Rain? Maybe not so bad after all.

Maybe it is time to stop complaining about the rain. Maybe it is just an annoyance to us, not a real problem. On the plus side... we haven't had to figure out how to use our sprinkler system yet. We haven't even really had to water. My allergies are almost non-existent because of the cooler, wetter weather. We haven't had to worry about water saving or rationing.

The negative.. well here it is, almost summer. We have had 1 day of 80 D weather. Our nice summer days are generally short anyway, but I suspect this year we will transition to fall/winter without the feeling of having had a "great" summer. So be it.

The picture with this note.. No, it is not here in the NW. It is in Houston, Texas in 1976. Just S of Hobby Airport. Taken from the house we were living, looking across the street. We hadn't been there but a week or two when we awoke to this. We found the water almost to our front door step. It was quite an experience. A lot of fun was had by the kids and their parents playing in the streets. But.....you didn't catch me in the water.... snakes!! I'll take the PNW anytime. There is a reason we are green and beautiful.

Two Strong Women

Yal.. I know. I have already blogged about my Mom before. But maybe some things are worth doing twice. Actually, this is my Mom and Larry's Sis.. Lolly. And they are two strong women.

My Mom.. well you know about her if you read my other blog. Lolly is something else again.

Breast cancer in 1998.. so now a 12 year survivor. Long history of Crohn's Disease. A very hard thing to live with. Life threatening and life changing for sure. Her husband Craig was diagnosed with colon cancer a year after she finished her treatment for the breast cancer. He passed away a couple of years after that. Get the picture? Well, I am not done yet.

Lolly spent most of her adult life working as a broker for King County Medical. She should have had a great retirement, no worries. But some things don't work out as we plan them. She left work early, taking a big loss in her pension, to take care of her husband while he was ill. She would make the same decision again.. but it was another life changing event.

After he died she sold their house and moved into a great retirement mobile home park...a place she planned to stay forever. It was sold about a year after she moved there; big plans for condos. She could buy into that but it was too expensive. There is alot more to the story than that but to make this story short... she lost most of everything in that investment.

Then she decided to move to Vancouver from the Seattle area, to be closer to Larry and me. Since moving here she has been in the hospital multiple times. She had a horrible flare up(s) with her Crohn's, the gallbladder surgery from hell and multiple other issues. She started on a great medication for her Crohn's.. and it controlled the symptoms better than anything she had tried yet. But now two years later she has been diagnosed with congestive heart failture....quite possibly as a result of an unlucky side effect from that medication.

Has she given up? No way! She just keeps plugging away, fighting and figuring out how to configure her life to each new obstacle. I am not sure I could be that strong or keep going but she does. So she has earned a place in my blog for her tenacity and lust for life. To celebrate her, I proudly wear a breast cancer icon on my left ankle.

Rain Rain Go Away

A beautiful sky in BattleGround!

My Mom

Instead of writing a story and adding a picture, I have decided to choose a picture(s) and add a story. This is my remarkable Mom. She has macular degeneration, which means limited vision. She can't really read, can only watch TV with binoculars and of course can't drive. She lost her husband, my Dad a few years ago. She also lost a son, my Brother, to lung cancer. We had to find a way to keep her busy and motivated. That something turned out to be travel!!

She likes to sit in the sun. Most of the females in the family inherited that from her!! The picture of her lounging in the sun was taken in Hawaii a couple of years ago. But it doesn't matter. We were there last year in March too. 27 of us to celebrate her 90th birthday. Her kids, our spouses, our kids, their kids. 27 of us. An amazing trip. And that wasn't enough. My husband and I and Mom went back to Hawaii in October.

Oh.. and she (we--her kids and our spouses) also went to Australia 2 years ago. Two 18 hour flights and she didn't fare much worse than the rest of us. It took us forever to recover from that one! And we have been to North Dakota and the Black Hills of South Dakota with stops at Yellowstone and other places of interest. One trip took us to Los Angeles for a graduation with a side trip to Las Vegas. A year and a half ago we made a trip to Florida. This summer we will be visiting Branson, Missouri and later in the summer Alaska.

Did I mention she has a personal trainer and goes to the gym 3 times a week? Most of her friends are gone now. But she keeps as busy as she can. She still lives in her own house, takes a local bus to get her hair done and her nails, and even to her medical appointments. She has learned to "read" by listening to books. She is truly amazing and an inspiration to the rest of us. And I am here to tell you her potato salad ROCKS!! It is the best!! We love you Mom! Thank you for making the past four years memorable and fun.

PS.. I am still learning how to set this up.

Like I Really Have Time To Do This

Since all three of my daughters do such a wonderful job with their blogs... I am assuming that they came by their wit and talent naturally. So if that assumption is true, then that means I should be able to do this... no problem.. right? Hmm.... not necessarily. My middle daughter, Teri, has shown an enormous talent for blogging and the pictures that go with it. I am not even going to try to compete with that! But.. will give it a go for a little fun. So.. I have figured out how to load a picture. And here we are.. about a gazillion years ago!