Victoria! June 2014

In June, 2014, the girls and I took a trip to Victoria, British Columbia and met up with Kristin and Alexis for a weekend. We saw Victoria’s china town, Butchart Gardens (a highlight) and had High Tea at the Empress Hotel (another highlight!)           

Polina brought her camera and went wild taking pictures in the Gardens, it was so beautiful. Chelsie had a great time too, catching up with Kristin and Alexis. I enjoyed the whole experience and it turns out that we really haven’t been able to repeat it since. So I’m glad we took the time to do it.

 

 We found this cool wig shop while we were shopping and the girls both tried on wigs...even though there was a sign that said not to! I was all nervous. They just laughed at me.

 All in all a great trip.

2014 continued

New house! After all the work we did trying to make the Galactic Ct house as comfortable as possible, we decided to move. Jasper and Polina found us this house and the timing was just right for us to jump ship. We had always intended to move one day to a house with a view and a little larger yard. We loved the house setting, the neighborhood, the view of a creek out our back windows... but we didn’t love this wall separating the dining room and the kitchen area. So Kevin being Kevin, he learned how to take down a load bearing wall and put up a beam! With some help from Jasper and Michael the wall came down, and a beam was put up (they didn’t know each other would be wearing red shirts...so funny). The effect of the open space is amazing!
We had the floor patched in and now you can’t tell there was ever a wall there.

We didn’t move in until about a year after we bought the house because we had other projects to do (the kitchen, painting, etc.) but it was worth the wait!

Still 2014

More information than I originally thought I had so I will continue with 2014.

We went to Oahu as a family in January to celebrate Polina and Michael’s upcoming graduations. It was amazing! We stayed in a condo in a resort called Ko Olina. Our family had never stayed there and they were all thrilled. The condo was very nice, everyone had a bedroom and bathroom to themselves. The kitchen was amazing...kind of spoiled me for future trips.We had a week with them and then they left but Kevin and I went to Molokai for the first time ever.

 Here’s a view from the North shore

 Ko Olina lagoon in front of our condo. Jasper and Polina got up early every morning and either ran or swam in the lagoon. Then they walked over to another hotel to get a Starbucks :)

Another North Shore pic.

Here are a few shots of Molokai...a weird but cool island. Not much going on there. We golfed on this crap golf course and had fun...did some eerie hikes in some forests higher up. Drove this VERY narrow road around the North side of the island. It was more fun than I thought. Kevin fished and loved it! He’s been back almost every year since then. I went back once...

A big thing happened in March that we were all so excited about...Polina became a US citizen! After many years of jumping through all the right hoops, she took the citizenship oath and it became official. So proud of her!!

Keeping these posts a little shorter so they are more manageable on the iPad

Method for catching up...2014

I decided I can’t really recap the last 6 years very well. So I’m going to go year by year and add some photos to try to just get the highlights. Each post will be a year in my life so to speak starting with 2014. There is a lot I won’t get to because I wont have pictures or notes to draw from but I will do the best I can and that’s better than not doing it at all!

2014 started off with a bang. My mom broke her hip Christmas Eve (2013) at Jeri’s house. She was in her room at the time and turned around to get something, fell and couldn’t get up. Jeff called an ambulance. Mom was in surgery that same night. Unfortunately, she woke up confused and never really was the same mentally. But we didn’t know that was going to happen.
She had been declining for years but had always been able to feed herself, walk, get dressed, etc. I flew down to help Jeri with the aftermath and to find her a rehab facility where she would get the help she needed to start walking as soon as possible. She grew stronger in body but not in mind. She couldn’t learn to use the walker. This was a huge shock! I just thought it would take a little time but it never got better. Soon we came to the realization that we would need to find a care center for her.
Jeri and I looked for several days and finally found a place we both felt comfortable with. I went back to Boise and Jeri moved her into the group home. She soon realized that mom wouldn’t stay in her   wheelchair and was falling, It was awful. The care facility very quickly became short with us and was not very kind to mom.
Besides that, mom wasn’t being looked after closely enough. Jeri was looking for a new place for her but got really sick herself and trying to work full time besides. It was a very stressful situation. Jeri would have done anything for mom but couldn’t have her at home.
I decided to try to take care of mom myself  and if I couldn’t end up doing it, I would find a place for her near me. It was a horrible flight and I still can’t really believe I did it. When I got her off the plane, she was limp as a noodle and practically falling out of her wheelchair. The looks I got as I took her through the lobby were the least of my worries.
My intention was to try to straighten out her meds and get her as optimized as I could. I kept her at home and hired home aid to come help me. Mom had periods of cooperation, humor, and even was able to communicate and feed herself at times but I had to return to work (took a month off to do this) and was relying on home helpers to pick up the slack. Eventually I realized I couldn’t do it even with help. Mom wasn’t really improving and I knew it was beyond me. I began the arduous process of trying to find a place that would take a memory care Medicaid patient in a wheelchair...very difficult! Eventually I found a group home that would allow a seat belt on the wheelchair (against the rules). They worked with me on many things that others turned me down on. I will always be grateful to them! They were so accommodating and I never had a concern that they weren’t treating Mom well.

This is mom in her wheelchair in her new room.

She was very upset at first but I went there everyday for a little while gradually decreasing that to once a week. I couldn’t handle anymore than that which I carry a lot of guilt over.
There was a park near the house that I would take her to. Jeri and Annette came to visit often and that helped a lot!
Bob  also drove over from Malad to see Mom and Richard called sometimes to talk to her. Mike called her as well.

 Mom had some good days and some bad. Eventually she was bed bound and really couldn’t move around much. She declined rapidly after that.
 So this whole situation took much of my time in 2014. I basically worked, went to see mom, and fit the other parts of my life around that. We did get to the cabin of course and did some trips. More on 2014 in another post. I never really put all this down before because I thought it was remembering mom in the worst way but it was part of my life and hers. I have been trying to remember her the way she was as a whole person so I didn’t want to dwell on this but everyone will face something similar if they live long enough I guess.

 Mom passed away in September of 2015 and would have lived much longer without the Parkinson’s and Lewy body dementia that robbed her of her twilight  years. We had some good moments though while she was declining and even some good laughs while she was in the group home. I don’t have a picture but I remember Annette, Natalie, Britney, and Heather came on her birthday. We all sat around the group home table  and sang to mom. She loved it.

Life is fleeting and one never knows what they will face later on. So I try to remember to cherish my family and friends, be glad for my time and my health. Be glad for the health of my loved ones. Mom would have wanted it that way.

Christmas 2013

Well, it's been almost a year since I updated this blog. I'm surprised that I can still log on! I really am glad I wrote all the past posts because I wasn't on Facebook back then and blogs were a pretty good way to stay in touch. I like looking back to those posts.
I am not super active on Facebook either but it is nice to go to other people's pages and see photos. I have an iPad now...birthday present from the family, so I guess I'm officially part of the tech crowd now.
This past year has been a good one. Major events:
Trip to Oahu with Chelsie, Michael, Teresa, and Lainey...so great! We enjoyed being together, cooking in the condo, going to Hanauma bay and the swap meet, even swam with dolphins!

 
 Mom Martin was with us from May-July. We had a 3-day a week care provider come and help. Mom liked her. She went to Annette's in August and just now is heading down to Jeri's.

The Big event was when Polina's family came from Russia to see her graduate from PA school! They spent time with us at the cabin and I will always cherish that time with them!

 
Polina and Jasper on graduation day!





Polinka and Alexander in Yellowstone.

We went to Yellowstone, wade lake, a little boating on island park reservoir, and to the graduation in Pocatello.
Fall was beautiful this year, very warm, very colorful! We finished our porch over the summer and really enjoyed our evenings out there in the fall.
Winter has descended with a vengeance though! No porch time right now:(
Kathy came to visit us this past week and brought her precious little baby girl Genevieve! We had a wonderful time catching up, shopping, getting pedicures, and playing with the baby. I hated to see her go home but real life must always win.

The ladies brunch was another success this year! We made table center pieces with real greenery and flowers, they all turned out beautifully. This is a picture of the family members we had at the Ladies Brunch.

Christmas was here with our family. So lucky to have each of them in Boise and a huge part of our lives!

What's up with this blog page?

2012 was a challenging year for me and I decided that posting on this blog was something I could give up for a while. Nothing bad happened to me or anything but I have been struggling with my own time management. 

We had mom Martin with us until the end of November and I was trying to manage her medications, doctors visits, home care, my work, trips we took to the cabin, the holidays...before I knew it, it was the end of the year and I am shaking my head as to where all the time went. But it did go. That's the funny thing about time. It doesn't care if you are too busy to notice it.

I took mom to Yellowstone one day in September just to look at the fall colors and have a little picnic. She loved it. This is just before we closed up the cabin for the winter.

I also got to go down to Salt Lake to attend Kathy’s baby shower! She is expecting a little girl in January 2013 and I am so excited for her and Topher! They have been longing for a child for years now.

I guess a Christmas letter would have been good, just to sum up the year. I got a few of those through email this year and I think that's a good idea. This blog is kind of meant to keep track of all my comings and goings, activities, etc. But when you leave off for several months, it's hard to catch it up.

I will figure it out for the next post. But for now, I hope 2013 will be a good year for us as a family. I've kind of given up on it being a good year for the country. All I can do is the best I can for my very small circle of family and friends. Not to be "Debbie Downer" or anything...but it helps to just draw my focus in a little bit and try to concentrate on what I can control. See you in the next post!

July/August

 Well, it's been a while. I will try to recap the following month or so for you. Near the end of July, we headed up to the cabin around Kevin's birthday. We went golfing on his birthday (his only present). But he doesn't mind that. He would rather do something like that than get a present any day.

He also did some pruning of lower branches off the trees near the cabin and we burned them in the fire pit that Michael and his friends made for us. It worked out really well to have that fire pit so close by. The weather was so nice, just right for outdoor working and playing.

 I picked some wild flowers and put them in these little vases that I have at the cabin. Love those little vases!

Here's the cat in a bag...totally random but I thought he looked cute :)

 While I was up at the cabin, I painted a picture of the old Paradise, Utah house that my grandfather grew up in (it was sold after he grew up) and that my grandfather and grandmother purchased back later in their retirement years. They remodeled it and lived there for ten or so years during my teenage years. I had promised my grandmother a painting of it if I could get it right...This is my attempt! My grandmother is pictured at the moment she opened the package containing the painting.

I think it turned out ok:) I'm glad I got it done for her. She's 98 this year and I really didn't want to make her wait too long for it!

August is a working month for me. No real extra time off except for weekends. We've been golfing a few times though and working on the house here. We are going to be building a deck off the back of the house with a covered patio. That way, I can hang mosquito netting all around it and put in some nice patio furniture! I will take pictures of it as it progresses.

We also have a spare bedroom that the cat has taken over. I can't do anything with it until we move some of the furniture out but I want to get a murphy bed in there...the kind that has a table attached underneath so that when you fold it up, the table can then be folded down and you have a work space. The cat won't be able to get up on the bed and we can use the space more efficiently.

Family reunion in Bryce canyon

I've been really bad at this blog but I gotta at least get some pictures in here from our trip to Bryce canyon at the end of June...so beautiful there! We flew in to St George and then rented a car for the drive. It was just four days but really filled with lots of fun and family.

This is Kevin in front of an arch that you can't see because of his arm...


 Ok, here's the arch...

 Kevin and I at another overlook...there were several stops along a tour that we took through the canyon.

 Heather and Annette on our horse ride through Red Rock Canyon...another beautiful spot. Heather was so excited...had been looking forward to the ride for at least a year. She did awesome!

 This is Jeri, Heather, me, and Annette before the ride. We were in a lodge near the mouth of the canyon called Ruby's Inn...a great place to stay.

Summer is going by so fast...already July. We will be heading up to the cabin again soon and I can't wait.