Mother's Day

I hate Mother’s Day. I apologize to all who that offends however it’s the truth.  I know there are others who feel as I do and we all have our reasons. I love my Mother. She is an amazing woman and worthy of a day in her honor. I am blessed to have her as my Mom. I am a Mother and feel like I should celebrate with gusto for the sake of my proud children who honor their many Moms. So... why then do I despise this hallmark holiday meant to bring so much joy, happiness, and revenue? Mother’s Day 2002! On a beautiful spring Sunday, May 12, 2002, to be exact, I spent a nice morning having breakfast with my Ex-partner, Our Daughter Megan, and her birth parents. Celebrating our first Mother’s Day as real parents. We went to church and came home.  I sat with her on the couch her napping on my chest and me talking sweet whispers in her ear. That was the day that I made a promise to her that I would be her Mama. It was a peaceful day with great meaning. Simple words of unexplainable significance. A true change in my heart that day. I committed myself to no longer being her caregiver but being her Mama.  Four short days later  she died and again a change in my heart forever. Mother’s Day for me is like opening day to mourning week! So it is with great sadness, tears running down my face, and a pain in my heart that I recognize yet another Mother’s Day where I am here dedicated to being your Mama forever sweet baby girl but you are not in my arms to celebrate.      

Found Egypt at OMSI

Went to OMSI yesterday with the kids and Carrie. I love having a membership. We saw a laser show and a star show in the planitarium. Above all though we were there to catch the last day of the Lost Egypt exhibit.

I really enjoyed looking around the exhibit and have renewed my desire to one day visit Egypt for myself. Should those planets from the planitarium show ever align just right and I have money, a passport, time-off, and a stable country to visit all at one time. It was really fascinating to see the real mummy "Annie" and think about that whole mummy thing. When we were in the room with her Eph just kept telling me it was "creepy".

Ten Tidbits To Catch Up

I got this idea from another blogger. She posted 10 photos off her cell phone and a little blurb about them.
 

Halloween 2010
One Scary Princess and Heatblast from Ben10

 

Frances Turns 8!
We went out to Safari Sam's to help celebrate. Fun for all!

 

Escape Goats!
Ben Finn and Billy Birch let themselves out of the pen. In my attempt to get them back in I let out all the chickens. It was a scene of hilarious farm chaos!



Everyone Said Goodbye-
Gracie stayed with Grandpaw Woody in the hospital as he passed. It was an amazing end of life journey and I can only pray that I will go so peacefully, with such dignity, and surrounded by those that love me.

Ruby's Handmade Christmas Present for Ephraim-
I imagine that he fails to see the love that was put into this but to me it's the most beautiful gift that anyone got this year.

Mop Top Beauty Shop!
We put some (ok a lot) of pink highlights in Ruby's hair and decided while we were at it that Lucy should have a pink mohawk. It was totally fun and despite the fact that Ephraim HATED the dogs hair pink everyone had a good time.

3rd Anniversary
We woke up on the morning of our anniversary and I decided that I needed a new tattoo. I wanted 3 small hearts to represent "past, present, and future" and "Judy, Ephraim, and Ruby" and I loved that I would be getting it on our third anniversary. Judy wanted to get the hearts too however she took a huge leap of love and got my name put on as well!

Lila
A snake for Ephraim had been in discussion amongst the Mom's for awhile and we decided it was time. Lila the young cornsnake was a trooper and was very much loved by her boy. He tried to take her to school in his pocket. He played with her way too much and we were sure that would bring an early end to her life. In the end it was a tragic escape and death at the hands of cats.  



The Sock Monkey Hat
Judy has been in search of the perfect sock monkey hat for Mom to make her for nearly a year. A friend guided her to a newly posted pattern on ravelry.com and Mom was able to produce the most loved hat ever! It really does suit her.
Click on the picture to get to the pattern.

One Broken Arm
The kids are madly in love with their razor scooters. Ephraim took a spill on his on a Sunday evening. Everything seemed in working order no swelling or bruises so we thought maybe a sprain or strain. When it was still hurting him enough for him to complain in the morning we went to the doctor only to find out it was broken! Doh!



Job Fair - Fairly Interesting

On Tuesday I was able to work with the fabulous people Judy works with at the annual PCC Cascade Job Fair. It was a full day setting up to the break down and all the people watching in between was priceless. I'd like to offer up a few of my favorite observations.

• If you ask a question and you don't like the answer, you're not going to get a different answer by asking the same person the same question AGAIN!
• If you can't play nice with others while standing in a line outside waiting to get into the Job Fair then odds are good you're going to have one heck of a time trying to work with others.
• First impressions are important, with that in mind, don't walk into a Job Fair with your breast hanging out and child attached. I am totally fine with public breastfeeding and could personally careless about seeing your boob flopped out for everyone to see cause your kid was too busy checking out what was going on to eat. I just think you might want to reconsider the impression that makes on an potential employer.
• You know I believe that pajamas can be worn anywhere you want to wear them. EXCEPT THE JOB FAIR!!!!
• If you can't follow a simple request to fill out a survey as a means to gain admittance to a free event that might help you and/or 1300 other people than you have no business bothering to look for a job because heaven forbid they ask you to fill out an application!

A Lesson Worth $24.95

I'm pretty sure I already mentioned that I was back on the blog again because of a class. The assignment was to create a blog and have the blog meet certain criteria. I talked to the Insturctor and received permission to resurect this blog instead of starting a new one. I've been excited about this since I got his reply. When I first sat down to blog again I just wrote. Then I came back to update the page design and play with the links and things. Since then I've started going back over the old entries. I very quickly discovered something very sad... the majority of the images used in my blog were gone. Empty black squares with nobody home. My subscription to my Flickr account where they all were stored had expired taking with it access to the nearly 600 photos over the free account limit. Ughhh! So at a time in my life where $25.00 feels like $250.00 I chose to restore my account. I needed access to those photos. It felt like such a loss to no longer have the slideshow of the making of our wedding rings, the pictures of the kids, Bagby campouts with good friends, and the snow of 2008. I feel so lucky to have these memories returned to me. I think one of the reasons I felt that I had to get these memories back is that I believe I've permenantly lost the kids blog. I clicked on the link yesterday to go read and start migrating more of the entries there over to here or at least put them somehwere safe. It's gone!!! The page is gone and it refers you to migrate over to WordPress. Which had I known about the blog going away a mere month earlier I might have done it. That's right.... I most likely have lost some incredible documentation on our crazy life. I'm just sad and dissapointed and not sure how to handle it. The first step is to figure out what exactly the email address was that I used to set up the blog because I apprently need it to request help. So... to those that read this and may remember the good old days... what address did I used to send the kid stuff from? Your help is greatly appreciated. In the meantime I'll start saving my pennies and hope that it costs less than the $24.95!

Grandpaw Woody - June 18, 1918 to December 4, 2010

Copied from the Daily Astorian - Tuesday December 7, 2010

Woodrow L. “Woody” Nance, 92, of Seaside, died Saturday, Dec. 4, 2010, in Seaside.

He was born June 8, 1918.

Mr. Nance is survived by two brothers, Bill and Edward Nance; a sister, Edith Mickey; a son, Lenard Nance and his wife, Debbie; three daughters, Mary Lou Dawson and her husband, Leland, Linda Essex and Carol Jo Horn; and numerous grandchildren, great-grandchildren, cousins, nieces, nephews and other relatives.

A memorial will be held May 29 at Grandview Cemetery near Madras.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to erect a flagpole to fly his Veterans USA Flag to Connecting Cultures in Christ, P.O. Box 12647, Salem, OR 97309.

Image From Grave Walker

Old posts about Grandpaw:
Las Otras Dos Mamas: A Weekend With Grandpaw: "Life is curious. This weekend we played Guitar Hero on the TV at Granny's. Grandpaw Woody, age 90, watched on with amusement and fascinatio..."

Posting Backwards - Spring Break 2011

This year the Dawson family had a fantastic Spring Break. We spent the week out at the coast at Granny's house. We were fortunate to be able to include our friend Jenna in the adventure. Some of the things that we did:

• Trip to Astoria to visit the wreck of the Peter Iredale - including a trip to Goodwill for dry shoes for the kids, and a Costco run to keep everyone fed and happy for the week
• Time in Seaside letting the kids play at the arcade while the adults raided our favorite candy store the Buzz on Broadway. We were able to get the kids on the Carosel for what might be the last time as there were many protests about being "too old". The whole tribe enjoyed a visit to Seaside Mostly Hats in the Carosel Mall for a photo shoot of their fun hats.
• Trip to Tillamook to visit the Tillamook Cheese Factory with a detour through the Tillamook Country Smoker.
• A visit to Granny's friends farm. We got to meet the new ducklings, help feed the lambs, heard the sheep in from the pasture, and just spend some time enjoying the farm life.