Maggie brought beautiful little Clarke into the world and into our hearts on Tuesday and we are so thrilled to welcome him into our family. Mommy and baby are doing well and daddy is so proud.
Here he is with the girls when we all went to visit on Thursday. I got to hold him yesterday for the first time. This could become addictive!
I can't believe it's taken me more than two weeks to get this posted! Sabrina's home!!!
Here's a shot of her welcoming committee. (Adam was completely embarrassed which was our goal, of course!)
Here is our first glimpse of her.
We drove straight to the Stake President's office (even though her flight was an hour and a half late and we left the airport after 10 PM) where she is pointing out her favorite place on earth.
Here she is removing her pin--such a sad day for her!
And the welcome continued at home where grandma, grandpa and Roxanne came to help us celebrate. (I'll have to find some of those pictures...)
Adam was so thrilled when it finally rained six days later and the sign sort of fell off the house.
Lisa had a great idea for Adam: to come up with enough comics to publish a book. He has always wanted to write a book and this will be a good one for him--short events he turns into comics that sort of explain his life. His main character, Dave, is a teenager (even though he always wears a shirt and tie) and Adam still considers himself to be a teenager so this is the story of his life...(names have been changed to protect the innocent :)!)
I have never had the knack of growing things. I blame my skin for this. Since I burn so easily, I never was assigned yard or garden duty but spent those hours in the house. (My parents are both fabulous gardeners but I didn't get that gene.) I can't keep anything alive that's not silk. With my track record, it's hard to invest in plants and even harder to know what to do with them once I've invested. (Let's not go into my hundreds of dollars wasted on ivy plants in New Mexico. Who can kill ivy except me?)
The Relief Society held a gardening class and a master gardener from another ward came to teach it but he requested that the ward purchase the plants and then find homes for them because he had enough. My lovely friend, Ann, who has the gift of making everything beautiful, had some leftover plants and, since I couldn't go to the class, she brought them to me AND (this is the important part) helped me plant them. She said the key to a beautiful potted collection is "thrill, fill and spill." Thrill is for the tall showy plant that anchors the whole thing, fill is for the plants that complement it and are lower in height and spill is for the plants around the edge of the pot that spill over and bloom. It only took about five minutes for Ann to make these two beautiful pots.
There were still plants left but I was out of pots so later I went to buy another pot and look what I did all by myself! (I even picked out two of these plants! WOW!)
My favorite plant is one that reminds me of New Mexico. Isn't it adorable?
I now have three beautiful pots on my balcony and have added some plants to my boring chrysanthemums in the front. (Even I can't kill chrysanthemums!) We're ready for a summer party!
Here is our last graduate on her happy day. She finally feels all grown up and ready to take on the world. The ceremony was amazingly short in a facility that was large enough and had great air conditioning. The weather even cooperated by not raining during the picture taking (well, not much) and by being cool enough to stand being outside.
Last night we attended the Chorus Awards Banquet where Summer got a boatload of awards and recognitions. Here she is with a group of her chorus friends.
These are all really nice girls as well as really talented musicians. Here she is receiving her certificate for participating in the All-Virginia Senior Honors Choir. Only two students from her school were chosen.
Here she is receiving her certificate for participating in the All-Virginia Choir. Only four students from her school were chosen.
Here she is performing her second senior solo this week. (The first one was Tuesday night at the Spring Concert and she accompanied herself on the piano for that one.)
She lettered and got a pin in Chorus this year and she also received the "Sunniest Smile" award from the seniors and the "Positive Impact" award from her choir director. Chorus has been a wonderful experience for Summer both in New Mexico and here. She has made her closest friends there and has developed a talent way beyond her years.
Lot's of wonderful friends and family have been kind enough to call or write frequently to ask how I'm feeling and what are the side effects of my treatments and all kinds of thoughtful, compassionate questions. I have to say that I feel like I was prepared for the fatigue and nausea that chemo brings, the physical therapy required after surgery and (I hope, as it's still in the future) the fatigue that comes with radiation.
Although I was told I would lose my hair, however, I don't think I was prepared for the emotional impact. I had not realized how emotionally attached to my hair I was and when it fell out I was devastated. I also probably scarred poor Summer for life since she has had to make this journey with me. She's the one who helped me shop for wigs online; she's the one who shaved my head for me; she's the one who helped me find a good wig in a local store and she's the one who had to feel my head every day to see if I really was getting any hair back. Adam still (after five months) can't look at me if I don't have on a hat or a wig and Mario is not interested in my hair loss since he knows it will grow back. Maybe it takes another woman to feel the impact.
I started panicking about five weeks after chemo when I still did not have one hair anywhere on my head and I started trying to find somewhere that would tell me when I could expect to see hair. There are a lot of YouTube slide shows made by women in my situation but none of them included dates so I decided to begin to document my hair loss and regrowth.
If you're interested, I have created a separate blog (From Dandelion to Rapunzel) for this so you don't have to read about it unless you want to. The link is to the right. (By the way, as I'm sure you know, that is not my picture at the top. I could never bring myself to take a picture of me completely bald. Maybe I'm more like Adam than I know.)
Last night Summer graduated from Seminary. We are so proud of our little night owl for her dedication and self-mastery in achieving this not-insignificant goal. She, along with three others, was asked to speak and she gave a wonderful talk about a few of the things she has learned in Seminary and how it has helped her testimony grow. I even made her a cake to celebrate (we won't talk about my disastrous attempt at this last week when Seminary actually ended...). That's pink frosting by the way. The lighting looks bad. Congratulations, Summer!
This ward has a lovely tradition of honoring the graduating seniors each year during Mutual. It's called the Senior Roast because the parents have the opportunity to tell embarrassing stories about this child (roast her) while a slide show is being shown. (Thanks to Brother Hales for putting all the slide shows together. What a great job!)
Summer's Video
They also serve dinner and each senior has the opportunity to display items on a table that represent his or her life. The girls always display the quilts they made with the Relief Society's help earlier that month. (Mario thought the dinner was going to be a roast and was amazed to discover we were having taco salad instead =D!)
Although it was hard to come up with embarrassing stories about Summer (we should have called Alex!) we found a few. This is what we said:
Summer Sunshine
Naming children in our family is always something of an ordeal; we have so many rules
• We have to agree on the name
• It can’t already be “taken” by another family member
• Neither the name nor the initials can give rise to mean teasing
• It has to sound similar in both English and Spanish
• And (by the time we got to Summer) it had to start with an “S” and come alphabetically after Sabrina
We were on our way to the hospital the hot August day that Summer was born and had still not decided on a name. Mario was beginning to panic because he was heading to Mexico that afternoon and when I’m in labor I tend to be a little bit grouchy. Who knew what I would put on the birth certificate paperwork? When he suggested the name Summer it seemed to fit most of our criteria and it sounded pretty. Little did we know then how well it would suit her. From the moment she was born she became our little Summer Sunshine.
Being the youngest of four children isn’t always the easiest job in the world but Summer has handled it with grace and kindness. She has listened to her older brothers complain about how spoiled she is, has put up with old parents and for five years has basically been an only child at a time when family finances were directed elsewhere. She is not whiny or dramatic and is very easy to live with. Being the youngest also means you learn to sleep through anything. The year Summer turned 2 we drove to Palmyra and camped in a tent while visiting church sites in the area. One of the nights we were there, a huge storm blew up. It felt like a hurricane, although, admittedly, we were in a tent at the time. Mario and I each took a pole and Adam and Alex (12 and 8 at the time) took the other two poles. We fought to keep the tent upright while water poured through it like a river. Summer slept through the wind and thunder until her soggy sleeping bag finally woke her up. She sat up, looked around, then crawled up onto my sleeping bag that was sitting on a cot and went right back to sleep.
Summer did like to talk a lot more than the other kids. She always had plenty to say during family council, meal times and when she said her prayers. When she was too young to read she still insisted on taking her turn at scripture reading. It would go something like this, “And it came to pass that Nephi told his brothers to behave. And they got angry....” It didn’t matter if we were reading in Alma or Exodus or D&C—Nephi was her favorite. Her love for the scriptures has lasted all her life. She was always careful to make sure that, during mealtime prayers, the food got blessed. If she thought someone was going to forget to do it she would whisper loudly, “Bless the food!”
Summer has always been extremely determined. She taught herself how to read when she was four because I didn’t get around to it fast enough for her. She wanted to take piano lessons when she was six but our family rule was you had to be eight. That didn’t stop her. She pulled out Sabrina’s piano books and taught herself until she turned eight. By then she was halfway through the second level books. Even when it came to really hard things she showed her determination. Summer loved her pacifier; she could speak entire paragraphs without taking it out of her mouth. The New Year’s Eve that she was four, I talked to her about how we set goals for the new year—things we want to do differently. I suggested that maybe for the new year, she could stop using her tuggie. She thought about it for a few minutes, then handed me her tuggie and never asked for it or mentioned it again.
Mario was delighted when Summer was born because he finally had another night owl in the family. When Summer was in kindergarten, Mario started teaching physics at night at the local community college at the same time that Adam started Seminary. Me having to get up at 5:00 every morning for Seminary meant everyone (except Mario, of course, who wasn’t home yet) went to bed at 8:30. No one complained about this. Several months passed before I discovered that Summer would lay on her bed in the dark until she thought everyone was asleep. Then she would sneak downstairs and sit on the stairs in the dark until her dad came home. They would then have a wonderful time chatting about daddy’s class while he ate dinner. He even let her help him grade his papers.
Summer has loved school, music, church, sports, friends and more music. She first learned to sing while her sister played the piano; then she learned to play the piano and the violin. Last year she taught herself to play the ukulele as well. Our home has been blessed with lovely music her whole life.
You are our sunshine and we’ll miss you every day you’re gone but are thrilled you finally get to live the life you have deserved for so long.
Here are pictures of the other tables (Sorry, Amy! We didn't get a picture before you took yours down.)
Maggie made the most beautiful quilt for me for Mother's Day! Everything about it is perfect--the color, the size, the weight--and the workmanship is beautiful! Thank you so much, Maggie. I love it!
This ward has a wonderful tradition to welcome young women into Relief Society. Each spring the Relief Society and the Young Women get together to tie a quilt for each female graduating senior. The girls take their quilts to college and have a part of their home Relief Society with them while they're away from home. The families of the girls provide the fabric, batting and yarn and the ward provides the quilting frames, needles and loving labor. This year we had three senior girls and that same evening we tied a quilt for an elderly sister who is leaving our ward. One thing about this activity I really like is that the quilt is bound before it is tied so once you take it off the frames, it is completely finished. I'd never heard of doing that until I moved into this ward but it's quite common here. Sister Janell Kincaid offers to do this every year for the young women and her work is fabulous.
Each young women was also presented with a basket containing the Relief Society manual, a picture directory of the ward Relief Society sisters, the ward cookbook, a set of measuring spoons (to take to college) and other goodies. The Relief Society president also encloses a personal note for each young woman. What a great way to transition into Relief Society! It's a really beautiful activity and so fun to see the fabrics the young women pick. You can really learn something about their personalities just looking at that. Summer's quilt is pictured above and here is a close up as well.
Summer performed in the All-Virginia High School Choir held in Virginia Beach a couple of weekends ago so we all drove down to hear her. We had never stayed in Virginia Beach before and were charmed by the town, the lovely boardwalk, the quaint shops and the stunningly beautiful weather. We definitely plan to go again. Here's Adam from the balcony of our hotel with the calm Atlantic in the background.
Alex and Maggie called with great news last week: they're going to be parents! Maggie is about 11 weeks along and is due around November 12. She has been feeling well and went to her first prenatal checkup last week where she had an ultrasound and heard the baby's heartbeat. We couldn't be happier. I'm going to be a grandma!
You'd think from the number and content of the posts on this blog that we've all been sitting around watching my hair fall out all winter. I don't know what it is about chemo but my brain goes kind of foggy and all ingenuity ceases. We have had lots of good things happening which I will attempt to chronicle over the next few days.
First of all, as everyone knows, senior year is plagued by the pesky college applications. Summer spent most of Thanksgiving and all of Christmas break writing essays, filling out college apps and applying for scholarships. Now the waiting period is over and the results are in... (I need to take a moment here to explain that although Summer would have loved to go to an Ivy League school, it was never, financially, an option--especially with our medical bills mounting. Still, she's very optimistic and wanted to give it a try.) These were her choices:
Brown (her all time favorite adorable university), University of Virginia, BYU-Provo, Cornell, Penn State and BYU-I. She was accepted at all but Brown and UVa and will be heading off to her parents' alma mater in August where she will join her two siblings for the first time since kindergarten. I almost wish I could be there, too!
Another VERY EXCITING event in our family is that our smart and beautiful daughter, Maggie, will be graduating this month with her Bachelor's in Psychology.
We're so proud of her and are still a little stunned that she chose our family to be a part of for eternity. Alex, you are SOOOO lucky! Congratulations, Maggie!
Summer made me a cake to celebrate my last chemo session which was Thursday, March 31. Pretty soon we'll have the worst behind us and can focus on other things. I want to thank everyone whose prayers and thoughts have sustained me and whose gifts of cards, time, food and flowers have lightened my load. I have truly been blessed.
As far as the prognosis goes, the chemo seems to have worked quite well having shrunk the tumor considerably. The next step will be surgery around the end of April, recovery for about a month, radiation beginning around the beginning of June and ending about mid-July (when Sabrina gets home!), recovery for as long as it takes (with my skin it could be a couple of months) and then reconstructive surgery in the fall. I'm hoping to get it all in on this calendar year for insurance reasons :). Then I'll be looking for a job since we'll be nearly empty nesters and have lots of little ones in college.
Again, thank you all for your support. My oncologist called me "low-maintenance" Monday and I'm sure it's because of all of you!
