On a roll.....

Not too much going on today in our neck of the woods....We ended up going to the pool today with a couple that were in our rental on and off during the state COVID mandated travel shutdown and then brought them over for dinner and seeing some old friends that came over for dessert. Buddy was more than happy to show the kids his best video games.....I'm so proud! I forgot to take any pictures, so I'll post that I found while clearing out my phone. Here is from this Easter with dad and Krissy on Easter day. Why yes, I did pack a bunny suit just so I could be a bunny on Easter.....I'd be silly not too....

Speaking of silly.....

Isn't this backpack to take the cats for hikes kinda silly? Mittens actually loves it, but probably because he's the laziest cat in the universe!!!

While looking through pictures, I found this one that Buddy took when he was 4 years old.....which may explain our faces....

Thank goodness for Buddy and his camera stealing. The world can always use more pictures of me and mom....but that's just my opinion...but it's a pretty great opinion! In other news, one of my friends sent me a care package for Mother's Day since this year it's probably going to suck a lot more than it ever has before. Human's can be pretty awesome sometimes! So all in all a super fantastic, now to make sure Buddy always has a camera on him....oh wait, he does but doesn't use it, day!

 

Restart

Buddy and I went out to Utah for a month to help my dad move and sell his house, and get settled into his new digs. Buddy and I got to do a whole lot of painting, tile ripping and playing with plumbing! It turned out pretty alright. On our way back we took a detour and stopped in Seattle to help out some family, while we were there we got to do an awesome hike on "Poo Poo Trail"....which surprisingly (or maybe not surprisingly) had an odd amount of dog poo bags along the trail.

Buddy and I got back home about two weeks ago and I'd like to say he's been playing major catch-up with school work, but he's instead playing major catch-up with the video games that he's been missing. Today we finally left our house.....of course that was only after I found the spear for spearfishing. I told them I didn't want to see them until they caught dinner.

2 hours later and one 4 inch fish, we are all starving! Just kidding, I stopped at the store to buy real fish (well, actually it was imitation crab) so Buddy could make us sushi, and the 4 inch fish was fed to the cats-they didn't want it either!

In other news, I went on a run and these guys decided to walk right on up to me to check out what I was doing. Maybe they thought I was a goose too....I do run pretty funny.
 

Hopefully, we'll leave the house tomorrow too....what a concept! So all in all a super fantastic, trying to get our acts together once again, day.

Trying to get there....

I took the boy out to get some fresh air today......

That fresh air just happened to be on top of a Pu'u about 10 miles from our house....it was pretty awesome. In also equally awesome news, we are going camping this weekend. Is it weird that I'm super happy that we won't have any internet/cellular signals the whole time? Honestly, I'd be more than happy if we never had to use a computer again....but that's just me! So all in all a super fantastic, too bad camping also means having to camp, day!

 

That wasn't supposed to happen

On November 19th, I got a phone call  at work, from my sister saying that I needed to hurry home because my mother was dying and they weren't sure that she would make it through the night. Mom had been diagnosed with COVID-19 and placed in an ICU unit on my birthday (November 7th). It had been quite the roller coaster, and mom would try to call at least one of us (of the siblings) every day and struggle through a 2 minute conversation to reassure us that she was doing okay. She was doing such a great job of reassuring us, that just one hour before I got the phone call from my sister, I told my co-workers that I thought my mom was going to make it after all, and just be one of those amazing recovery stories. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. On November 20th,  I was able to make it home in time to call the doctor, reinforce my dad and mom's wishes for mom to spend the rest of her life at home surrounded by her family, bully those wishes with the nurse case manager (who just kept telling us that mom probably wouldn't make it through the ambulance ride home) and social worker, get hospital equipment and hospice care set up and argue with the case manager some more about finding an ambulance to bring my mother (a COVID positive patient) home. Mom came home to spend the last few hours of her life with some of her favorite kids and grandkids by her side.....

To say it's been hard, is the understatement of the year. I know it will get better (at least I hope it will), but my mom was my sounding board for basically every decision of my life. I haven't had the heart to change my parents house phone number in my phone from saying "Yo momma" to something more masculine for my father. I took a 2 month leave of absence from work to stay and help my dad cope with the loss of the love of his life and I'm not sure I will recover from that either....and I'm pretty certain my siblings should pick me as "Favorite Sibling of the Year" in the next running.  I tried to fill our time with new happy memories...

I took the boys on the Heber Creeper to ride the Polar Express......

They were huge fans of the trains, but not fans of my sing-a-long voice while I tried to bring Christmas cheer!!!!

I took them to a magical festival of lights....

Again, they were not impressed.....although for not being impressed or thinking that it was cool, Buddy sure did take an awful lot of pictures....Buddy assured me that the photos were just so he could make fun of it with his friends later.....sure Buddy!!!

I took Buddy to live out his dream to become a blacksmith....

Apparently, that dream was very short lived because he told me he was okay if he never did that again!!!! At least, now we know and can strike blacksmith off of his future to do list!

To liven things up, my sister's niece was amazing enough to take Christmas photo pictures for us to have some semblance of normalcy...

Seriously, this is just the top of the picture barrel!!! The pictures are amazing, and brought me so much joy....if you are in the Salt Lake area look up Pink Ivy Photography...she is amazing!

 

While we are with my dad we tried to overdose on Christmas.......

I even dressed the boys like twins...

Santa, apparently, did not approve.....

Santa did bring a puppy since my dad was a good boy all year...

Sadly, my dad didn't like the special presents she would leave around the house sometimes, so he gave her away as soon as we left.....at least we arrived back home to the cats that we have been cat sitting to be twice the size of when we left them....so it was almost like coming home to 4 cats, instead of the 2....

I also returned home to my school year book photo ready to go....

On Buddy's wall that is....

because every 16 year old boy really wants a picture of his mom above his bed looking down on him....surprisingly that picture actually lasted 2 weeks before he moved it!!!

I also decided that I needed some changes in my life, so I painted all of our ugly 1980 cabinets white and then had Buddy help me put handles on them.....

Yes, we did do an awesome job.

With changes, I also quit my job (well, I actually have until Friday to tell them if I want to stay part-time). My co-workers are amazing and threw me an awesome bash (tiara and shirts with my face on them included)!!!

I pulled Buddy out of school and now he is doing an online program so that we can spend every second of the day together....just like every 16 year old boy wants to do...

If you are wondering, yes, he is already sick of me, but he will still go to the beach...

and on hikes with me, so I'm calling it a win!!

at least for now! 

So all in all a not super fantastic, I miss my mommy and I wish people would stop being a%%holes when discussing COVID day....

What in the......

We did a whole bunch of nothing today.....I have no one but the cat to blame for that! As you can clearly see he's holding me hostage.....

I did make the boys go on a walk so I could play on the swings at a nearby park.....If anyone on my island had been wanting to go swing on the swings at a park, I'm just giving you a heads up that there are no more swings....

Seriously people.....is there nothing good left in this world? Oh well, at least I got to embarrass Buddy while I wore my Bunny suit, that should count for something!!!! So all in all a super fantastic, you can even see the disappointment in Buddy's face, day! 

Love you mom!

Lamest ever!!!!

 Today is my birthday! My mother may have gotten me the worst present ever....well, I'm sure there are worse gifts, but hers is pretty bad.....Good thing she's so cute so I can forgive her for her lame present this year!

Just kidding mom....well, your present was lame, but if I know anything that you taught me, it was   "you brought me into the world so you could take me out of it", nope that wasn't it. It was, ain't, ain't a word, ain't it. Nope......"beggars can't be choosers" ? Hmmm....nope, I think it was "it's the thought that counts"? Don't worry, I have exacted my revenge by delivering goods to her door to cinch my favorite child status....shhh, don't tell my siblings!

There's only room for one favorite child, and that's my spot !

At least my coworkers gave me a substantially better gift with these daily affirmations socks....

They go great with my birthday suit!

As icing on the cake,  my sister sent me a picture to add to my collection of my dad "reading"! 

All those pictures are going to come in handy some day, I just know it!!!

So all in all a super fantastic, thankful for modern medicine, healthcare providers and sisters!

I'm baaack!!!!

 So after a very long hiatus where I got one of these...

I can try to catch up what has happened over the last few months. Hawaii went on serious lockdown for the summer.....so we decided to go to socially distance somewhere even better......Buddy learned some new tricks

I forced the entire family into more hikes than ever!!!!

This hike led Buddy to the top of a very tall cliff that I refused to approach closer, least I fall to my death!!! My momma didn't raise no dummy.....Buddy's momma however....

Buddy and Shane discovered a new way to torture me....

It involves a vehicle wrapped in metal and some very small paths and steep cliffs!!

We took Hyrum on our Moab adventures with us and it was amazing....except Hyrum may have lost sensation in his hands after I squeezed them to death during our excursions....

Buddy started 10th grade, and is actually in one of the only schools in Hawaii doing face to face classes...

My picture should be coming soon....let me assure you it'll be awesome since they let me look in a mirror before hand and I have serious face marks from the masks and goggles....

Buddy had a socially distanced Bob Ross birthday party.....

I wish I had been smarter and planned better, I made sushi, but after I finished making it I though if I had been smarter I could have made some disgusting popular gelatin treats from the 70's....oh well, next time. We are cat sitting two cats for some friends that are staying in France for a while and Buddy has gotten used to them without having to take Benadryl or having his head explode!

Finally, my co-workers and I won the prize for best costumes....

Was there ever any doubt in us????

So all in all a super fantastic, getting back at it, day!