graffiti

I had planned to finish up my post today on our trip, but someone spray painted our fence last night with some really horrible graffiti, so this gorgeous day has been spent dealing with that. My poor husband has been working most of the day trying to sand it off, but it's not going too well, and eventually he'll have to do the whole thing and restain it all. He's even thought about the possibility of just putting up a whole new fence, since this is taking so long and he's not really getting anywhere. What a mess.

It wasn't just our house, it was the house behind us as well, and we just found out that in another part of the neighborhood someone's house was painted with the same symbols and words--not their fence, their house. Awful.

I'm so, so disgusted, and don't know what to do.

home sweet home

We made it home very early this morning (1:30 AM). We were supposed to get back at 11:20, but our connecting flight was delayed in Dallas because of lightning, and we were waiting on the tarmack for a couple of hours. Yuck. After two hours of driving to the Phoenix Airport from Sedona, a flight from Phoenix to Dallas, and then waiting at Dallas forever, then finally flying home from Dallas, it made for a VERY long day, but we made it.

One of these days I'll do a bit more of a recap of the trip with pictures. It was a great trip, but I'm too tired for that today (I finally got to sleep a little after 2:30 and Rachel was awake bright and early at 6:30 this morning, so that doesn't make for a very rested Weed)! She just went down for a nap, so I think I'm headed for one too.

But first let me leave you with this picture.

After hiking from 4:45 AM until 3:15 PM on Sunday, my husband made it up out of the canyon--here he is just after finishing. I went out with the binoculars around 2:45 and started looking for him coming up the trail. Finally around 3:00 I thought I spotted him, but wasn't sure. As he neared the top he saw me and waved his trekking pole at me. I started crying, just so proud of him for achieving his dream. When he got all the way up I gave him a big hug ("I can't breathe!" he told me!) and we both had tears in our eyes. It was a special moment. He told me when he saw me and waved at me, it gave him the extra boost he needed to make it up the rest of the way. He had been struggling for the last mile and a half, he said--it had been thunderstorming for most of the afternoon, so he was wet and just exhausted. But he did it!! What an accomplishment.

enjoying the view

Just a few pictures....we're at The Grand Canyon--my husband is on his 17 mile hike today, so I have a quiet day to myself.

This is what it looked like when we arrived yesterday morning--covered in fog. Every so often the fog would lift a bit and we would get a view (like this one) and then it would come in again and we could see NOTHING! We were worried that the whole day would be like this.

But we didn't need to worry....the sun came out around noon! It ended up being a beautiful day. We enjoyed taking the bus out to Hermit's Rest, stopping at lots of different viewpoints in between there and the village where we are staying.

This morning at 4:35 AM my husband set off to fulfill a lifelong dream. He's hiking down the Kaibab trail and hiking up the Bright Angel trail. He hopes to be up in time for our 6:15 dinner reservations (he made them on purpose so he would have extra incentive to get out of the canyon!). He expected to be at Indian Garden, one of the resting stops, around 10 this morning, and he showed me where to look with the binoculars to find him there. I looked several times, but though I can see lots of people, I can't make out anyone--they're tiny little dots, too far away to distinguish. I can't wait to see him in a few hours!!!

rain rain go away!

Here we are in the middle of the desert of Arizona and we're having trouble with, of all things, RAIN!!!! Today, for instance, we were supposed to go on a tour of Antelope Canyon. My husband was really looking forward to taking pictures of this beautiful slot canyon. But as we were driving into town we encountered the heaviest downpour in which I've ever driven. Streets were flooding everywhere, and several times we stopped in a parking lot for awhile to let the rain subside a bit (it didn't for a long, long time). We saw garbage cans floating down the street at one point (we caught that one on video!).

We're having fun and seeing some beautiful things (I'll put pictures and more description into a post after I get home--those take way too long to put together, but here we are in the rain yesterday at Canyon de Chelly), but I really hope this rain goes away.

Tomorrow we head to the Grand Canyon, and we were told this afternoon that it was completely fogged in this morning. Oh, please, don't let that be the case when we're there!!!!

plans and preparations

We leave on Tuesday for vacation. Rachel will be with Grandma and Grandpa for the week while my husband and I are in Arizona. It's been planned forever, and my husband's been training for a year to realize his lifelong dream to hike the Grand Canyon, all the way down and up, in a day. I get to relax at the top that day, but mostly I'm sure I'll be worried about him. It's not recommended that you do it in a day, and rangers will try to stop him when they hear his plans, but he's determined to do it. He even made us dinner reservations at El Tovar, the lodge there, to encourage himself to get back in time for dinner!!

So anyway, I've been busy this week getting ready for that, but also planning the newest trip we've been talking about, taking Rachel to Disney World this fall. Last week my husband mentioned something about taking a family vacation in the fall. I suggested maybe we should take her to Disney, because of her love for Cinderella and all things Disney, and ever since it came out of my mouth, my mind has been on little else. I don't know why, but for some reason I'm thrilled about it, and it's nice to be excited about something again. I've had to restrain myself from reading all of the books and info I've found about it because I need to spend my time thinking about next week's trip! I'm taking the books with me and plan to work on it while I'm gone.

So that's what's been going on in my world this week. Rachel continues to be Rachel....dressing up in her princess garb every single hour of every single day. Now she reinacts scenes from the various princess movies she's seen. She still talks about getting married a lot, too, and I showed her the rest of our wedding pictures the other day--she had only seen the one on our piano, but I got out the whole album. She was in heaven. We have a book from the library in which a little girl is a flower girl in a wedding. She asks me to read it all the time and now she tells me she's going to be a flower girl in her Cinderella dress. Too bad I don't think anyone in our family needs a flower girl anytime soon!!! She's ready and willing!

I'll have wifi some of the nights that we're gone--we'll be in a different hotel almost every night, and some have it and some don't (sometimes we'll be in the desert, in indian reservations....wifi doesn't seem to be available there for some reason!!), but I'll update when I can.

me and my girl

Here are a few shots from Mother's Day yesterday. It's hard to get her to look at the camera--ugh--but we got a couple of good ones!

It was a beautiful day, which made me happy. We played outside, went to the park to have lunch (I had Chipotle, which I had been craving for quite awhile, but hardly ever eat--yum!), and went out for dinner. Rachel and Daddy surprised me with five new tomato plants and two basil plants. I can't wait for summer so I can enjoy them! When my mom was here last week she took me to buy flowers to plant outside. I chose a beautiful hanging basket of tiny pink flowers and a variety of flowers for my planter. Sometime I'll have to take some pictures of them. They're so pretty.

mother's day

For years Mother's Day was really tough for me. I was always happy to celebrate my mother, but I longed to be a mother myself, and it seemed to be taking forever....first for me to meet and marry someone I loved, and then for him to feel ready enough to be a father that we could have a baby.

Then Rachel came along and made me the happiest woman alive.

My first Mother's Day, 2006

But this Mother's Day is another tough one for me. For though I have my sweet Rachel, who gives me such joy and pleasure at being a mother, today I'm mourning the fact that I'll never be a mother to the little one who I'll never know.

I haven't been able to write about this yet, but after three weeks of trying to "fake" my way through this blog, I'm finding that I need to face how I'm really feeling about it. See, in March we found out that we were expecting another baby. I was elated. I'd been wanting a sibling for Rachel for quite some time. At Rachel's birthday party in April we surprised our family by giving Rachel a "Big Sister" t-shirt to share our news. Everyone was thrilled. I couldn't wait to announce it to the world, but was waiting until we saw the heartbeat on the ultrasound, just to make sure everything was okay.

But then almost three weeks ago at our first ultrasound, instead of bringing home a picture of our little miracle, as we had expected to do, we left with nothing but questions and tears. I was pregnant, alright, but the gestational sac was empty. No baby. No heartbeat. The doctor said it could just be too early, and we had gotten the dates mixed up, as far as how far along I was, though I was fairly certain of the dates. So I had some bloodwork done, which came back with positive results, and had to wait a few days to try again to see the baby. It was an excrutiating several days of not knowing whether to grieve or rejoice. At that second ultrasound we still saw nothing. It was a crushing blow. Over the next two weeks I had two more ultrasounds, hoping to find something, but each time the results were the same. It was not a viable pregnancy, and I would miscarry. It was a grueling two weeks of uncertainty, fear, and tears.

Meanwhile, my body still thought it was pregnant, so I couldn't fit in my clothes, still felt nauseous, still was repulsed by food, so that I couldn't find much of anything I wanted to eat, and I was still waking up multiple times a night to use the bathroom. There were constant reminders that I was pregnant, which, though, unpleasant, are usually made bearable by the joy of a coming baby, but which only brought pain to me and made it impossible to focus on much else.

Thankfully the distraction of Rachel helped me get through each day. She makes me laugh out loud multiple times a day, and no matter how sad I am, she helps to get me out of my pit of self pity.

Though I finally did have some signs of a miscarriage, I didn't miscarry on my own and I had to have surgery this past Friday. It's finally over now, and I can begin to move on from here. December 4th, my due date, will be hard. Christmas will be hard, since I was already dreaming of having a new baby this Christmas. But time heals all wounds, and I know that eventually we'll be okay.

I didn't really want to write about this here because I don't really want to talk about it with most people, and this just seems so public (even though I really don't know who in the world reads this, except for a few friends and family members, most of whom already know). I know there's nothing anybody can say to change anything or really make me feel better, even though I know people mean well with the things they say, so I didn't really want to make it public. But it's been rather therapeutic to get it all down in writing, and it's been hard to be "fake" and write about other, happier things, so maybe it's better that I do share here.

So today on Mother's Day I mourn.

I mourn the loss of a sweet baby I'll never know....I'll never know his or her name....never hear him or her call me Mommy...never get to kiss his or her sweet little head.

I mourn the fact that there will only be three stockings hanging from the mantle again this Christmas.

I mourn the fact that even if Rachel does have a sibling someday, which she hopefully will, they'll be far apart in age and likely won't be as close as she could've been with this sibling.

And even though it's not quite so important, I mourn the fact that I've already spent money on maternity clothes that I won't need, a pregnancy journal that I just want to pitch, and have spent significant part of the last three weeks in frustration over the waste of those purchases.


And yet I rejoice, too.

I rejoice that I have a daughter and do get to celebrate Mother's Day with her. She fills my heart with joy. I'm sad for those who I know who don't have that blessing, though they'd long to.

I rejoice that the doctor has given us every reason to believe that we can have more children without any problems.

I rejoice that my family and friends love me and have rallied around me in my sadness.

I rejoice that even though I'm sad, I don't understand, and I'll never know why this happened, God has given me peace to know that His plans for me and our family are good.

So I choose to say, "Happy Mother's Day," and enjoy my sweet daughter today, even though a piece of me wants to crawl into a hole for awhile and lick my wounds.

Happy Mother's Day....to my wonderful mom, to my dear friends who are mothers, and to me!


I may not get to be a Mommy again in December, but I'm still a Mommy to this baby.....

And I'm so thankful that she's mine.

more Thomas

My brother sent me some more Thomas pictures.....enjoy!

marriage

Rachel's been talking a lot in the last few days about getting married.

Yes, at age three.

(Because she knows it involves wearing a beautiful princess-like gown and getting a ring, both things that she enjoys!)

A month or two ago she spotted our wedding picture on top of our piano. She'd seen this picture countless times and commented on the fact that Mommy and Daddy were in the picture, but this particular time she was astonished as she gushed, "MOMMY! You wearing a big, beautiful dress!" So we talked about the fact that when ladies get married they usually wear a pretty white dress. Some other time she noticed my wedding ring and asked me about it. I told her that Daddy gave it to me when we got married to show everyone that we are married to each other.

Then a couple of weeks ago when we went to the conservatory there was a wedding about to take place. Rachel saw the bride getting some pictures taken and loved seeing her "big, beautiful dress." She saw the flowers on the tables and I told her that after the wedding people will sit down at the pretty tables and have a fancy dinner. Later that day she told me that when she's a grown up she's going to get married and wear a beautiful dress and sit down with flowers at a pretty table and eat a fancy dinner.

So yesterday she came up to me in her Cinderella gown (which she wears pretty much every waking moment, asking every five minutes, "How do I wook, Mommy?") and said,

"Goodbye, Mommy. I going to get mah-wied."
I asked her who she was going to marry.
"The man," she answered.
"What man?" I asked.
"I mah-wie Daddy!" she announced. "Daddy put on his man clothes and I wear my bootiful dwess and we get mah-wied!"
"But Mommy's already married to Daddy," I told her.
She thought about that a minute and with a smile she said, "I mah-wie Daddy, you mah-wie Daddy, we all mah-wied TOGEVER! Mommy, Daddy AND Rachel!"
She thought it was the perfect solution.

I told her that when people get married there are only two people, a man and a woman. She thought another minute and decided, "Okay, I get mah-wied when I'm a grown up."

Yes, please. When you're a grown up. (But even then it'll be too soon.) Just stay three for awhile, okay??

a great day with Thomas

Would you believe that I didn't take a SINGLE picture the whole day? My husband's not very happy with me about that, but he wanted me to take our giant SLR camera AND the video camera, which are both housed in a giant camera bag, which is a backpack. It's hard to get in and out of the bag, and the giant camera is too heavy to wear around your neck all day. So I gave my dad the video camera and put him in charge of that, and got these pictures from my mom (and hopefully some from my brother, too, when he gets a chance), and I was mostly in charge of the stroller and Rachel (who was usually out of the stroller running around to see something), and that was more than enough for me to handle. Plus I just got to watch her take it all in and enjoy it, which was the biggest thrill of the day.

Thomas came to a historical village about an hour from my parents' house. It's a neat place to go even when Thomas isn't there--lots to see and do and learn about what life was like back in the 1800s. They have their own train that goes all around the park. When Thomas is there they just use the cars from their train and Thomas pulls them. There were a zillion kids, parents, and grandparents there, and we were trying to figure out just how much their revenue goes up during the three days that Thomas comes to their little village!

We got there a little late, so we had to book it from the car to the back of the village where the train station was. The brochure said it was a 20 minute walk. We made it in 8 minutes, with plenty of time to spare.

Here are Rachel and her cousin Alex waiting at the station for Thomas to come back from his previous ride. We could hear his whistles all around, so the kids knew he was coming and couldn't wait to see him.

These are their first glimpses of Thomas coming down the track. You can see Rachel waving and waving. We could see the steam coming from the smokestack and then they saw his face. Even his eyes were moving! Rachel let out a squeal, "It's THOMAS!!!!!" That was the best moment of the day.

Here we all are on the train, waiting for it to pull out of the station. Alex is hiding between my brother and my mom. He didn't want his picture taken.

After the train ride we all stood for this picture, but Rachel wouldn't look at the camera and I was trying to tell her to, which is why neither of us are looking. You can barely see Thomas in the background, along with the station.

Rachel watched another little boy get a tattoo and then decided she'd sit and get one too. We thought she'd be afraid, but she sat still and was so patient. She had a few different trains to choose from, but she chose a Thomas tattoo.

She was so proud of it and walked around with her hand like this forever, just looking at it and showing it to anyone who would look. That night she was sad to wash it off in the bathtub. She told me that tomorrow she would get the Harold (the helicopter) tattoo when we went back to the Thomas place. I had to try to explain that we wouldn't be going back to the Thomas place tomorrow or getting another tattoo.

They had several tents set up with activites for the kids to do inside. This one was a gift shop with anything and everything with Thomas on it. Rachel enjoyed playing at the train table.

Grandma bought Rachel a new shirt at the gift shop. She was supposed to be posing to show her shirt, but she turned away just at the last second.So Mommy turned her around and tried to get her to look. She still didn't, and Grandma took this picture anyway, as I was trying to tell Rachel to look.One of the activities was watching a Thomas video, which they were showing on a big TV screen. Rachel found a chair and sat mesmerized. She would've stayed for more if we would've let her.Since it's a historical village, they had a lawn with lots of old fashioned types of games and activities set up. One was hula hoops. Rachel loved trying, but her version of hula hooping is holding onto the hoop and spinning herself around in circles. It was pretty funny to watch, but she had a ball.We were going to be leaving soon, so we went back to the station one last time to tell Thomas goodbye. You had to pay for photographers to take your picture right in front of Thomas (where those people are out to the left of us in this picture). We did the best we could and got this picture instead.

Before we left, Rachel wanted to see Sir Topham Hatt, "The Fat Controller," (that's what they call him in the books and on the videos!). She had been talking about it all morning, that she wanted to see him. So we waited in line for a bit and then it was Rachel's turn. I asked her what she was going to say to Sir Topham Hatt. She said, "I say that I pee pee in my pants." (She had just gone in her pull up and I was going to go change her as soon as we finished standing in line!) I told her she didn't need to tell him that. So all she did was go up and give him a big hug and pose for this picture. She was so excited to see him.

We left soon after that. It was a full, fun morning. The weather was perfect and watching Rachel glow from excitement of seeing Thomas and being with some of her favorite people was a joy. Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa, for a fun day.

a day out with Thomas

We're at my parents' house for the weekend. A very special weekend. A couple of months ago my mom bought tickets for Rachel and me, her and my dad, and my brother and his youngest son, Alex, to go to the Day Out with Thomas, where you get to see a replica of Thomas the Tank Engine and take a train ride with Thomas pulling the train. Since she and Alex both are Thomas fanatics, they are thrilled.

Our tickets are for tomorrow morning. I'll write again after we get back home on Sunday, since I didn't bring my card reader with me, and I'm sure I'll have plenty of pictures to share.

Rachel can't wait!