Family Week

It has been a difficult week with the ups and downs of emotions that come with losing someone so special.  The best part of being home this week has been spending time with family and lots of reminiscing about what a great man Dad was.  Noah has really stuck by our side this week and has made sure to not be left out of anything.  He really pushed himself with Uncle Jon to do some "dangerous things", so that he would have some stories to tell his friends.  Besides feeding the animals he got to change out some plowing/sanding equipment and do some other dirty jobs.  The highlight was when Uncle Jon put him in the cab of the Bobcat and let him drive it independently to move some dirt.  He was so proud of himself:)  The other kids happily spent some time going for a hike, playing with Brandy and Maria and helping with the digging at Grampy & Grammy's house.

Going through all of the old pictures, retelling stories and visiting with friends made this week extra special. One thing I am confident of this week is that lots of other people thought Dad was a special guy too. The common theme was that he was able to truly lead by example and actions and without many words.  He taught us, above all, to be respectful of all people and to take pride in what it means to be a citizen of the United Sates of America and to never take for granted who sacrificed to make this country what it is.

A Sad Few Days

The past 3 days have been the longest and most heartbreaking of my life.  Sunday evening my dad had a massive stroke and just about 30 hours later he passed away.  In retrospect his death was exactly how he would have wanted to go and in many ways how most of us would like to leave this world. He received excellent care at the Millinocket Hospital, through Life Flight on his trip to Portland and at Maine Medical Center.  Although we, as a family, had to make some hard choices during this time, we were always in agreement of how Dad would have wanted things.  He did not have to struggle with a long term illness, but was alive for long enough for all of us to get to say goodbye to him. 

It was a fascinating time at the hospital to see how each of our kids with their different personalities would handle this loss.  I figured that most of them wouldn't want to go in and see him since he wasn't responsive and attached to a lot of machines, but they all decided they wanted to say good bye in their own way.  Noah and James went in together (per their insistence).  I was hesitant about how it would go, but they are a pretty incredible pair.  Noah was more stoic standing with my mom at the bedside. James talked to Dad for a long time stroking his arm and, at one point, even climbed into bed with him.  James seemed to grasp the whole situation much more than the rest of the kids and kept saying, "Grandpa, I am going to miss you so much, you are my best friend." "Have fun in heaven and say Hi to Jesus for me."  He was also the least sad the next morning when I told him Grandpa had died saying, "Yes, but now his body isn't sick anymore and Jesus has fixed him". Ben and Audrey both went in to say good bye acting much older than I had ever expected. Audrey just sat for a while holding hands with him.  It was both a heartbreaking and heartwarming experience when seen through the perspective of the kids.

The upshot of having this happen in Portland was lots of family bonding time and catching up including with Uncle Russell. Gabe has the week off this week so he was able to take the kids to the bounce zone in Saco and keep them otherwise entertained.  Things were a bit out of sorts on the way home today, but we did get to stop for a nice picnic lunch in Auburn and enjoy the sunshine.  

My dad was a pretty incredible gentleman, a wonderful father and an amazing grandfather to our kids.  Most of all he was the best role model to all of us. He was able to express a lot to us not in words, but by his actions... He always showed up... for anything, he always made that a priority and made sure we knew that we were to show up for things too;) We will all miss him greatly in every facet of our lives, but we are all certainly who we are today in large part because of the example he has set for us.  We will love and miss you greatly Dad!

Skating, Turkeys and Caucusing:)

Thanks to the lack of snow we are having an extended season skating at the pond. We spent last weekend skating with friends and the kids are slowly becoming better skaters.

 Noah and James have been practicing reading Dr. Seuss books to the group in school. They are both so proud of their ability to read with feelings now that it is bubbling over into most aspects of our day. Noah has been so helpful lately practicing his reading that Ben and Audrey are starting to prefer when he reads to them at bedtime.

We have resident turkeys who have made our yard part of their walking path. This day we counted more than 40 of them, it was so cool to watch.

 Our latest artist was Jan van Eyck and his work with the Ghent Altarpiece.  The kids made their own triptychs which turned out be be a fascinating project to see what kind of story they all told. Noah chose some stories from the bible, James chose a Star Wars theme, Ben concentrated on some abstract shapes and Audrey went full out modern art;)

We had a busy, but fun/educational day on Sunday!  After church we enjoyed a nice brunch before heading to participate in Maine's caucus.  Neither Gabe nor I had ever participated in a real, actual caucus before, despite having lived in Maine for most of out lives.  We have been doing some work with the kids about the different candidates and how the electoral process works.  We were a bit concerned about bringing all four kids with us right in the middle of nap time, but we decided to try it for the benefit of education;)  In our small town it was a wonderful showing of the democratic process.  People who live and work in a community have different and strong opinions about different candidates, but all were able to speak about them in a positive and respectful way.  The coolest part was the couple sitting behind us had arrived in the US the night before from Afghanistan as refugees.  They were there to see the democratic process at work.  All in all a great day spent with our community!

February Vacation Week Adventures

We had school most of this week, but we did find sometime for fun!  We bought a few lobsters for Gabe's birthday... he enjoyed two hard-shelled lobsters himself since no one else like it;)  The kids uncovered the mini drink umbrellas in a drawer and Gabe enthralled them with some economics of a free market economy and how the umbrellas wouldn't have been developed otherwise...

On Monday we started out heading to Bangor to spend a few days watching the high school basketball tournaments.  We made it about an hour from home and Noah started vomiting... So, we turned around and got up Tuesday morning with everyone feeling great and headed out again. We were able to watch two games that day and the kids were troopers given that the last game was way past their bedtimes!  The next morning James lost his front tooth at the hotel and was very concerned about the tooth fairy missing him. Before heading home we got some energy out at Playland Adventures.

We are trying to take advantage of what little bit of winter we are having!  Noah and James are doing such a good job in their ski lessons.  James loves his instructor this year and took this selfie with him on the T-bar.  Today the kids went sledding in the front yard and it was a bit fast.  Audrey got a face full of raspberry bushes, but is handling it like a champ.  When I sat her down to take a picture of her face Noah and Ben wanted their pictures taken too... :)  

Gabe Day (aka Valentine's Day)

We have had an awesome winter weekend playing some Valentine's Day games for school and we actually took the snowmobiles out... kind of;)  We have enough snow to make some loops on the snowmobiles around our yard, but not enough to really get on the trails from our house.  Gabe affixed the sled to the back of the snowmobile to haul the kids around the yard.... not the tote sled, which we do have, but a cheap plastic sliding sled. No one was hurt and everyone had an absolute blast!

For the first time since we have had kids, Gabe has been home with us on his birthday for the whole day!  It was actually harder than I realized to try and pull off all of the treats and surprises we usually make.  We even had to break down and buy a cake, but no one cared:)