Is this thing on?

So this crazy insane life of mine doesn't leave much time for sitting at a computer. And while I honestly aim to blog more often than every four months, (oh my holy heavens!) sometimes you just gotta do a great big dump of photos, not even in any particular order and call yourself caught up.

So this summer that's nearly over? It has been, and forever will be forever after referred to as the summer of Swiss Miss.

These girls have performed everywhere. It turns out that preparing a singing and dancing program with 5 10-12 year olds takes a ton of time, energy, and general schlepping everywhere.

 We learned more about setting up, dismantling, and driving a float in parades than we ever thought there was to know. (Six parades down, one more to go!)

Their biggest event is yet to come when Swiss Days arrives in a few weeks.

It's a little bit like I have 4 extra daughters for the summer.

I never knew it would be so much work. Honestly. But I look at this and realize it's worth it. Every bit.

 Ashlynn even landed herself on the front page of the Sunday Newspaper after the Days of '47 Childrens' Parade.

We've had other adventures too. In May, Abby and I went on tour with Rocky Mountain Strings. It was three days of buses, performances, and amazing fun.

 

Ian wants to take after his sister.

And he got a haircut, which I fully admit to regretting immediately.

 Max's blonde locks, however, are as long and curly as ever.

June marked our yearly trip to violin institute.

Where Abby played violin approximately ten hours a day,

  And I had a solo on the tublular bells. (Don't ask. My life is weird.)

Ashlynn's 10th birthday was at the end of June. (How she is 10, I don't know. Someone will need to explain this to me at some point.) We had a giant party with 20 of her closest friends and a lot of water.

She asked for and received a bow and arrow set.

Which, as it turns out, she's really good at.

In July, we returned to Torrey for our annual Fourth of July Celebration. This time it included time with cousins, which was extra fun.

Abby gained quite a following when she played her violin on Main Street before the parade.

She earned enough money playing the violin this summer to buy herself her very own iPod. She's very proud.

We've played in the water, and I decided that little boys with swim trunks that don't stay up are my favorite.

And sometimes, we just stayed at home and ate popscicles, because what else do you do in the summertime?

  Oh. And this happened. Which shocked the pants off of me and my husband. Just as I had made up my mind that another baby wasn't going to completely ruin our lives, I miscarried. And miscarriages suck. I'll write more about this another time. 

So there you have it. The summer of Swiss Miss and all. It's hard to believe that summer is basically over and it's back to the school routine next week. We're holding on to our hats and getting ready for another year of homeschooling. And maybe a few deep breaths.

Blessings

To say this was an interesting weekend is a major understatement.   Any time we take our (not so little) family and spend the weekend with lots of extended family, there's bound to be lot of both laughter and tears.  Add in some relatives you know, some you barely know, and some that you've never seen before in your life, and you've got a downright rocking party.  Throw in a drive to middle of nowhere Idaho, (and no, I'm not just talking about Boise here,) and you can see why I'm just now starting to resume real life. 

In all seriousness, this weekend was a wonderful juxtaposition of family, friends, grief and celebration.  It was an honor to sit at my Grandma's funeral, celebrating the life of an amazing woman who touched so many lives. There were lots of tears, a little bit of laughter, and unlike most sacrament meetings, we didn't have to chase Max to the podium even once.  (That's a miracle in and of itself!) 

You know what was most fascinating and intriguing?  The group of women, occupying three rows on the side near the back, wearing bright red, showy hats and purple shirts and dresses.  I remember reading something about the red hat society a long time ago, and realized that these women knew and loved my grandma in a way that I never did.  Growing up, you think your grandma is and has always been old.  Seeing red hats and purple boas reminded me that Grandma had friends, interests, goals and ambitions that I probably never knew about.

We buried her on Saturday, in what has to be one of the most middle-of-nowhere-est places in Idaho.  Great Grandma and Grandpa Harrison owned and worked a farm ouside of the bustling metropolis of Bancroft, ID, population 327.  The cemetery was small, quiet and deserted.  My dad told me they had to pay the town an extra $125 so that they would plow the lane leading to the cemetery.  The wind whipped through us, making a joke of the few pine trees that were planted as a wind break.  I zipped the baby into the coat with me, and watched Max kick the snow while we said our last goodbyes.  While Max's antics got a glare or two from the aformentioned relatives we've never met before, I think Grandma would have gotten a good chuckle out of it.

And then Sunday we blessed our baby.  At first, we thought we should postpone, deferring to the funeral.  My mom asked us to continue with our plans, telling us that we needed some joy to mix in with the sorrow.  So we spent Sunday celebrating our new little boy. 

Events like this feel like paydays for me.  You know, the reward for nights spent walking the floors with a crying baby, for the spit up and the poop, for the tears, (mine and his!) and all the worry and grief.  There is something so precious about seeing my husband bless our son.

And can I just say that Ian needs to slow down?  I think it's completely unfair that the last few months of pregnancy are so long, and then the first few months of infancy fly by before you can even figure out what happened.  My tiny little newborn is now a round cheeked, fat and happy baby boy who shocked himself by rolling over the other night, and who has so many ripples in his thighs that he could be mistaken for a minature Sumo wrestler.  Did I mention he was a solid 12 lbs 14 oz when I took him for a two month checkup? Yes, the 0-3 months clothes have been packed away for the next tiny baby, who most certainly won't be coming from this house!  I'm not sure I'm okay with Ian getting so big, but I'm just as sure that there's not a darn thing I can do about it.

Grandma Call

 Marjorie Helen Harrison Garner Call, age 83, died 30 January 2011, a result of pancreatic cancer. Marge was born in 1927 in Providence, Utah. She was raised in Caribou County, Idaho on a farm in the former township of Central, and educated at the nearby schools in Grace, Idaho. She lived through the Great Depression, World War II, and the Korean War. In 1946 she married Dewey D. Garner and moved to Utah (later divorced). They had one son and four daughters: Gary (Elizabeth), Linda, Lynette (Bruce) Petersen, Shauna Swena, and Lisa Hunter. She married George H. Call in 1961 and they had a son, Ralph (Kathy). Marjorie enjoyed an active life. She loved singing and participated in various singing groups in the Salt Lake Valley. She traveled extensively from coast to coast in the U.S. and also explored the Caribbean, Mexico, Germany, and Switzerland. She was a lifelong member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Marjorie is survived by her children; stepdaughter, Pauline (Rod) Torgersen; 30 grandchildren; 44 great-grandchildren; and her sister, Sharon (Russ) Hawks. She is preceded in death by her parents; husband, George; sister, Betty; brother, Lynn; and four grandchildren. Services will be Friday, February 4, 2011, 12:00 noon at the LDS. Kearns 16th Ward Chapel, 4300 West 4715 South, Kearns, Utah where a viewing will be held, 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. prior to funeral service. Arrangements: McDougal Funeral Home.

My Grandma Call died this week of Pancreatic cancer.  It's odd that a woman who lived for 83 years can have her life summarized in two hundred or so words in the local newspaper. 

While she was never the milk-and-cookies kind of grandma, she was a constant presence in our lives growing up.  One of our biggest Christmas traditions as children revolved around "Grandma Call's Christmas Party," a Christmas Eve bash at her house.  We would be surrounded by relatives we only saw once a year at her house ("Now who do you belong to again?" was a common question that we dreaded,) eat chili (laughing that those that mixed noodles in,) and light the actual fire-hazard candles on her Christmas tree while we sang "Silent Night."  Christmas Eve was never the same after she moved the party to her local church on a random Saturday afternoon.

Grandma was always supportive of my music, and would be irritated if I didn't call and invite her to all my performances.  She loved to sing, and frequently told me that we should find a duet to play together in her ward.  I used to roll my eyes at being asked to bring my violin over to play for her.  Now I laugh as Abby does the same thing, realizing how much it really does mean to people. 

Grandma loved my babies, and was always thrilled to hold them, talk to them and make faces at them.  She was thrilled to meet Ian a few weeks ago, and held him, sang to him and whispered secrets to him.  She also never failed to mention that she thought the outfits I dressed the babies in were ridiculous, and that when she had her babies, they dressed them all in kimonos until they were six months old because they were warm and comfortable. 

There are two funny stories about Grandma Call and names that will go down in our family history lore.  When I was pregnant with Max, before we knew it was Max, we were discussing possible girl names around the Sunday dinner table.  Out of nowhere, Grandma piped up, "I think you should name the baby Frederika."  We all giggled, thinking she was joking.  Turns out she wasn't.  "What?" she continued, "It's a beautiful family name, and then you could call her Freddie."  Someday we'll tell Max that if he was born a girl, he would have been Frederika Smith.

The second story also revolved around a Sunday dinner.  As we were cleaning up from the meal, we heard Grandma keep calling, "Bill!"  "Bill!"  "BILL!"  Finally, she gently slugged my husband and asked "Bill!  Why aren't you answering me?"  Bless my sweet, confused husbands' heart, he looked at Grandma and said "Are you talking to me?  My name's Tom."  She muttered something about being sure that his name was Bill.  We teased her about that until the very end.  And I will still call my husband Bill occasionally.

I talked with her on the phone a few times right after she was diagnosed.  She told me "You know, looking back, I wish I had played with my children more.  It didn't matter that the clothes weren't washed or the dishes weren't done.  I should have gotten down on the floor and spent more time with them."  Words I'm trying to remember.

I read this in the guestbook to her obituary today: "I can't think of Marge, without thinking of flowers. She was the one who helped me realize that no matter how much you need to plant tomatoes, it's always good to plant some flowers too."  I'll plant some flowers this spring for her.

Abby and I are playing at the funeral tomorrow.  I'm grateful to be able to give her that final, musical tribute.  Hope she likes it.

Today

Today is a strange day. 

I'm sure September 11th is strange and sad for a lot of people. Eight years ago, I was 37 weeks pregnant with my oldest daughter.  I woke up, showered, and made myself as presentable as a 37 week pregnant woman can be, and got in the car, heading to an OB/GYN appointment all without turning on the radio or the TV.  The reports were mixed and chaotic, and it took five or ten minutes of listening before I caught the gist of what had happened.  I called my husband who was home playing the xbox and told him to turn on the TV because it sounded like the United States was at war.  It wasn't until I got home later that afternoon that I saw the footage of the planes crashing into the towers and realized the magnitude of the event. 

Growing up, I heard stories of where my parents were when they heard JFK had been shot, or my grandparents tell of the landing on the moon.  I will tell my children that I remember driving up 7800 S, wearing my green-checked maternity shirt with my hair up in a clip.  I will tell them that I remember how quiet everyone was that day, and how we cried with the rest of the nation.  I will tell them about the flags that appeared up and down our street for the next week.  And they will shake their heads and think I'm old as they read about Septmeber 11, 2001 in their history books.

But that's not the only reason that September 11th is a weird day for me.  New Years Eve, 2005, I peed on a stick and after almost a year of trying to get pregnant, the test was positive.  I immediately looked at what my due date would be. September 11, 2006.   We were thrilled about the baby, and started making plans for our first homebirth. And then I had a horrible, unexpected miscarraige in March of 2006.  With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I can almost say I'm grateful for that experience.  We weren't ready for the complications that came with Max- there is no way we would have been able to deal with his medical problems emotionally or financially at that point.  Plus, the year that followed led me to doula work, filling my lives with pregnant moms, babies, and friendships built attending births.  As I went through invasive and sometimes humiliating fertility treatments and testing, attending the births of others reminded me that birth works, and that someday I would be able to carry a pregnancy to term.  My life headed down a different road because of that miscarriage, and I am grateful for the path that I am on.  But every September 11th, I can't help but think of the baby that we thought we would have- a baby that would be turning 3.

But that's not the only reason September 11th is weird for me.  Last year, on the evening of September 10th, I got a call from my friend Kayleen who was in labor.  She was having her second daughter, and had asked me to be her doula for her homebirth.  Her gorgeous daughter Tessa was born at just after 1 am, after a labor that Kayleen made look easy.  I made it home just after 4 am, bleary-eyed and happy,  thinking about how healing it was to attend a birth on a day when I was feeling a little melancholy.  I got an hour or two of sleep before I woke up to engineer the school morning rush.

I had just dropped Ashlynn of at Kindergarten and was looking forward to the prospect of a long afternoon nap when the phone rang.  It was my dad.  "Stacy, I have some more bad news.  You need to sit down."  He proceeded to tell me that my oldest brother Curtis had died sometime earlier that morning.  Five weeks before, my family had been through the heartache of my youngest brother dying of a drug overdose.  Things were just starting to get back to normal after the funeral, burial, flowers and grief had started to subside, and now it was all happening again with a different brother.

My oldest brother Curtis never had an easy life.  He started down the road of drugs, alcohol and crime when he was in high school.  He spent cumulative years in jail.  He had been excommunicated from the church, but had started getting his life back together.  He had been rebaptized and preparing to go through the temple for the first time.  But my brother Jay's death five weeks before had been the hardest on Curtis.  I think he felt responsible in some ways, and had a hard time forgiving himself.  He relapsed, and had a heart attack in the shower after work.

Going through a second funeral for a second brother was difficult for everyone, to say the least.  I don't know how my parents lives through that kind of grief and survived.  I can't imagine the grief from losing one child, let alone two in the same summer, both from drug related incidences. 

So today is somber day.  In some ways, it feels like any other day.  I got up before the sun and Abby and I practiced for an hour and a half before school.  I laughed on the phone with a friend, and nursed the baby.  But later today, I'll call my mom, and we'll probably cry a bit.  I sent a birthday card to sweet Tessa who gets to have her first birthday today.  I'm thinking a little about what it would be like to have a three year old running around my house.  And I'm remembering all the ways in which September 11th has changed me.