Memories

When Dave came to school at 1:00 yesterday to tell me in person that our friend Ericlee had passed away, there were no words.  There were no thoughts.  Only tears.  I could not have written this post 24 hours ago, because last night I was shaking my fist at God and questioning the justice of taking the life of a man with a 37 year old wife and 3 young daughters.  I was demanding to know the justice of stripping a man who dedicated his life to fitness and health of the ability to move.

Today I spent the day with my friend Dorina and she ministered to me, as she has been doing for the past 2 decades.  She testified peace and comfort and even joy during this time.  She spoke honestly about the burden of watching her husband in pain for the past 3 weeks and the relief that he no longer is.  She proclaimed the certainty of Ericlee's welcome into the loving arms of his savior and the hope she has that her family will continue to be held and embraced by the huge community that loves them.  We laughed, we cried, we put together a funeral slide show, we reunited with our other college roommate, Cindy.   And I helped as best I could, changing her baby girl's diaper and clothes, snuggling the one who cried when her toes were stubbed, reading stories, singing songs, watching gymnastics demonstrations.  During this most difficult time, I saw Dorina's precious daughters actually exuding joy and hospitality!  I left Dorina's house today with my heart lighter and ready to share some of my own thoughts of the friend I only knew for 11 years.

Ericlee was the kind of person you might find really intimidating, especially if you are one who compares yourself to others.  He was the most fit person we knew, working as a trainer at Cross Fit and running marathons or triathlons, what seemed like, every weekend.  He had a passion for keeping his body healthy and never put anything artificial or un-organic into it.  When he learned of his cancer diagnosis, he even felt convicted to treat it using the Gerson Therapy-- juicing and consuming organic fruits and veggies every hour.    Ericlee was a great dad and I had countless opportunities to watch him parent his daughters with patience, energy, humor and grace.  He had an amazing work ethic, seen in his extreme devotion to pretty much anything he did in life.  His faith meant everything to him and he did not ever waste a moment getting to know our big God better.  He'd often share with his friends what he was learning from the latest devotional or theology book.  His faith and total trust in God is what led him to full time ministry in Haiti, where he and Dorina helped bridge resources in the US with the remote mountain town they visited every few months.  They also launched The Haitian Bead Project, which has been changing Haitian women's lives for years now by offering "a hand up rather than a hand out".  He and Dorina had this epic love that was unlike any marriage I have ever seen.  They complimented each other perfectly and lived sacrificially for one another.  They embodied the idea of "team"-- working together to passionately do everything from coaching track teams to improving the eating habits of the people around them...and in ALL things always trying to point the world to Christ.  This super fit, super Christian sounds pretty perfect, huh?  And that is why he might be intimidating.   But, Ericlee never made you feel like he was better than you (even though he probably was).  He was one of the warmest, friendliest guys you'd ever meet-- always ready to greet you with that huge smile, a hug, and inquiry about your own life.

I've been dragging some old pictures off my CD library for Dorina, so here are a few random shots taken over the years.  Each carries a special memory with it.  Ericlee and Dorina getting us to do things we'd never do on our own, like eat Ethiopian food and run half marathons (not together, that would probably not be good.).  A reunion with all my college roommates and our hubbies, before there were 8 kids in the picture. And a weekend at a house on the coast with one very creepy stuffed bobcat.

My mind has thought of little else besides Ericlee and his life and death.  And, of course, these thoughts bring up memories of my own parents.  Like Ericlee, my dad was 40 when he died.  Like my mom, he died of a short, but intense battle with cancer.  Like Meilani, their oldest daughter, I was 8 when my dad died.  As we talked Ella through all of this yesterday, she made the natural connection to my parents too.  She asked me to tell her about them.  I told her how my dad was gentle and tender-hearted.  He was the one to tickle me and hold my hand.  He was blind, so his sense of hearing was especially strong and he loved all things music.  He would take my sister and I on a walk to the ice cream shop on the corner every Tuesday night.  My mom had to raise two little kids completely on her own when my dad died suddenly.  She was strong and independent and tough enough to fight for everything her family needed, and even wanted.

Ella cut right through me when she asked, "Do you think they would have liked me?"  "Oh Hunny, they would have LOVED you!  My dad would have been your #1 fan as you played piano for him and my mom would have thought you were independent and strong too. Your amazing self would have melted her tough heart." I assured her.

A part of me is still shaking that fist at God... for the childhoods my dad missed-- mine and his granddaughters' and now for the childhoods of Meilani, Giada and Zayla that Ericlee will miss. And I have a million questions: Given what he and his life were all about, wasn't his death was the most cruel way to go?  He was such an amazing leader and servant, couldn't he have done so much more if allowed to stay on this earth?   These questions will continue to haunt me, and it is Dorina's own words that I'll continue to go back to in seeking comfort, understanding, and trust: "We have heard many people question: How could something like this happen to Ericlee? He’s so healthy, so fit, such a good guy, works so hard, sacrifices so much for Haiti, etc. etc. We want to underscore that we do not believe in that theology. We do not believe that just because you are “good,” “hard-working,” “healthy,” or even “doing good in the world” then you will be exempt from trials. In fact, the Bible gives example after example that we will ALL face trials. Every trial is an opportunity to reflect the God we trust, who holds the future and loves us deeply. James 1:2-3 says, 'Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you can be mature and complete, not lacking in anything.'"

The ExplOratorium

This post starts with praise yet again for our awesome library system.  They have a program that allows you to "check out" tickets to area museums for free.  We have tried and loved using this library program the past.  The museum we explored this weekend is a pretty popular one, so we had to reserve these tickets about a month ago.  We've been looking forward to this outing for a long time!  We explored San Francisco's hailed science museum, the Exploratorium.  

We've been here before, but the girls were small and the museum was still in its old location.  Last year it moved to a beautiful, bright, new setting on Pier 17.  I had read that the Exploratorim has 1000 some hands-on exhibits, with about 600 of them being on the floor at any given time.  And I think we saw most of them!  We stayed the whole time they were open-- touching, experiencing, and learning cool new things about all areas of science.

 This air blower both balanced a beach ball in the air and gave us new hairstyles, which was perhaps not the most scientific!

 This crazy drinking fountain messed with our minds and tricked our senses.

 In the xylophone room we learned how sound changes when the shape and thickness of the block you are whaling on does.

 This huge curved mirror turned our inverted images into 3-D ones!  We were all fascinated giving our reflections high fives and hand shakes.

This room was one of our favorites!  A trick in perspective shrank and grew us!

 Delia loved learning about 3/4 and 4/4 rhythms while practicing her Rick Allen one-armed drumming skills!

 We left our jumping shadows on the wall of this fun room.

 Another trick in perspective.

 Here the girls got their 80's music video vibe on.  Also, they learned about how tornadoes form as a fog vortex twisted around them.

 This exhibit was hands-down our favorite.  With magnifying glasses that saturated the color, we watched the water we sprayed become frozen crystals growing and spreading across an ice table. "I know what 'frozen fractals' are now!!" exclaimed Ella.

 Reverse ears made our brains have to think in a new way yet again when we closed our eyes and tried to discern where sound was coming from.

And some very cool outdoor exhibits got played with too.  Here Ella has found her way to the top of a strange kind of maze structure.  (Delia is not in the picture because she far away pouting that we wouldn't allow her to climb it too.)

We're thrilled that we got to experience this world-class museum for free!  Visiting the Exploratorium was super fun, but also exhausting.  Seven hours of walking, playing, thinking, and learning will really wear out your mind and body!  Delia fell asleep before we even turned her lights off at night.

No Surgery!

For Delia, the past 10 days have been all about getting used to a very different lifestyle.  She has learned how to do most everything one handed.  She has learned how to entertain herself at recess without moving from a bench.  She has learned that Mom will freak out if she jumps on the couch instead of just laying still on it.  She has learned how to tell her story 100 times and deal with people she doesn't even know giving her hugs and expressing concern.  She has learned that checking the mail each day is an exciting adventure! :)

And today we learned a lot more about what the next 56 days will look like when we had our follow up appointment with the orthopedic surgeon.  He is very pleased with the bone alignment job those rockstars in the ER did.  He sees no reason to do surgery, but warned that the arm is still very fragile.  It is possible for the bones to bump out of place, which would cause great pain and also send us straight to the operating room.  Because of the fragility of the the bones even 10 days in, he didn't want to touch Delia's arm too much, or take off the soft cast.  In one week, he will X-ray again and hopefully move Delia to a hard cast that will still go up over her elbow.  Delia's one question to the doctor was, "What color casts do you guys have?"  He said the magic words, "Oh, almost every color...and GLITTER!"

While we're thrilled to hear the exact news we've been praying for, we still have concern.  This IS Delia we are talking about and if the issue is protecting her arm from any sort of bump that would misalign those bones, we need to keep praying!  Right before the doctor entered the room, we shooed Delia off the wheeled, spinny stool she was attempting to climb and stand on!

     

But, oh how we are blessed!  The above picture shows Delia posing with some of the cards and notes she's received.  Entire classes at school have written her letters, people from our school we don't even know have mailed stuff.  Presents are found waiting for her in my classroom in the morning.  She has felt the love and we're once again so thankful to be a part of such an awesome community!

And Now for a Happier Post...

Today we woke up before the sun to check out the inflating and launch of a dozen hot air balloons at a nearby festival.  This is something we've done in the past and it is always fantastic.  We love that spectators can get right  up close, seeing the inflating process within arms reach, feeling the heat from the torches, and watching the drivers in their baskets float directly over our heads.  It's hard not to get great photos at this colorful event, so I'll let the pics speak for themselves...

 We found our friends Sara, Arend, and Anja again!  We must like all the same nearby and free events!

After watching the launch and chatting with all the school friends we bumped into, we enjoyed a nice restaurant breakfast.  And then we came home and took naps. :)

A Monday We Were Not Expecting

Being a reader of this blog, you must know that I don't like to waste any time in transferring our pictures and memories to this digital format.  Often we'll go on an outing or vacation and the very night we return I'll be typing out blog posts.  Well, our big event from this week is something I am certainly not anxious to record.  In fact some of the sights and sounds of it are things I've been praying that God will take out of my mind so I can sleep at night.  But, we have some friends who may not yet know, so I will share Monday's accident for the sake of keeping everyone updated and in the loop.

At 12:30 on Monday, Delia took a nasty fall from some playground equipment at school and broke her left arm.  Unfortunately it was the kind of break that caused her arm to not really look like an arm anymore.  The staff and administrators who took care of her in those first scary moments are amazing because they stayed calm and reacted quickly.  They decided it looked so gnarly, a 911 call was necessary.  When a messenger came to my classroom to tell me Delia was hurt and in the office, I did not expect to find our school secretary on the phone with the paramedics discussing what to do when Delia "went into shock."  By the grace of God, I was somehow able to stay calm too and focused straight on Delia, praying out loud with her as the 911 team gently put her mangled arm in a splint and loaded her onto a stretcher.  And then we took our first (and hopefully last) ambulance ride!

Let me pause here and say that Delia is my hero.  She was so brave.  So tough.  So strong.  She was still and calm throughout the ordeal and barely even cried.  And she was in immense pain.  She hasn't been to school in a few days, but she is a bit of a super star right now.  We're learning news travels fast when you leave school in an ambulance!

At the hospital, we were prioritized and given a private ER room.  They quickly took X-rays and told us to prepare for surgery.  The most waiting we did was for Delia's stomach to digest the lunch she ate right before falling.  But, our ER nurses were wonderful, wheeling a small TV into our room and letting Delia watch a movie while the morphine kicked in.

They decided to try a procedure that would align the bones as best as possible and allow us to go home for the night and follow up with the surgeon the next day.  Neither Dave nor I wanted to be the parent in the room for the gruesome procedure, but Dave did it and is my second hero.  Delia was put under, thank goodness, because the things that happened during this time of bone aligning were the worst part of the day.  I will not go into any detail except to say that it was a huge success and the doctors who did this for Delia's bones are optimistic we won't need surgery after all.  We'll know for sure when we head to the orthopedics next week Wednesday.  Delia's arm is very swollen and bruised, so she was fitted with a big squishy cast.  A hard cast will come later and be worn for 8 weeks.  She can't wait to get a pink one that her friends can sign.

Since she was unconscious, the second longest time we waited in the ER was for her to wake up and prove she was going to be okay.  She had an IV, heart monitors, and oxygen nubs in her nostrils and she woke up dizzy, disoriented and puking.  It was hard to see our little one in this condition.

But, our story ends happy.  Once we finally made it home, over 8 hours later, Delia had perked up and was even smiling and cracking jokes!  The past 2 days have been surprisingly great!  She is only taking regular Tylenol for pain and is begging us to go back to school because she feels fine and is so bored at home.  We're going let her try a half day tomorrow, with her spending recesses with me.  She told me tonight as I tucked her in, "I'm SO EXCITED to go to school!!!", like it's a big vacation or something.  Ella made us laugh when her night time prayer was, "Please remind Delia to be safe and don't let her break her leg...or her other leg...or another arm."  AMEN, girl!

God is good and we have seen Him answer the prayers that a hundred friends have told us they're lifting up.  What a blessing for me to be right at school when this happened!  And that surgery, which seemed to be a certainty, may not even be needed.  Delia has very little pain and her spirits are high.  The staff and students at school have showered us with emails, texts and cards.  Even in this awful accident, we see God working for the good and we have nothing but praise that we've been so well taken care of by everyone-- from the school principal who first tended to Delia to the ER nurses to the long list of friends who have offered specific help.

I'll leave you with a few shots of Delia wrapped up in a soft cast and sling, but happy nevertheless.  Thank you, Lord, for your protection and goodness!!!

Big Trees Family Day

A friend from church tipped us off about this great Family Day at our favorite state park.  We decided that even though we were tired from the first week of school and there was no shortage of chores to do around the house, we'd go for it and make it a family outing day.  We're so glad we did!  This special event was fantastic and exceeded all our expectations!

Set up all around the Big Trees Visitor Center were booths, shows, and interactive displays...

The church friend who gave us the suggestion (Mike, in the above picture) is a reptile enthusiast and his booth did end up being our favorite.  He brought a wide variety of reptiles native to California-- snakes, lizards, tortoises, toads, salamanders, etc.  He had several out for people to hold, which surprisingly delighted the girls.  A Rosy Boa has been added to the list of future pets. 

After a Birds of Prey show, the girls each got to try holding this beautiful hawk.

At each booth we learned something new-- like, how the Miwok Indians made dolls, how to track Big Trees animals with their poop, how to cast a fly fishing pole (above) or how the local fire department responds and drives to fires (below).

The girls each created some bird nest art work.

 And we saw another great show called "Wild Things" where we were introduced to owls, skunks, eagles, vultures and even a rattlesnake up close!

 We even found our good friends Sara, Arend and Anja at Big Trees Family Day!  We watched the Story Teller Lady with them.

And then together strolled over to the talented face painting ladies who decorated the kids' faces and arms with flowers, hummingbirds and frogs-- true works of art that were sad to wash off in the bath.

We're thankful our friend Mike encouraged us to attend this neat event!  There was quite a bit of learning to be done and fun to be had  We stayed at Big Trees for 5 hours and never even got to the North Grove hiking trail we usually hit!  I think we'll have to make this a new "Survived the First Week of School" tradition!

Here We Go Again!

A Song for Summer 

by Ella

(sung to the tune of "Call Me Maybe")

Summer was very fun

spending our days in the sun

swimming every day

but now it's sch-ool time.

Beaches and whales are cool

but now it's time to start school.

Summer went by so fast,

but now it's school time at last!

Vi-sit-ing Re-ho-both

Camping in the wilderness

playing at the beach...

our summer was so great, BABY!

Hey!  Riding horses was a blast,

But, now it's school time.

Bring on the math!

Hey!  Mount Hermon ropes course was a blast,

But now it's school time.

Bring on the math!

And here we are, ready to dive into a new year of school!  Report-worthy this year:

-Our school switched to uniforms, so these colored polo shirts one, challenge our creativity/desire to show cute personal style, and two, keep my Photoshop skills fine-tuned, as I'll blur the school logo in every pic posted publicly. 

-The teachers both girls were matched with are sort of new to us this year.  We look forward to getting to know these ladies we don't know that well, but have heard good things about.

-Both Ella and Delia landed with at least 4 best friends in their class, so they're super happy.

-I've just been beaming all day because my first day in preschool was as close to perfect as I could have hoped.  God answered every prayer I anxiously lifted up to Him.  Amazingly, I have a whole class full of friendly, confident, respectful and happy kiddos!  Am I'm still love, love, loving my co-teachers and schedule.

-Dave was honored to be the speaker at the whole school First Day Chapel.  I've already heard from many that he did a fantastic job and I and the girls are very proud of him!

As Ella lyricized, "Summer's over" and indeed it was "a blast!"  But, as we start a new year, we look forward to all God has for us! (Bring on the math!)