Back to Boring

Well, since all the excitement over Phil's passing is now behind us, life is back to the same old boring pace. Work, meetings, babysitting, yard work, etc. I'm continuing to complete my remodel from late '05, the finishing touches - hanging pictures, molding & window treatments. I still have to get the cabinets in my laundry room done so I can remove the boxes from ly LR, Kevin is working on that project for me and I've run out of material and have to borrow a vehicle to bring it home, a 4 X 8 sheet of 3/4" thick melamine won't fit in my little car.

Work is VERY busy lately, we've picked up a lot more Boeing work, as did a number of our customers and so all those customers are upping their orders from us to fill their Boeing orders (we subcontract for them). We hired a 3rd "slave" for the back office but because we're also implementing a new Quality system (to be certified for more work) that has increased the work also and she is lightening the load but not by 1/3. So I'm beat every evening and it takes a lot to make me not just plop in the recliner and watch TV every evening.

June is going to be very busy, we have stuff planned almost every wknd. The whole family is going to Ocean Shores for the kite festival. Phil (dearly departed) bought Joe a kite and was planning to take him to the kite festival so we're doing it for him. The next day is our special assembly day and Dane is getting baptized, most of the kids will be there for that. The next wknd is free. Then the wknd of the 16/17 I'm having my new tradition - "Family Day" where we get together for pictures, dinner and gift exchanging. The next day Dane graduates from high school. Then the next wknd is our District Convention. I'll have to get the mowing done during the week, won't be any time to mow on the wknds that month. Then July 18 Dane and I head to Hawaii til the 30th. Lily Lake camping trip is in the middle of August and I think most of the kids and their new families will all come, at least for part of it. The Renaissance faire is in early August, must not forget that. Summer is always so hectic, it's so short here.

That's everything in a nutshell.

This was a tough week

Thursday the 15th Kevin's father-in-law took his life and threw the family into a spin. He was only 46 and had much family and a profusion of friends who will miss him. I volunteered to create the bonuses that have become a common part of a service, a fitting card, picture DVD and then a CD of special songs to play at the reception afterward. Other family members helped out with the food and drinks, babysitting, etc. Our family (Dale, Denny, Rach and spouses and myself) pooled together to buy a beautiful large arrangement that ended up being the centerpiece at the service, front and center, right behind Phil's photo. Phil was working for an excavation company, Donovan Excavating, and they drove their fleet of trucks out of the parking lot with horns blaring in a tribute to Phil that left not one dry eye in the whole place. As I was creating the slideshow I learned a lot about him and his wife, Mindy. The most painful thing I learned is that they had been together since they were teenagers and stuck it out all the way into Grandparent-hood. They grew up together. Mindy will have to learn how to live without Phil, the man she was with 75% of her life. It'll take many years. Right now the plans are for her and Kevin & Shirley to buy a place together with a mother-in-law apartment or house of some sort so she won't be alone. Those grandbabies will help keep her occupied. Speaking of grandbabies, Joe is less than 2 and so is not cognizant of what has happened, yet, when he picked up one of the memorial cards with Grandpa Phil's face on the front he got melancholy and laid his head on whomever it was that was near him. He somehow knows that Grandpa's gone, probably because Grandma's there without him and everyone is so sad.

That's what has consumed all my energy for the last week and now I'll have to just get on with my life again. It's amazing how the loss of someone whom we aren't even close to can have such a strong effect on us, due mostly to the effect that we see it have on our loved ones. When our kids or friends hurt, we hurt.

Well, it seems this weekend is all about the kids. Friday night we had dinner at Rach & Tony's, we "grilled out" as Tony calls it. Burgers and fries/tots. Denny and Heather came with balloons that said "Guess what?" on them. Well, what else? They're pregnant, due 10/20. The family is all hoping it's a girl, actually, Rach and Kev kinda decided that they could have the boys (Kev's alrady done his part) and that Denny and Heather have to have the girls, 5 of them to be exact! Such evil children I raised! After dinner we all just stayed and played with the babies. Dane ended up staying til after 11 playing Golf on the gamecube with Tony.

Yesterday Rach and I went to the North Bend outlet mall and had a blast. I needed a new jacket and Wilson's leather was having a fantastic sale, I ended up getting 2 jackets and a laptop bag, it was buy 2 get one free and everything I bought was half off clearance prices. We bought gifts and other neccesities, it was a blast. Next wknd R & T and D & H and and Dane and Keith and I are gonna go to Seattle and do something, right now it seems like it may be the underground. I'm leaving that up to Rach and Den to decide. My goal is to take them out to dinner at Buca di beppo, a real neat italian restaurant. I'll have to make plans to do something with Kev and Shirl some other time.

I had the little grandbabies last night from 7 til about 1 AM. I enjoy rocking them to sleep. Shayne is back today from 11 til about 3. Then we have meeting, then dinner at Haydens and Survivor and Amazing race. Shayne was asleep about 10 minutes when Kev first dropped him off but woke up and has been tired, I just got him back to sleep again. He loves to be held and is so pretty.

Last wknd I had friends over and watched the DVD "Knocking". One friend brought her 1 year old nephew. I said "I have toys!" and got them out for him. He was a very good little boy too. We had my special "beans, dear, beans" dish and cornbread and salad. We had a real good time then too. I went to a housewarming party on Saturday, that was nice too, met some friends from the Des Moines (WA) area.

I guess that's my life now meetings, family and socializing. Oh yes, and shopping.

It's nice to be in congregation that socializes.

More old news from Jan 2007

Back in December we had some real interesting weather, ice, snow and wind. The windstorm knocked out my power for 5 days, a new record! I had bought just the day before an inverter I think it's called. It's just a battery that you recharge and has a compressor for pumping tires, a flashlight and (the important part) 2 plugs to plug household items into. The first night the power was out was Survivor night and my friends who are addicted to the show (like me) came over to watch. I plugged in a little 13 inch TV and we were warm and had apple cider and pie, then they spent the night since they didn't have heat and live only 2 and 3 doors away. I had company every night, we had BBQ and I had a lamp in the kitchen, a battery powered radio and we put together puzzles. It was almost like we had power and I really enjoyed having all that company.

Between snow and ice storms, just on a wet hwy Kevin was involved in a 3 car accident, he being #3. It was very rainy and car #1 lost control of his car. Car #2 then lost control and Kevin was in car #3. He saw his chance to go around car #2 and so hit the gas to pass it when #2 hit #1 and flung it right in front of Kevin. It was a camry just like Dane's, the trunk was pushed into the back seat and the back window was broken out. The guy had to be removed with the "jaws of life". Kevin was in his little Toyota pickup which was raised and had those tubular bumpers. The 2 cars were hooked together and when they got them apart he could actually still drive the truck, the tires rubbed on the fenders and the steering wheel was moved up and forward, it prolly has bad frame damage and will be totalled. Car #2 was blamed for Kevin's accident. But fortunately Kevin is OK, he went to the hospital because his elbow hurt, he thought it might be broke but it's not, he was just banged up but is fine now.

In the middle of all that weather in early January Dale was having chest pains and ended up having to go to the hospital and having angioplasty and a stent inserted into an artery that was 90% blocked. All in all he was in the hospital for parts of 3 days. He was being beligerent one day, claiming that he wasn't gonna let them keep him overnight and no one had been able to go see him (everyone works and after dark, after work, it got real cold and the roads froze up and were treacherous) so I was determined to go see him and took off early to do that, so I could get it done and be home before dark. That morning Dane had called and said HE was also having chest pains! He's only 18, what's that all about?!? When I was almost to Auburn he called and said he was going to the doctor, the pains were worse and the school nurse told him not to go to work, but he shoudl go to the doctor. So I told him I'd meet him at Auburn Hospital emergency room. While we waited he was having arm and neck pains, headache, nausea and was nearly in tears. They finally got us back and put him on IV fluids and painkillers. His temp went up to 103. They did and EKG and bloodwork, chest xrays and blood cultures. They couldn't really figure out what was wrong with him, he had a "cloud" on a lung, elevated liver function and had a virus they suspected was mono even though the mono test was negative. The fever broke and they had 2 liters of fluid in him, they prescribed antibiotics for suspected pneumonia and we went home. The week before he'd had 7 days of diarrhea and went to the doctor for that, they didn't see or hear anything unusual in their exam of him so we suspected they were unrelated. Then all this stuff started coming out in the news about salmonella in peanut butter and I recognized the brand as the one that I buy from Walmart and checked the bottle and sure nuff, it was the right lot#. Dane had been eating it and moreso when he got the diarrhea. So I'm pretty sure the diarrhea was related to the peanut butter and we joined the class action suit. I dont know if the chest pains, etc were connected. Yesterday Kevin came over to work on a cabinet he's buiding for me and he has pleurisy. I researched it a little and discovered that that's maybe what Dane had, the hospital never even mentioned it but most of the symptoms are similar and he would have recovered quickly from it due to the antibiotics.

The weekend after Dane's hospital visit Rach & Tony and Denny & Heather and Dane & Keith & I all went to Leavenworth for the Bavarian Ice festival. The boys and I stayed in a smoking room in a motel that just stunk. The kids all stayed in a cute Bed and Breakfast with a nice living area and hot tub. In the evening we got together in their living room and played games. It was in the single digits most of the time we were there. See pictures in my pictures section under the title "2007". The kids went snowboarding while we were there and we found a real cute hat shop that we had a lot of fun in.

Shirley is pursuing her modeling and will be in Vegas for a bikini contest on TV in late March. I don't get cable so I don't know the show she said it would be on but she's very excited about it. If she does well she gets to go back east later in the year for another contest that may eventually get her into a well read magazine.

Dale's restaurant closed about the end of January. The wind storm is mostly what brought its demise. It blew out the sign and then didn't have power for about 4 days. They opted to not open while it was open and lost all the food in the refrigerator, that pretty much did them in. They never really recovered from that and after Dale had his heart "episode" I think he decided he didn't need the added stress, I don't think it ever was what he expected it to be. So now Dane is basically unemployed, he's helped one of the friends from the congregation who's a contractor but that's only happened a couple times, not even part time work. He wants to work in a fitness club.

Rachyl was able to get a real nice job working in the AP dept of Krusteaz in Tukwila, it sounds like a real nice place to work. The average employee in the accounting dept works there for 10 years, that's better than most. And her hubby Tony I guess is gonna work for a local electric supply house soon, the company he's working for as an electrician is going bankrupt, poor money management.
Not much has changed for Denny and Heather. Heather is now unemployed but I don't think she's worrying about finding anything right now, Denny's doing real well in that area. They gave one of their dogs to a no-kill shelter to find her a new home so they only have the one beautiful German Shepard, Gage, and cute little Lily, their orange tabby cat brat. I think they're looking to buy a house maybe this spring.

I'm getting my reservations lined up for my trip to Hawaii this summer. Only Dane is going with me this year. I try to do something fun every year and we're running out of things to do on Kauai, and everything left is so expensive, I decided to look into visiting the Big Island since I've wanted to go there since I lived there. Well, the excursions on Kauai cost about $150/person (horseback ride, helicopter ride, ATV ride, etc) and the round trip ticket to the BI is - guess - $150/person! Sooooo, we're gonna do that and rent a VW camper for $100/day (I'm saving almost that much on Kauai not renting a car for the whole time and no ticket for Keith). We'll eat camping food and try to get to a meeting on Sunday. One campground we'll stay in is on the volcano at an elevation that it gets cold at night, in the 40's so we'll have to have blankets. I sat down with one of those awful "secret places" book on the BI and planned what to see and what to skip since we only have really just over 3 days. I want to take Dane to a real black sand beach, somewhere where we can see lots of honu (green sea turtle) and, of course, the Volcano. There are a couple really fantastic places to see the sunset and lots of hot springs. I'm very excited. I got a DVD player so we can watch a movie or something in the evening since it gets dark about 7:30 and we'll be stuck in a camper then.

Old news from December 2006

Dane started driving in August I think. He's doing "Running Start" at school, that's where you take some classes at the Community College that count for both high school and college credits, and he's still taking 2 classes at the high school. That's why he had to get his license. He now has so much homework, and, of course, he works (has to pay for gas and insurance) so he has no time to even sleep. These 4 days will be real nice for him, some sleep catchup time. He was planning to go to Italy in April with his Latin class but had to choose between that and anything else he wants to do, like snowboarding. If he goes to Italy he can't spend any money because he needs to come up with like nearly 3K by April. I think he's opting to go snowboarding and giving up on Italy. Fine with me.

He turned 18 a month ago and I had a surprise "Freedom" party. Seriously, it's not a birthday party, no cake, etc. But I told the other kids that if they can think of anything, they can get him freedom-related gifts. So Rach is gonna take him to Car toys and get him a new phone and add him to her family plan (so he can get off his dad's) and Kevin wants to take him snowboarding. I didn't do anything special, I thought maybe the dinner and attention was enough.

Rachyl and Tony finally got married 9/23 on a cute Mississippi-style paddle wheel boat on Lake Union just before sunset. I thought it was the best wedding of all 3 kids.

I got an invitation from an old friend to join a stock photo site where you submit your photos and they screen them and then offer them for sale to people all over the world for pamphlets, brochures and websites. So I signed up and have about 30 photos now for sale, haven't sold any yet but I think most of what I have is more suitable for spring and summer stuff so maybe that stuff will sell later. In the meantime I used this as an excuse to buy a new 8 megapixel camera so the new shots I take just to sell will be the quality they require. My new camera is just like my old one but 8 mp and with some new features so I already know how to use it. And it didn't cost as much. If you want to check out what I have for sale you can go to fotolia.com and in the search box type suehill (one word). But please don't click on any of the pictures, they enlarge if you just place your mouse over them. I keep track of how many times they're being viewed and if all my friends and family start viewing them I'll get distorted numbers. If there's any you'd like for any reason I can just email them to you, you don't have to pay for them, I can give them away if I want.

Dale bought a BBQ restaurant in Auburn. He always wanted a restaurant and he's always trying to come up with ways to give his kids jobs (why? they seem to do OK on their own) Anywho, he got this restaurant and Rach and Heather (Denny's wife) kind of manage it and Dane works there. He hired too many people and now has to get rid of some and then Keith will work there too. Dane works M W Sat, mostly to stay away from dad. Keith will work only 2 or 3 days, he only needs money to build a computer. I want him to work the front counter so he learns to talk to people again (and because Dane works in the back, they need to be separate).