Through the Calm and Through the Storm: Years Ago

Showing posts with label Years Ago. Show all posts

Monday, May 2, 2016

Zaxby's, Where? {Years Ago}

It was shortly after we moved to Arkansas that Addison started attending youth group activities at church. While we were excited to see her forming friendships, it took us a while to get used to her having activities that didn't include us.

I found this picture from one of her first youth group activities -- a photo/video scavenger hunt:

If I remember correctly, Tim was helping drive their team to various locations and therefore had Brennan with them. He wasn't old enough for youth group activities until we moved to Arizona.

Anyway, we hadn't been in Arkansas for very long when the teens decided to go out to eat at Zaxby's after church one Sunday night. Addison was able to get a ride with another family, and we just needed to pick her up an hour or so later.

Tim drove to the only Zaxby's we knew and the parking lot was empty. He called Addison to make sure he had gone to the right Zaxby's. She assured him that she was sitting in Zaxby's with a bunch of other people from church. He asked if it was "our regular" Zaxby's. She said yes, of course, she was certain it was the Zaxby's we had been to before (even though she hadn't really paid attention to where she had gone).

Eventually, we found out that while we always ate at a Zaxby's restaurant that was relatively close to our house, she was actually at a Zaxby's much closer to church.

After that mix-up, we started asking for more specific details for our taxi service.

As I finish my fifth complete round of blogging through the alphabet (and one partial round in there), I find myself struggling to come up with new thoughts and stories to share. I owe Addison a special thank you for reminding me of this story so that I'd be able to finish strong.

This week is the last week in our Blogging Through the Alphabet challenge -- letter Z. Congratulations to everyone who has stuck with us for the past twenty-six weeks!

Click the button below for this week's linky. It will open at 9:00 Eastern Time on Monday and stay open through next Sunday evening.

Monday, April 25, 2016

Yellow Baby Clothes {Years Ago}

For some reason, I've never been a big fan of pastel pink clothes for baby girls. It might have something to do with the fact that my husband often described pink baby clothes as looking like Pepto Bismol. When Addison was a baby, many of her clothes were primary colored.

When Lauren was born, I found it very difficult to find cute preemie-sized clothes that weren't pastel. (And oddly, I found a lot of preemie clothes that were in neutral colors/patterns so that they could be worn by either a girl of a boy. I thought it strange because there's really no need to buy preemie clothes if the baby hasn't been born yet.)

She had a few pastel pink or purple outfits, but for some reason my favorites were all yellow.

Yes, for some reason, I wore pastel pink to her baby dedication and dressed her in yellow. (I should point out that one reason it was my favorite outfit on her was that it was one of the few outfits that fit her well when she was still under 5 pounds.) The other favorite yellow outfit had also been worn by Addison and Brennan. Besides, what's not to love about a sleeper that has a duck on the backside?

The only problem is that Lauren was more than just a little bit jaundiced when she came home from the hospital and for weeks to follow. I didn't necessarily see it at the time, but I look back at the pictures and wonder how it was that I didn't see how yellow she was.

At one of her many doctors' appointments, the GI nurse finally asked me if I would please stop dressing her in yellow when I brought her to the clinic. She suggested that I try blue or even pink so that her jaundice would be less shocking. (Apparently I took the advice with a pink outfit in the picture above, but let her keep the yellow pacifier.)

Of course, a few months later I had trouble convincing an ER nurse that my baby in a blue dress was actually a girl. She just couldn't wrap her mind around a baby girl wearing a blue flowered dress.

This week is the twenty-fifth week in our Blogging Through the Alphabet challenge -- letter Y. Only one more week left to go!

Click the button below for this week's linky. It will open at 9:00 Eastern Time on Monday and stay open through next Sunday evening.

Monday, April 18, 2016

X-rays in the Airport {Years Ago}

This weekend was the state tournament for our kids' homeschool Science Olympiad team. We loaded up the car with all the materials and devices they needed for their events and headed to Golden, CO (just outside Denver) for a full day of competition. Since Addison and Brennan had built a Robot Arm, we made sure to bring lots of extra batteries for it.

When I tossed a ziplock bag full of extra AA batteries into a tote bag, I remembered a story about another ziplock baggie full of batteries -- a "years ago" story.

Many military families could tell you about the many rules for moving. One of them is that the movers do not move batteries. Over the years, this rule has been interpreted differently by different moving companies. When we were moving from Columbus, Mississippi to Germany, the movers took the batteries out of our remote controls and any other electronic devices, leaving us with a big pile of random batteries on the kitchen counter.

I looked at the pile of batteries, thought about how much it would cost to replace them, and then stuck them all in a ziplock bag.

We lived in a furnished apartment in Biloxi for a few months while Tim was in school before finally traveling on to Germany. As we were packing our suitcases, I found the ziplock baggie full of batteries.

The problem: our suitcases were already packed full and nearing our weight limit. I dropped the batteries into the camera bag along with some other stuff. It weighed a ton, but nobody was going to care how heavy our carry-on items were. Tim later realized that there was a tiny bit of space left in the bag, stashed a birthday gift for me in there, and told me not to open it.

We got to one of the airport security screenings, and I was carrying the camera bag along with my purse and backpack. I didn't think anything about it as I sent it along the conveyer belt to go through the x-ray machine.

The security agent pulled me aside as I walked through. Apparently, a ziplock baggie full of batteries looks suspicious on an X-ray. Also, the security agents aren't really sure what to do when you say that they can look in your bag but your husband asked you not to look inside.

It's a good thing this all happened years before 9/11, and we were only detained a minute or two before being sent on our merry way. If it had happened more recently, we might still be stuck in the airport.

This week is the twenty-fourth week in our Blogging Through the Alphabet challenge -- letter X. Only two more weeks left to go!

Click the button below for this week's linky. It will open at 9:00 Eastern Time on Monday and stay open through next Sunday evening.

Monday, April 11, 2016

DIY Waterpark {Years Ago}

I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to come up with a good "Years Ago" story for this week. In fact, I was looking through photo libraries to collect some pictures when I came across a classic story that I don't think I've shared on my blog.

Years ago, when Lauren was teeny-tiny, Brennan and I visited with some friends that I had known for several years through an awesome online community (Kids with Food Allergies). If I remember correctly, Addison was away at camp so it was just the three of us from our family and two other moms with their little ones.

While the moms relaxed in the shade with the babies, Brennan and Jen's daughter Karli played in their backyard.

It started innocently enough with the two kids taking turns on the swings.

And then we let them put on swim suits to play in the wading pool.

Before long, though, bubbles in the baby pool got a little boring and they drug out the sprinkler.

Sprinkler + Playground set = Water slide

Looking back at the pictures, I suspect Brennan may have been the ringleader for this day of adventure.

When they got tired of sliding, they decided to try sprinkler soccer.

All the while, the puddles in Jen's backyard kept getting bigger. By the time we made them stop, it was pretty much flooded.

Thank you Jen for a fun visit years ago and for fun memories to laugh about ten years later.

This week is the twenty-third week in our Blogging Through the Alphabet challenge -- letter W. Thank you to everyone who is joining us on this fun blogging journey.

Click the button below for this week's linky. It will open at 9:00 Eastern Time on Monday and stay open through next Sunday evening.

Monday, April 4, 2016

Vegan, But Not Really {Years Ago}

When Brennan was younger, he was allergic to milk, eggs, and peanuts. I found much of my allergy-friendly recipes and food recommendations through Kids with Food Allergies. Every once in a while, however, I was looking for a specific recipe that I couldn't find on there. My default google search for milk-free and egg-free foods was "vegan such-and-such." Unfortunately, I often forgot that vegan recipes are by definition also meat-free. Searching for vegan meatball recipes didn't give me any ways to use the package of ground beef I was hoping to cook for dinner.

Recently, a friend of mine shared a recipe for making a vegan (egg-free) mayonnaise.

Without thinking about it, I thanked her for sharing the recipe. Lauren is currently able to eat eggs, but most store-bought mayonnaise has either corn syrup, soy oil, or both in it. I told her that I was thrilled to find a recipe for mayonnaise so that I could make some deviled eggs out of our leftover Easter eggs.

It wasn't until after she pointed it out that I realized the irony of making my own egg-free mayonnaise just so that I could use it to make deviled eggs and egg-salad sandwiches.

This week is the twenty-scond week in our Blogging Through the Alphabet challenge -- letter V. You can click the button at the top of this post for this week's linky. It will open at 9:00 am Eastern Time on Monday and stay open through Sunday evening.

Monday, March 21, 2016

Underwhelmed at the OK Corral {Years Ago}

When we told people we moved to Arizona, we were often asked, "Have you been to Tombstone?" In hindsight, I think all of the people who asked if we had been to Tombstone were people from places other than Arizona. Maybe that should've been a clue.

Like any good military family, though, we created an Arizona bucket list shortly after moving there, and Tombstone was on it. With high hopes, we set off in search of adventure.

Tombstone is a quaint town -- a quaint town that has turned into a tourist magnet.

Because of the legends surrounding the shoot out at the OK Corral, tourists flock to Tombstone to get a taste of the wild west.

I guess the main street through town does look the way I'd think a town in the wild west would look. I'm pretty sure, however, all the stores carried more than cheap t-shirts and tacky souvenirs during the late 1800s.

There are also plenty of reenactors to help give the town a wild west feel.

In order to take in the full tourist effect, we even went to a stage dramatization that supposedly told the story of gunfight at the O.K. Corral in 1881.

At the end of the day, however, we agree that there wasn't all that much to see in Tombstone and we were pretty much underwhelmed -- it was just "OK".

Years later, we occasionally say that a certain event or activity was underwhelming. Often, someone then pipes up and says, "It was about as OK as the O.K. Corral."

Some days are like that. And as long as we get a good picture or two, even an underwhelming day can have fun memories.

This week is the twenty-first week in our Blogging Through the Alphabet challenge -- letter U. Click the button below for this week's linky. It will open at 9:00 Eastern Time on Monday and stay open through Sunday evening.

Please note that we are taking next week off so that we can relax spend Easter Sunday with our families. The next post (letter V) will open on Monday April 4th.

Monday, March 14, 2016

Tap Dancing {Years Ago}

A quick search of my old posts revealed that I've shared ballet pictures before, but I've never talked about my favorite type of dance -- tap dancing.

I believe this picture was my first dance recital, probably in Kindergarten. In an adaptation of the Wizard of Oz, we were train engineers bringing cans of oils to the Tin Men.

The most memorable tap dancing story was a few years later when I was a sixth grader. I don't remember what song I was dancing to, but I think I found a picture in the right costume. That year our school had a school-wide talent show and then the sixth grade classes had another talent show. Since I had a costume and knew a dance, I performed in both of them.

Unfortunately, the sixth grade talent show was held the day of our field trip and picnic. The "stage" for the talent show turned out to be just a cleared off area in the dirt. Tap dancing just isn't the same without a hard floor to hear the taps, but I danced anyway. Even though my dancing kicked up clouds of dust, I danced my heart out anyway. Some of the teachers that saw me later told my parents that I just kept on smiling and dancing, regardless of the circumstances.

I don't have tap shoes anymore, but I still remember a lot of the steps I once knew so well. Every once in a while, I'll do a little shuffle-ball-change or even a time step while I'm hanging around in the kitchen waiting for dinner to cook.

This week is the twentieth week in our Blogging Through the Alphabet challenge -- letter S. Click the button below for this week's linky. It will open at 9:00 Eastern Time on Monday and stay open through Sunday evening.

Monday, March 7, 2016

Go Seagulls! {Years Ago}

A few years ago I posted about how Addison and I flew in the belly of a C-17 from Germany to Georgia to see my little sister graduate from high school.

That fall Caryn started college at Carson Newman College in East Tennessee. A few years later we moved to Ohio and were finally close enough for Caryn to visit occasionally. Addison loved hanging out with Aunt Caryn.

On one visit, Caryn tried to teach Addison to cheer for the Carson Newman Eagles. The only problem is that Addison kept saying, "Go Seagulls!" The more she cheered for the seagulls, the more we laughed. Perhaps that's why nobody has named their sports teams after the seagulls.

Fast forward a few years, and Addison is nearing her own high school graduation and is picking a college to continue her studies.

This past weekend she officially announced her decision -- she'll be attending Oklahoma Christian University and cheering for the OC Eagles.

Every once in a while, I find one of her many new Eagle t-shirts in the laundry and have to suppress an urge to cheer for the seagulls.

This week is the nineteenth week in our Blogging Through the Alphabet challenge -- letter S. Click the button below for this week's linky. It will open at 9:00 Eastern Time on Monday and stay open through Sunday evening.

Monday, February 29, 2016

Runner Girl {Years Ago}

Since Lauren's still been hanging out in the hospital, she's asked me to tell her a lot of stories about the times she spent in the hospital when she was younger, especially stories about the months she spent in Children's Hospital of Philadelphia waiting for her heart transplant. I've paid attention but none of the stories I've told have started with the letter R.

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon in Denver today, and I snuck outside for a short run. As I pulled on my running tights, I noticed that I had my pair with two tiny holes on the left leg. I smiled at the memories and decided this week's Blogging through the Alphabet post had to be about running.

A few years ago, a group of ladies at our church in Arizona started Couch to 5K training so that we could all run in the Race for the Cure 5K. There were a few friends in our neighborhood that were running but they ran awfully early in the morning. I couldn't bring myself to get out of bed as early as they did so I did the workouts on my own. (I had done Couch to 5K a few years earlier but had gotten out of practice following a knee injury.)

As Winter gave way to Spring and then Summer, I realized that afternoon runs would mean that I was running in the hottest part of the day. I decided that getting up early was really my only option. I joined the other ladies who got up before the crack of dawn to run.

It was the start of a wonderful friendship. We'd run, we'd talk, and then we'd pray together before heading back to our busy days as moms to busy families.

Along the way, we all finished the Race for the Cure and then went on to run in several more races together. Two of us even conquered a half marathon that included a grueling uphill run to the top of A mountain.

As for the holes in my running tights, I don't have an exciting or funny story. It was just a regular early morning run. We were cutting across a rocky area to get from the high school track back to the neighborhood. Somehow I stepped on a rock the wrong way and started to fall. I made a remarkable recovery, caught my balance, stumbled a few more steps, and then fell all the way down to the pavement. My palms were scratched, my knee was scraped, my favorite tights thankfully had a few tiny holes, but thankfully I wasn't hurt.

As I ran laps around the hospital today in Denver, I thought back fondly about all the early mornings the running girls spent together.

This week is the eighteenth week in our Blogging Through the Alphabet challenge -- letter R. Click the button below for this week's linky. It will open at 9:00 Eastern Time on Monday and stay open through Sunday evening.

Monday, February 22, 2016

Quiet Rest Time {Years Ago}

Once again, Lauren is back in the hospital with transplant rejection. I was going to just skip this week's Blogging Through the Alphabet post, but Lauren kept asking me what I was going to write about for letter Q. She would be awfully disappointed if I didn't write something tonight.

Of course, this week is one of the more difficult letters and I didn't already have an idea in mind. Inspiration struck when I saw her napping this afternoon:

When our kids were little we renamed naptime and called it "quiet rest time." Sometimes they'd fall asleep, but usually I considered it successful if they stayed in their room and were quiet enough that I'd get a little sanity break in the middle of the afternoon.

This week Lauren has been particularly interested in stories of funny things that she did when she was in the hospital, and I've been telling her stories about the time she spent in Philadelphia waiting for her heart transplant.

I found a picture of a good quiet rest time when she was three years old and living on CHoP's cardiac floor:

Unfortunately, those good nap days didn't happen every day. One of our biggest issues with naptime and bedtime in the hospital is that she quickly learned that one of her nurses would come take care of her if she pulled off her heart monitor stickers. It became quite the game. I'd tuck her into bed for a nap and sneak down to the cafeteria for a late lunch. Lauren would pull off her stickers, set off the alarm, and a nurse would come in. Her nurses knew it was naptime, but still had to check on her and put the heart stickers on each time. Eventually, I figured out a way to keep her from being able to take them off. (It included a big ace bandage and a onesie put on backwards so that it snapped behind her back. Don't mess with a determined mom.)

I also remember a day when I walked back towards her room and heard Lauren singing one of the songs she had learned from music therapy. She was singing (shouting?) at the top of her lungs, "Jimmy crack corn and I DON'T CARE!" The "I don't care" part was her favorite and was sung loud enough for our whole end of the hall to hear. It wasn't a very quiet rest time that day.

This week is the seventeenth week in our Blogging Through the Alphabet challenge -- letter P. Click the button below for this week's linky. It will open at 9:00 Eastern Time on Monday and stay open through Sunday evening.

Monday, February 8, 2016

Old Stories = Comfort for Today {Years Ago}

Apparently, we didn't keep our No Drama Llama close enough at hand last week. Lauren started showing some signs of being sick Tuesday night and ended up in the hospital by Wednesday evening. All through this week, I was reminded of how much my old stories mean to Lauren.

Picture taken Sunday evening -- she looks much better than she did a few days ago

On Wednesday, Lauren's pediatrician arranged for her to see a Children's Hospital cardiologist in Colorado Springs so that I wouldn't have to take her to Denver over roads that still hadn't been completely cleared from our big snow storm.

While she was getting an echocardiogram, she asked me about what I used to do when she was little and had to get echos. I told her how sometimes I would sing hundreds of verses of The Wheels on the Bus and This Little Light of Mine so that she's lie still and quiet long enough for them to finish.

A few minutes later, a nurse came in to do an EKG. Lauren wanted me to tell the nurse about how she used to play with all the EKG stickers. When she was a toddler, we would leave all fifteen of the EKG stickers on her chest afterwards. While I was talked to the cardiologists, Lauren would be happily occupied with getting all the stickers off her chest. Those stickers are super sticky and would then get stuck to her fingers. It could easily entertain her for an hour or more.

The cardiologist decided that it would be safest for Lauren to go to Children's Hospital in Denver by ambulance. As we were leaving, Lauren asked if she could ride in the ambulance by herself. She told me to tell the ambulance team about how she rode in the ambulance all by herself when she went to the hospital in Arizona last summer.

Our ambulance ride actually ended at a local ER so that she could start some IV medicines before the trip to Denver. As the afternoon wore on, the transplant team decided that flying to Denver was a better idea than going by ambulance. While Lauren was getting ready to leave, she asked me to tell her about her first helicopter ride. (H is for Helicopter Ride)

Lauren's nurse brought her warm blankets after Lauren got a sponge bath one morning. Lauren was still weak and was starting to get a bit upset about all the fussing. I remembered a funny warm blanket story from our days at CHoP seven years ago. It was just enough entertainment and distraction to let her nurse change the sheets and then get all the monitors hooked back up.

These are just a few of the many stories I've told Lauren over the past few days. I'm beginning to realize that these stories do much more than just pass the time while we're hanging out in the hospital. These old stories show how God has been with us so many times over the years -- Through the Calm and Through the Storm, so to speak.

Lauren continues to improve -- making steady progress even if it's a bit slow at times. We would certainly appreciate your prayers as she continues to get stronger and as her transplant team figures out the best way to treat this episode of rejection.

What's a hospital stay without bacon? I've told the Bacon story many times this week too.

This week is the fifteenth week in our Blogging Through the Alphabet challenge -- letter O. Click the button below for this week's linky.

Monday, February 1, 2016

No Drama Llama {Years Ago}

I've noticed a trend among Blogging Through the Alphabet posts over the past thirteen weeks. Often bloggers will spotlight a member of their family in their weekly post. I've done similar posts in past years, but I realized that I have never formally introduce a very important member of our family -- our No Drama Llama.

No Drama Llama can trace his origins back to our days of living in Arkansas. Addison sang with the Celebration Singers of Central Arkansas and went on trip or two each year with them.

She came home from one trip and told of a stuffed drama llama that was on their bus to ward away any unnecessary drama. (Their group included 6th through 12th graders -- lots of drama potential.)

A few years later, Brennan went to Boy Scout camp in Arizona and found that Camp Lawton's official mascot was the llama. Like any good Boy Scout he spent part of his spending money that week on a stuffed llama, complete with a faux leather harness.

I think we tossed around a few names for his llama but eventually we just started calling him our "No Drama Llama."

During the summer while Tim was deployed, I loaded up the car with the three kids to drive from Arizona to Florida for a beach vacation with my family. At the last minute, I decided that it would be a good idea to bring No Drama Llama along too.

No Drama Llama rode front and center in my car during our most recent move from Arizona to Colorado and then watched over the movers as they delivered our household goods.

We all recognize that our No Drama Llama has no power over any drama that may or may not ensue on any of our trips or for that matter on an every day basis around here. He does, however, tend to bring a hefty dose of humor to our days. For the comic relief he provides, he's worth is weight in gold.

We're just past the halfway point! This week is the fourteenth week in our Blogging Through the Alphabet challenge -- letter N. Click the button below for this week's linky.