As I Reflect On This Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day 2009 was an enjoyable day. Since I’ve been married to Bill he has always gone above and beyond to make sure it’s a good day for me. Typically it’s only been the 2 of us here on this day, but this year Whitney was back with us and G’Ma E was here as well. Bill has a regular routine for Mother’s day which begins with breakfast out and then shopping at my favorite nursery, Watson’s. It’s been our tradition for several years and one that I love. This year we shared the experience with my mother and she seemed to have a good time (Whitney opted to sleep in which was perfectly fine).

Once we get home we begin planting all of the new plants I have selected. Typically the nighttime weather is not safe to plant annuals here until at least Mother’s Day because of our late frosts we experience here. But once Mother’s Day arrives we feel it’s safe to begin spring. This year as I was out in the backyard digging in the dirt and planting my new “babies” into the composted earth home I began to reflect on my life. I know having my mom with us this year had a big impact on this reflection.

My teenage years were pretty much hell on my poor mother. Through my teenage years I took my mom for granted. She worked as hard as she knew how to be both mother and father to me. I was pretty sure that she existed purely to provide for me and at the same time stay out of my way and my life. We weathered a lot of “parent/teen battles”. We fought a lot.

She said that she knew me better than I knew myself - I was sure she had no clue (I was so mistaken). I was very rebellious during my teenage years; I was not a lot of fun to be around. She worried a lot about me and simply prayed for me and kept telling me that she loved me. Looking back I’m sure that at the time I thought my mom was responsible for everything that had every gone wrong in my life. As a teenager I was so self-centered. Looking back now and as a mother myself I have no idea how she put up with me and regret what I put her through. Seriously I would have beaten the living daylights out of me. I was a selfish-hormonal-teenage-brat.

Reflecting back I know that she had unrealized dreams of her own. She never expected to be a single parent at the age of 44 to a 9 year old daughter. She had hopes and plans that she set aside to simply love me through my tough years. Amazingly something happened to me along the way that changed everything. Something finally changed - I did. I grew up some, became a mother myself. I realized that my mother was a genuine human being with a heart that could be broken and feelings that could be hurt. Could it be that there was actually more to her than - “me”?

Motherhood is the hardest, most challenging job. We are rewarded with intense joy, pure and strong emotion, never-ending depths of love, and some unbelievably hilarious moments! I am truly blessed to have the mom I do and to be a mom!

Mom, I am proud of you and I love you very much.

Thank You Mom
I know how often I took you for granted when I was growing up.
I always assumed you'd be there when I needed you... and you always were.
But I never really thought about what that meant till I got older and began to realize how often your time and energy were devoted to me.
So now, for all the times I didn't say it before,thank you, Mom...
I love you so very much!
Author Unknown

Happy Birthday Tonya

Guess who turned 54 years old Sunday? You are correct, Tonya's is now 54 which also means that she is officially older than Bill is again. Do you remember the number???? 7 months, 5 days.. yes people, in a short 7 months and 5 day Bill will turn 54 and catch up to Tonya, again.

Bill loves Tonya's birthday, because she's older than he is, and for some odd reason, he finds this much more amusing than she does. Oh well, what all this really means, is that in 1 short year, not only will Tonya be older than Bill (AGAIN), BUT! she will be able to retire. Not saying she will, but the marker is there. Anyone taking bets on how long before Bill get's that phone call at work and Tonya says... "okay, I'm pretty much done, If you don't talk me off the ledge now, I'm going to hit the "submit" button to file my retirement paperwork..... seriously, talk me down now...." And then next year there will be more senior discounts at the restaurants to take advantage of next year. So bottom line, Tonya is probabaly enjoying this birthday for herself as much as Bill is enjoying it for his selfish desires.

Tonya did have a wonderful celebration, it was small, family oriented and low key but she enjoyed it none the less. Bill was so excited over one of his gifts he had for her that she was able to "talk him into" giving it to her early.... on Saturday night. Beautiful earrings, they are white gold hoops and called "inside out diamond hoops". Georgious!!!! Sunday morning she got up and found a huge orchid on the breakfast bar, it was yellow with hints of pink from Whitney. Whit normally gets her WOSM some type of orchid or violet for special occasions and her WOSM loves them. Bill fixed breakfast for everyone, light and simple, hot biscuits and homemade jam after which he presented Tonya with her other gift and nice new set of solar lights for her backyard. Now if the snow would melt, and sun come out and dry out the ground some, maybe she and Bill could actually get out into their backyard for the first time this year. We've all gone out to an early dinner. Tonya had requested BBQ for her birthday meal, but the little restaurant that she wanted to go to is closed on Sunday so we tried another BBQ joint that we had heard about. The ladies that own this place has participated in the Challenge from the Food Network, and this place has been washed away several time due to mudslides. We were really looking forward to some good "que" after driving 47 miles down there and waiting about 30 minute for a seat but sadly we were pretty much disappointed. Not the style of bbq we like. Still it was good to have a meal out with the family.

As we returned to home we decided to stop by the State Capital in Olympia. Tonya, Whitney and G'Ma E had not been there before. It was a nice little walk and can imagine that once the flowering trees all begin to bloom it will be so pretty. But the blooming daffodils were a nice sign that spring really might make and appearance afterall.

We Are Thrilled To Present Mr. & Mrs. Cuttrell

(Yes, running about a month behind, still playing catch up with the blog.. life has been a little hectic lately around our house..)

Saturday February 28 Heather and Christopher were joined in holy matrimony bringing to our family a new daughter and 2 beautiful grandchildren. It was a wonderful family event. The bride was walked down the aisle by bother her fathers, the brother of the groom was the best man and the sister of the bride her maid of honor, our new grandson and granddaughter performed the duties of ring bearer and flower girl. The closest family members and friends were there to witness this most joyous occasion.

Rewind several days prior….
Tonya and Whitney had planned to fly from Seattle to Houston on Tuesday before the wedding. But as you know from previous postings Tonya was already in Texas with her mom who was ill. So here you might think, good deal Tonya was already in Texas so this should be more convenient, right? NOPE!!!! Keep in mind that Texas is a pretty large state and about 700 miles between point A and point B. We LOVE Southwest Airlines….. yes I FLY SWA!!!!

Whitney proceeded to fly to Houston on Tuesday and Tonya followed on Wednesday; and hit the ground on the run pretty much. Meeting C & H along with the kids (this included Whitney) for dinner, stopped by the florist to see what flowers had been selected, then to the store to purchase all the supplies needed to make wedding cakes. Whitney spent another night with C&H while Tonya went to Numero Uno El Niño and Dae’s house to crawl into a bed that wasn’t in a hospital room or on rollers for the first time in several nights. Slept like a rock.

Thursday started bright and early, as soon as J & D left for work and Tonya really realized that she was in a strange kitchen, but only had to call J once to find out where something was kept. By 8am the Kitchen Aid was running, the oven pre-heated and the start of cake, after cake, after cake going into and out of the oven. C and Whit came over after they dropped H off at work and the kids to school. We had a great day,,, well they played Wii while Tonya baked cakes and they all visited. But by 5:00pm all of the cakes were baked, the frosting was all make and we were pooped. J&D invited C&H and the kids over to supper that night; feta chicken (read Dae’s blog about our pollotarian). Supper was great, enjoyed the boys, their women folk (Texas slang) and the kiddos. Family is great and we are blessed. The one thing that was missing that evening was Bill; and he was on his way (SWA of course) to Houston scheduled to arrive at 11pm. After the “women folk” went to the airport to gather Bill, we got home and went to bed and Tonya began thinking thinking about decorating cakes the following day. If you want a bit more information

The night before the wedding we got together at Heather’s parent’s house with for dinner, drink and good company. All of our out of town guests were included. It gave the bride & groom an opportunity to visit with and in some cases actually meet family that had come a long way to celebrate this blessed occasion with them. We appreciated their hospitality so much, Christopher is really getting himself some great in-laws.

The wedding was gorgeous, the bride and groom were perfect (not that we are biased). We are so happy to have these new additions to our family. We are thrilled that Christopher has found a woman that loves him as much as he loves her, and the kids, well they couldn’t love Christopher anymore if he was the biological father.

Tonya’s heart-felt thank-you to the very host and hostess of the most prestigious JDC Bed and Breakfast! You guys were awesome!!!! Not only did they open their home and kitchen to us, they made sure we had nutritious and very tasty meals and snacks. They also wanted the opportunity to get to know Bill’s brother and sister better so the evening after the wedding, she invited them all over to dinner. Still more information....

We have been blessed with some of the best daughter-in-laws on the face of the earth. Technically they may be daughter-in-laws, but we consider them our daughters.

G'Ma Evelyn

Can everyone tell we are catching up on the blog? It's been a stressful few weeks and honestly keeping up with the blog just wasn't at the top of our priorities.

This post has been several weeks in the making.... Tonya's mom gave us a big scare.



G'Ma Evelyn, She's a tuff 'Ol Bird for sure! She is an ornery fighter and we are so proud of the progress she has made in the past few weeks. A little background here might be helpful for all of you that did not live these past few weeks with us. The middle of January, Mom flew to Dallas/Ft. Worth to spend time with her sisters and brothers and then the plan was to come up here for a few months around the 1st part of February. Then Christopher & Heather set their wedding date, the 28th of February, so Mom's plans changed a little. She would stay in Ft.Worth until the middle of February, go home for about 10 days, then the Whitfield clan would fly from Houston after the wedding with a change of planes in Albuquerque, Mom would fly out of Amarillo with a plane change in Albuquerque where we would all meet and get on the same flight to continue on into Seattle on March 1st!

A few days before mom was to fly back home from Ft. Worth she begin to feel a little under the weather. She said she was retaining fluid in her feet "because she'd been eating salty food'; she was having trouble sleeping, 'because her back bothered her". The night before she left to fly home was a bad night for her, she was having trouble breathing so she tried to sleep in a chair and she was talking out of her head. By the time she arrived in Amarillo and Tonya's brother Waudell picked her up at the airport she was a very sick lady. Waudell wanted her to spend the night with them but she "just wanted to go home and sleep in her own bed".

The next morning she did not answer the phone, Tonya called, Waudell called, Aunt Fern called and no answer; we were terrified! Tonya called her brother Waudell, he said he was on his to mom's house and would let her know what he found out. The next call we received from him was that she was so weak she couldn't get out of the bed so he had called the paramedics, her blood pressure was extremely low and they were taking her to the hospital in Borger. Once they arrived at the emergency room they diagnosed her with pneumonia and wanted to admit her but they did not have any available beds and were finally able to locate her one in Amarillo. By the time they admitted her into a room in the Cardiac Care Unit of the hospital in Amarillo it was nearly 9:30 pm, over 12 hours since Waudell had first arrived at her house.

The next several days were hard for all of us. Tonya wanted to travel to Texas in order be with her mother and brothers but they thought she should wait a day to see if the antibiotics kicked in, so we waited. By Saturday Ronney & Waudell decided if there was any way that Tonya could come home that she probably should. (SIDE NOTE- At this point we are 1 week from Christopher & Heather’s wedding; that post to follow). We started scrambling to find a flight to Texas as soon as possible, and change airline tickets for existing flights… at 3:15 am on Sunday morning she got a call from her brother, Ronney. He had just received a call from the hospital, Mom had gone into A-fib and a breathing tube had been inserted. Tonya arrived in Amarillo about 4pm on Sunday, February 22.

Tonya spent the next several days in the hospital. The hospital staff brought in a roll away bed so she could sleep in the room with her. Due to the breathing tube, Mom was not able to make a sound at all, not even a whisper. She would try so hard to make us understand what she wanted, but we couldn't understand…. It was heart breaking for her and us.
On Monday afternoon they began to wean her off of her breathing tube, so we all worked with her reminding her to breathe deep so that her oxygen levels would increase. By this time our mom is working hard to do everything she could so the tube could be removed. She hasn’t been out of the bed since Wednesday, and is really weak and just wants out of that hospital bed; she was still in the CCU of hospital. The hospital staff removed her breathing tube Monday night; they will wait until Tuesday to remove her stomach tube. Our mom is rock star!

Tuesday morning she woke up about 4am and felt restless so we had the nurse move her to the chair where she sat for a couple of hours which included eating breakfast. Mom was still really weak and not able to stand or walk without help, but she was working as hard as she could to regain her strength. Physical Therapy came Tuesday afternoon and got her out of the bed, and helped her walk to the chair. She sat in the chair for quiet sometime on 2 different occasions as well as on the side of the bed.

Tonya stayed in the hospital with Mom until Wednesday 2/25, as long as she could and still get to Houston in time to take care of the wedding cakes and other wedding prep.

Mom was released from the hospital on the afternoon Sunday, March 1 after 10 days. She and Tonya stayed at her house and things went well. Her appetite increased and she would walk around the house with her walker; she's was still weak but regaining strength each day.

We have encountered bumps in the road with her new medication routine and apparently an unknown change in her insurance that we were not aware of, but all seems to be working out. Tonya’s brothers and sister-in-laws were wonderful, making sure they had everything needed.

Mom continued to improve so that they were able to fly back home to Seattle on Sunday, March 8. Currently Mom plans to stay for an indefinite period of time with us.

Considering that Mom has congestive heart failure, pulmonary hypertension, legally blind and 89 years old, Mom is doing great! Most of us can only hope to do half this well when we reach that age. Thanks to everyone for their continued prayers and support.

2 Income Family (again!)

We have good news, no, make that GREAT news! Bill just signed the employment offer for his new position as Quality Control Manager for General Construction. He will be working on a $230 million project at the Bangor Submarine Base near Bremerton. It is an approximately 3 year project, but he was told that this is a permanent position so they will send him on another project when this one finishes. He is looking forward to going back to work!!

As thankful as we are and as wonderful as it is there is a few down sides to the offer. First off this job does not offer a company vehicle. We will need to find a vehicle for him to drive to and from work. Bill has been driving the "Green Machine" (Honda) since he was laid-off last November. While the Green Machine is an okay vehicle, it has a lot of miles under it's hood and won't last much longer, especially with the new commute to and from Bremerton (about a 100 miles each day). So a new/newer vehicle is in our future. Considering the mileage the new vehicle will be racking up and the cost of gasoline in Western Washington, a new pickup truck with a big V-8 Hemi engine in it probably will not be an option for us, so economical appears the route we will be going.

Second, Bremerton is on the Kitsap Peninsula and there is a large body of water between home (point A) and the new job (point B) called Puget Sound. Travel between point A and Point B requires crossing the Tacoma Narrows Bridge which now has a toll of $4 each day unless you spring for the "Good To Go Pass" (then you get to cross cheaper) so we will need to get us a pass. Speaking of Tacoma Narrows have you ever heard the story of Galloping Gertie?
Third, this job appears to be behind schedule, which means Bill will be working long, long hours.

Fourth, Tonya is LOOSING HEAR HOUSE HUSBAND!!!! She's going to have to learn to cook and clean again.

Seriously, we feel blessed right now that we have this job opportunity to find the down-sides. Jobs are few and far between these days so we are thrilled that God has answered our prayers.

Thank you so much for all of your support and prayers.

Bay Area Valentine's Adventure

Have you wondered why we chose to spend Valentine's Day 2009 in the Bay Area? Several weeks ago we purchased tickets to go to Houston for the wedding, 2 days later Southwest Airlines has an awesome 3-day sale and we could of saved 50% if we had not booked them early. We worked with SWA (they have some of the best costomer service in the airline industry in our thoughts) and were able to get the cheaper rate, however they could not reimburse our money, but we did have an airline credit.

Prior to C2 & Heather's wedding date being set Bill had received information from one of the makers of the planes he uses that they would be having a show in Oakland the 13th of February. We had considered going down for the show (and we love the Bay Area). When we found out the date had been set for the wedding we knew that we couldn't go to the show, which was no a big deal afterall wedding trumps tool show anyday. But once we had obtained the SWA credit we decided to go ahead and go down for the show.

Not knowing if Bill might be working by the time the show rolled around we booked the last flight of the evening, 9:15 pm; well that ws the scheduled departure time.... actual departure was 11:15 pm arriving into Oakland at 12:45am! Oh wait, it does get better... Our car rental counter closes at 10:00, so we end up renting a more expensive car (so much for the savings on the flight), and get to our hotel at 2:00am and totally exhausted but thanking God that we have a room as we climb into bed. Instead of spending the night in the airport again.

After we got up and dressed on Saturday we headed downstairs to partake of the typical hotel Continental breakfast fare and we headed out to find our way to the Lie-Nielsen plane show. The show was very, very small. In fact after an hour, we were done. Hmmm, planned on spending most of the day there as we do with the woodworking shows at home. It was interesting, just not much there.

However, the venue for the show was called the Crucible, http://thecrucible.org/ it was most interesting. They offer all types of classes there from jewelry making, wood working, metal work etc... Something else to go on our “would like to do” list.

Bill had been surfing the web before we our trip to see what other points of interests there might be and found and area that appeal to us and found this area called Preservation Park (http://www.preservationpark.com/history/urban.htmlThis was a really cool place, all refurbished Victorian era housing. It was well worthwhile.


By the time we finished our tour of the park our typical hotel Continental breakfast fare was wearing thin fast when we passed a burger joint that Don had turned us onto when we were in San Fran last October. In-N-Out Burger, good artery hardening fast food cheese burger and fries at a decent price. In-N-Out Burger seems to be yet another good fast food restaurant that we don’t have in Washington. Mmmm don’t it look good? (It was.....)


For our special Valentine’s dinner we had made reservations last month for a restaurant located in the Berkeley Marina. Wonderful views of the Golden Gate and Bay bridges. It was a bit too damp and windy to really enjoy a walk, but our dinner was so good.


LESSON’S LEARNED:

• 
  A Prius is really not a bad little car, and even more impressive once you figure out how to start it (yes we have always been dye in the wool American Made)


• The Govenator of California REALLY needs to do something about the shape of their roads and highways.

We Child-Proofed Our House But They Still Get In

It seems like we just start getting used to the “empty nest” when WHAM! one of our kids reappear, boomerang.

Wikipedia defines the “Boomerang Generation” as one of several terms that are applied to the current generation of young adults for the frequency with which they choose to cohabitate with their parents after a brief period of living alone-thus boomeranging back to their place of origin. Whit being our most recent boomerang child (others have included Chris & Billy). While we enjoy being empty nesters we more enjoy being the parents that our children can come to when they need our help.

We admire Whitney, she found herself in some financial trouble and came to us asking for help. This is a hard thing for anyone to do, but she did it. She took a deep breath called and told us she needed to come out talk to us. We went thru her finances, prepared a spreadsheet and after all the calculations were complete it was apparent, she needed our help and we wanted to help her, solution; she should move back home.

Our daughter is planning to move to Utah the end of the summer to go to college, so we had planned on her moving in when the lease on her apartment was up in June anyway. She’s just moving back in a little sooner than originally planned.

Did we mention how much we admire her? Not only did this young lady come to us to ask for help she has managed the entire move by herself. She talked to her apartment manager and worked out a plan for early termination of her lease, she found a moving company that would move her boxes and furniture into a storage building, she found a storage facility and she had everything packed and ready to go…. She did all of this on her own… can her daddy and WOSM say PROUD? Here?

Of course there always bumps in the road which she found out when the movers were supposed to show up on Friday afternoon, again something else she handled on her own. Whitney took Thursday & Friday as vacation days (she was in a use them or lose them situation anyway)so she could finalize packing on Thursday and Friday the movers would arrive a little after noon. Friday came and now word from the moving company, she finally called them only to find out that, ooops their truck broke down and wouldn’t be able to come until Saturday morning (yes, good customer service would have been for them to call her). She wasn’t pleased but agreed with their 7:00 am Saturday arrival.

She spent the night with us on Friday, get’s up at 5:30 on Saturday morning (yes, there are many things wrong with getting up at that time on a Saturday morning) and heads over to meet the movers at 7:00, or so she thought. 8:00 and still no movers, so she calls them again, the man on the phone (same dude she talked to the night before that told her 7am) told her he was sorry, he knew he told her 7:00 but they accidently put her down for Saturday afternoon, then had “balls” to ask her if that was okay ….. needless to say after Whitney had a little chat with them (#$@%#) they arrived in less than an hour. Not only did they arrive in a hurry she encouraged them to cut their rate since they had kept her waiting an extra day to which they agreed. She’s a smart girl. And we are glad she’s ours! LESSON’S LEARNED:

While we enjoy our empty nest times, we enjoy more being the parents that kids can come to when help is needed