Thanksgiving '06

More pics, again

My dear sis has asked for pics of my kids, so here they are.... Taken mostly at ChuckECheese....


Here is JoJo Bug in ponytails. When your 3-year-old calls you Mom instead of Mommy, I figure I can call her just Jo.
You know me, tell me she doesn't already do my looks.

















Dominic at ChuckE's.. his torn down collar shows he ran hard thru the tunnel.



















I tried and tried to get them both to look my way, but with all the distractions, I lost.


















She's just cute :)


















My kids, as natural as they ever are. So darling :)

I'm so alone

I never realized until a few days ago, how alone I am in the world. I don't ever talk to anyone who isn't related to me. I don't have a single friend, except for my sister. And she's not always the easiest person to talk to.

There's nothing quite like sitting all alone in the emergency room's waiting room, all alone, and being overjoyed to see your father show up. Because suddenly there's a shoulder to lean on. Not having a friend to call, to sit with you.. it's so sad.

Ok this is what happened. It was Monday. The whole family was home. Me and Katie were watching tv and Dominic and Jodie were running around playing. Weston was on the computer. Typical day at our house. Out of nowhere Weston says, "Honey, I have a problem". He turns around and his face is totally red. His ears were purple. It was like all the blood in his body was rushing to his head and staying there. He tells me he can't breathe and that his heart is racing. And he has to get to the bathroom. He tries to get up and he falls to the floor, bringing the vaccuum down on top of him. He's a big guy, I can't help him get up. He gets to the bathroom on his own, then goes and collapses on our bed. It was the closest place to fall down, I guess. I call 911. He's panting and hardly breathing and then starts having convulsions. He's drooling. I'm totally panicing. I'm thinking he's going to die right then and there and there is nothing I can do about it. I call Grandma and ask her to come get the kids, it's an emergency. The paramedics come, finally. They seemed to take forever. Weston manages to walk down the hall, with their help and gets on the stretcher. I'm still totally in a panic, but it was like I was functioning outside of my panic. I told Weston I'd meet him at the hospital, but I had to settle the kids and make sure they would be ok. I figured he was in good hands, paramedics know what to do. So I got the kids back in the house, had Katie gather some things for them, locked up the house and left them there to wait for grandma to come and get them. I followed the ambulance to the hospital and then waited. And waited and waited some more. I had no idea what was going on with Weston. He was back in the emergency room patient area and I was in the waiting room. Finally, about 2 hours later, one of the paramedics came out and told me he was doing ok and they were still waiting for him to be put into a room.

It was about 9 pm when Dad showed up. I wasn't actually all that surprised to see him, which when I think of my relationship with him, is odd. But Dad is the 'show-up guy' when the shit hits the fan. He sat with me, and I told him what I knew about what was going on with Weston, which was basically nothing. Then Dad just talked. One thing about Dad, he can always talk. And he can usually make me laugh, even when that's the last thing I want to do. We went out and smoked and he helped me to stop stressing, as much as anyone could have.

About an hour after Dad showed up, I finally got called from the waiting room. Weston finally got put in a room and I could go see him. He was okay. Good enough to be complaining anyway. They were running tests and drawing blood. Whatever was wrong was not immediately obvious to them. But the doctor insisted he stay overnight, so they could do more tests in the morning. Boy did Weston put up a fight about that! But he got convinced to stay.

Little did he know that he'd have to stay yet another night after that. Poor guy, I felt bad for him. Hospital food and no smoking. But I figured, hey, if they could find out what was wrong, keep him. It's worth it.

Turns out, he had a TIA (a mini-stroke, in less technical terms). Now I'm all about changing his diet, making sure he keeps in touch while he's working.. and working my ass off to do my schooling as quickly and as well as I can, so I can start making money, so he doesn't have to work so hard. TIA's lead to real strokes which cause brain damage, and real heart attacks that cause death. And that would be bad. I'd like to have my husband around for at least 30 more years.

More pictures

Hawaii pics

For now, I'm just going to load up my pictures, cause myspace sucks! 12 picture limit? WTF? I have 70 or so....

Ok, now I'm doing captions


We had just arrived, and Jamaie took us on a driving tour to see various sites. This rocky, scenic place was the first stop.

According to Jamaie's 'bible', Oahu Revealed, this is called the Jumping Rock. It's kinda deserted in this picture, but we saw it many times, with many more people on it. And it never occured to me, even once, to want to jump off it myself.

Hmmm, dunno, a random stretch of beach I happened to catch while going down the road.

And another random beach. But look at this.. nice beach area, nice mostly clear sky.. and no one is there.

Cool rocky beach area.. apparently good for scuba diving.

This just looks cool. Volcanic rocks, splishy waves.

Chinaman's hat... with Katie and Autumn.

Katie.. wearing the Chinaman's hat.

Kate just couldn't wait to get her feet wet in the Hawaiian water.

From the very beginning, Autumn was Katie's little shadow. If I wanted a pic of Katie alone, I had to shoo Autumn away. However, this is a great picture of them on a point of the place with the hole in the rock.

The hole in the rock. One of the places Jamaie found in her book, that most people don't get to see. This hole, according to the book, was created overnite, during a storm.


The first of many shots of the mountains of Oahu.

Oh eessh! The second day, at the lagoons of Ko'Olina. How white and flabby am I? hehe

Sunset

More sunset

Umm, I think this is Waikiki.

More of Waikik, with surfer peoples.

Shawn took me and Katie up to this (somthing) pass, with this spectacular view. Maybe if he sees, this, he'll be nice enough to tell me what this is called.

Another shot from the pass.

And another one.

And Katie, on the plaque, at the pass.

The secret beach. I'm sure it has a real name, but that's what Jamaie called it, so that's what I'm calling it. Small, and actually accessable.

More of the water at the secret beach. It doesn't show up good in the pictures, but the water was this absolutely amazing shade of aqua. Now I know why aqua crayons have that name.

Am I turtly enough for the turtle club? (This is my best turtle pic of the whole trip, but by no means, the only one :)

A lighthouse.. as seen from the SeaLife Park, where we swam with the lovly dolphin, Isti Bitsi.