2 moths, Emmy 4 yrs, and Josh, the birthday boy 1 year old.

July hike at Seven Falls

Native American Dancers at Seven Falls

Made it to the top.

Just some of what we climbed.

View of the Seven Falls from a different view point (that thankfully had an elevator). This lovely area flooded a few weeks later in the insane rains we had here and was still closed last time we checked.

Members night at the zoo, Daddy got to go and we rode the sky lift.

Garden of the Gods with Erin before she headed to TX. We sure miss having her in town!

Emmy and Miller at the zoo. (We went to the zoo a lot this summer, taking advantage of our membership, and it's an awesome zoo.)

She was grumpy and this is the best picture we could get.

When SuSu was here, Charles and I got away to Denver for a couple of nights. We went to the art museum.

The City and County Building at the Denver Civic Center. This is directly across from the Capitol building, which was having work done on the dome.

Pianos on the pedestrian mall.

Making cookies. She scooped out a whole pan herself!

Grilling with Daddy.

Emmy took our photo at the Dinosaur Resource Center.

Working on a "project"

Both of us "working" one afternoon.

A few more photos are in the Summer 2013 Picasa Album.

Saying Good-bye

We said good-bye to Sara Hawley today, scattering her ashes at Topsail Beach where we were vacationing the week before she was born.  We aren't exactly sure when she died, but sometime between my appointment on May 30th and early the week of the June 2nd (when we were at Topsail) she passed away, and we both feel like the beach is where we lost her and that is why we wanted to return here to say good-bye.

It was just the three of us. We rented a smaller house on N. Topsail closer to where the house is where we stayed this summer, but unfortunately the realty company discovered that the heat was not working the day of our arrival and switched us to a house further south down the beach.  Of course we are much happier being warm with the crazy cold that is covering the country.  We arrived, dropped off all our stuff, then hurried back to the car to drive down to have dinner with my aunt and uncle and cousins. It was a lot of driving but it was great to see them and they cooked us dinner and Aunt Priscilla left all her Christmas decorations up for us (well for Emmy) and she goes all out for Christmas, so that was lovely.

After we got Emmy to bed Charles and I spent a good bit of time just talking, crying and mentally preparing for the next day. We read back over the prayers we had selected to read and the "order of service." After my first miscarriage before Emmy, I purchased a book What was Lost: A Christian Journey Through Miscarriage. (Which if you know anyone who experiences a miscarriage early in a pregnancy I recommend it). It was written by a United Methodist pastor (who is a div school friend of several folks I know and the wife of a fellow Wofford grad), and she includes suggested prayers, orders of service, and sample sermons for services following a miscarriage or for pregnancy loss remembrance.  We took some of these and pieced together what we would say/do.

Just before we ate breakfast this morning, Charles saw a group of porpoises not too far out, so that was something nice to wake up to.  After breakfast Emmy was dying to go down to walk on the beach, so we bundled up for a walk. She had a great time looking for shells and she was so, so sad it was too cold to go in the water. Sorry kiddo!


We checked the tide tables and decided that when the tide was going out would be the best time to have our service. We came on back in, napped, ate lunch, and then when Emmy was awake we headed out. Charles really wanted to return to the part of the beach where we stayed this summer so we drove to the north end of the island and parked at the house where we stayed this summer.  We forgot that the name of the house where we stayed is Heaven's Edge.

We read three prayers, scattered her ashes, and put flowers into the water.  We kept it very simple.  I was hoping for some quiet, reflective  time to think and listen, but with Emmy running around, that wasn't very easy. :) Emmy understood, as much as a four year old can at least, why we were there and we thought it was important for her to be with us. 

This prayer was my favorite (hopefully the Rev. Elise Barrett doesn't mind if I post this here):

    Merciful God, all that you give us is yours. 
We give you  thanks for the time we have known and loved this little one. 
We grieve that our time together is over so soon. 
We have given her the name Sara Hawley. 
"Whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord's," and so we give Sara Hawley back to  
    you, knowing that her life is safe in your keeping. 
Bless her in the life to come. 
Giver her unending knowledge of your steadfast love and outpoured grace. 
Allow us to stand before you one day, no longer seeing dimly through a clouded glass, but finally
     seeing face to face.
In the name of Jesus the Christ we pray.
Amen.

Cross-stitch from my friend Sarah and the urn where some of her ashes will remain with us.

The tide swept in as soon as Charles finished scattering the ashes and took her out to sea.  The roses we tossed in kept coming back to us, so we pulled the petals off and sent those out to our girl. It was lovely to see them floating out. And of course then the sea gulls thought we were feeding them and came swooping in.

So now we get ready to make the journey back home. Tomorrow we head to Meredith's for the night, then back to Greenville and we fly back to Colorado on Saturday.  I wish we had more time to stay, to reflect, to walk the beach, but we will hope for a return trip this summer.  Charles and I both feel relieved to have this behind us. We've said good-bye and cried plenty of tears in the last (almost) 7 months, but this was an important day for us. The holidays and then this first trip "home" have been difficult. We lost her last time we were here, so this was bound to be a difficult few weeks, even without the anticipation of today. Now we try to take a big step forward. Time to go home and move into the new year, renewing our efforts to take care of ourselves better in all aspects of our lives. 

Some of you have asked "how can we pray for you?" (And I now think this is a wonderful question to ask people who are grieving or struggling in anyway.) Pray for peace for us and for all of our family. We know that time will continue to heal, but a piece of us will always be missing. A member of our family will always be gone. Pray for a new life to come into our family. We still very much want another baby, and as 35 approaches for me this year, we hope it happens soon so that my becoming "Advanced Maternal Age" doesn't add the extra layer of complication concerns to my already complicated situation. Pray for Emmy. She wanted to be a big sister so badly and seeing her love on other babies brings me joy and breaks my heart for her all the same time. Pray for other dear friends of ours who suffered a similar loss last month.

We pray that 2014 will be a wonderful year for each of you.  And for those of you regularly checking this blog, I promise I will get back to posting more regularly (Jo, Uncle R, Nancy B. and Mrs. Mac are I believe our most loyal readers). Coming back here is hard for me, these are not the types of updates I should have been posting, and that's sometimes emotional for me. But we'll get back to more "regularly scheduled programming" in the new year.

**Operational security: Dear Internet, we have friends staying at our house until we return home so it is not sitting unoccupied, thankyouverymuch.

Where we are

Or where I am at least. Sorry folks, I've slacked more on giving you the good stuff you are looking for: fun pictures! Emmy stories! There are plenty of those to share and I promise I'll eventually get around to giving you that.  Coming back here to write is proving harder than I thought.  I'm also lazy and getting pictures edited and formatted can be a tedious process, especially when you're as behind as I am, so bear with me!

We have had a busy fall with visitors, which was tons of fun, and lots of yardwork and house projects.  We had a party for Charles' shop this past weekend so we had a big crowd of Soldiers and family members over.  People stayed well past the official end time so I'd say it was a success. It's the first big to-do we've thrown here, besides Emmy's birthday party. And now Thanksgiving is just around the corner and we'll have more family coming to visit for a few days to celebrate with us, which will be great. Charles loves to entertain almost as much as I do, and we enjoy getting things all ready together. Well, maybe not the cleaning part of getting ready, hehe.

But I'm feeling sort of stuck. A failed fertility cycle after weeks of doing all the "right" things to get myself healthier, physically and mentally. There are lots of new babies and pregnancy announcements in my Facebook feed. And I'm mad, I shouldn't be here, dealing with fertility drugs and such. I should be done. I don't want to want to be pregnant again. I want my baby here now. I want to know what she would have liked, how she would have slept, when she would have smiled. I feel like I'm seeing broken pieces that I was able to ignore for awhile and so it sometimes feels so freshly overwhelming.  All Saints was emotional. And now Christmas looms, and I'm excited to decorate this year and Emmy will have a ball, but baby's first Christmas ornaments and such will be on my mind. Santa should have two little girls to shop for this year.

I'm not wallowing in it, don't get me wrong. But it's not something you just get over.  I miscarried before Emmy and that was hard, oh man that was hard. I would never diminish anyone's pain from any sort of loss, but I'm telling you for me this is different.  Everyone processes differently, I know that, but this was not a miscarriage. I suppose medically speaking it is classified as such, but this was a baby I held, I felt move for weeks and weeks. I could already make guesses about her personality just based off how she acted and reacted. I think it is easier for me to accept with the early loss that something was wrong, the pregnancy and the baby would not have been healthy and able to continue.  I still think about that loss around the time it happened, and around the time the baby should have been due (and plenty of other times).  That piece of me will always be missing, but this time, a huge piece of me is gone, and other pieces are still broken.  And losses on top of infertility, well just go ahead and kick me while I'm down.

And, there are surely moments of grace. Emmy talks about SH from time to time, more frequently lately. Maybe she's just now able to identify those broken pieces in her, too. Instead of laughing when I cry now she kisses me, tells me it'll be ok.  I've been asked to share my story for the new edition of the Hypnobirthing book by the founder, Marie Mongan. I firmly believe that my Hypnobirthing training helped make SH's arrival into this world as peaceful and blessed as it was, and if my story can help someone else, then I'm all for advocating for what I believe in.  The wonderful nurse who took care of me those two days in the hospital just found the blog and commented that it impacted her greatly, and that means so much to us.  We were very lucky to have such great, compassionate care. Every mother should be so lucky to have her wishes respected during labor and delivery like mine were.

SH's tree will also be planted this month.  Charles' Soldiers collected money after her birth to plant a tree in her memory, in the location of our choosing.  It took us some time to be ready to deal with that, but finally we decided to inquire about having one planted at Wofford. It seems a logical place since it carries meaning for both of us and it is already a national arboretum.  The cost was going to be higher than we'd anticipated, and while we weren't sure how much they had collected, we knew it wouldn't touch was was needed, but we were committed and knew we'd just pay the difference.  Some of our friends found out about it and an email started circulating.  Within a a few days the full amount had been sent in to the college on our behalf. What a gracious, touching gesture this has been from people very dear to us, and from the Soldiers who support Charles.

So here we are. Probably not the update you came looking for, but an honest one. We are all ok, still struggling and aching along, but perhaps with less of a limp now.  Thanks for all your prayers and support. And wish wish each of you love and joy in Thanksgiving.

Fun Emmy quotes

I started this post right before Emmy's 4th birthday and I'm finally getting around to finishing it, and adding some more fun quotes and stories that have come up since then.

• "We're moving to HomaHoma Joe's!" (She told my mom this after we found out we were moving to Colorado. Oklahoma Joe's is our favorite BBQ restaurant back in Kansas City and Emmy does love to eat there. Since we moved, this has been one of her favorite pretend activities, we go on a road trip to Oklahoma Joe's, sometimes I have to be the waitress and serve her and Charles when they get there.)

• On the way to school one day this spring she said, "I didn't bring Mary (her baby) with me today because she was being a whiny hiney, so I made her stay at home."   I almost died laughing.  I asked who was baby-sitting Mary and she said, "my stuffed animals."  Later on when we got home, I asked her if we could leave her at home when SHE was being a whiny hiney, and she said, "No because then you would go to jail."  Fair enough. 

• She asks a LOT of questions. All. The. Time.  She asks me "why" about 400 times a day, and her recent most favorite question/phrase is "how about you tell me about it?"  She's so inquisitive, and I know it's a good thing, really, I do. But sometimes silence is golden.  We recently had to have our furnace replaced and the HVAC guys were here for 2 days working on it since we also had AC installed.  The 2nd day one of the guys (who has grandchildren about her age) had been working upstairs installing some vents above the bedroom doors, and she'd been particularly chatty all morning with me, talking, asking lots of questions.  He had been back downstairs in the basement working after awhile and came upstairs just after I'd put Emmy down for a nap. He paused as he started to head outside and looked around, noticing how quiet it was, and asked good naturedly "where is jabber jaws?"  That has become our new favorite nickname for her, jabber jaws! 

• She really likes rolling the windows down in the car, and the other day we told her we needed to roll them up because we were getting on the highway and the wind would blow too much. So she said "but we can roll them down on the low-way?" Who could argue with that?
  
• This past weekend she told me that she wants a cat.  She was very insistent that she wanted a cat and I told her that no, we are not getting a cat and a big reason is that Daddy is allergic. She asked me if I was allergic, and I told her no, so she said, "well you and I can have a cat." So I asked her did this mean we should send Daddy away and she said "yes." (Which is a total lie because she is a MAJOR Daddy's girl these days.)
  
• Emmy loves her "Aunt" Sarah, as you have probably gathered from other posts on this blog. During a recent visit, she told us that "Aunt Sarah always says yes". Oh my! Well, yes since Aunt Sarah only gets to see you a couple of times a year, but if we stayed a whole week, that would not be the case! Haha.