My Friend, Melanie

I met Melanie when I first moved to town in 1996. I went to a "stitch in" (all day cross stitching) at a local cross stitch store and Melanie was there. She was my first friend in town and pretty much my only friend for a few years. We spent many, many hours at those Saturday stitch ins. Melanie was so good at all things crafty. Her cross stitch was always beautiful and perfect (mine wasn't). She even won ribbons in the county fair for her work. She took up painting and excelled at that as well. Melanie was a gift giver, usually giving something she had made. I remember one year when she gave half a dozen or so of her friends 12 gifts for the 12 days of Christmas. Every gift was something handmade. I have many ornaments on my Christmas tree made by Melanie, they have always been special but now even more so. She never forgot a birthday--she was way too organized for that. One year she and her mom showed up at my house with a homemade birthday cake. And it was good! She was also a great cook. Many of my favorite recipes came from her. We each had our first two children 9 months apart. She told me she was pregnant with Emily when she visited me in the hospital after I had Hannah, my first. Then, she got pregnant with Jackson right before Grace, my second, was born. When I got pregnant with my third she insisted that Tom get a vasectomy. :0) We spent a lot of time together with our babies. We weren't cross stitching anymore. Now we were fixing snacks, changing diapers, and chasing kids. She hosted a monthly playgroup, we were on the steering team at MOPS together, and celebrated every holiday with a great themed party that she always planned. At some point during those years God gave me a burden for Melanie and I prayed for the right time to talk to her about Jesus and His unconditional love for her. Not long afterward I sent her a letter (I was out of town at the time) for her birthday that sparked a series of conversations that ultimately resulted in Melanie accepting Jesus into her heart. She joined a church and quickly put her amazing organizational and craft skills to work blessing many in her church, primarily the children's ministry. God knew the difficult path that Melanie would walk and He made sure that she knew Him and had a strong faith. That faith carried her through 6 years of fighting cancer (some of those years spent in remission). She was so strong and positive through it all. I never saw her angry at the hand she'd been dealt. She chose to live her life the best she could. She was always so brave and positive. Right up to the end. She fought the good fight and when she got to heaven I am sure she heard her Lord and Savior say, "Well done good and faithful servant." She will live on in my heart and in my memories. I pray that God will allow me to be a part of her children's lives. I want to be there to tell them about their mom and to play a part in guiding them in the path she started them on. I am truly blessed to have known her.

Wednesday

We are in Georgia right now visiting with the family for a couple of days. Today we are celebrating my sister's birthday. Happy Birthday Sis! I'm sorry I can't update from my own computer and include an embarrassing picture. I'll work on that when I get home. We went shopping today and I got some warm Ug style boots. I love them. I won't have much opportunity to wear them in FL but they were only $10 and I couldn't resist. I also found myself a really cheap ipod speaker. Woohoo for after Christmas sales. Hannah got some new boots for Christmas and would you believe she is a size 7! That's crazy to me. Kids grow up way too fast. My mom, sister, and my girls, and I had coffee at Starbucks. It was a fun girls' morning out. Tomorrow we are headed to NC to visit with more family, Ollie's parents are coming down to meet us from Chicago. I think it's going to be super cold and I hope we've brought enough warm clothes. My friend, Melanie, passed away last night. I know she's gone to heaven but the truth of the finality of her being gone hasn't sunk in. It doesn't seem real yet and might not for a while. I'm praying for her husband and kids. I can't imagine the hurt they are experiencing. God is good and I know that He will comfort them like only He can.
I haven't been blogging because it just doesn't seem right talking about anything else right now and even now I sit here and can't think of anything else to say. I did want to check in though and update. I hope you all have a safe and Happy New Year's Eve.
Peace out peeps!

Day Three on the Disney Cruise--Castaway Cay

After a wonderful buffet breakfast with chocolate waffles dipped in coffee...we made our way off the ship to Castaway Cay. Disney's own island. Along the path to the beach we met up with a few characters as you will see below.


Our first order of business was bike riding! The bike paths were great--all through beautiful vegetation and one of them ending at the ocean. We had a great time. I have always wanted to rent bikes at some vacation place but we are usually too cheap when we are at a place where renting bikes is offered. It was just as wonderful as I had always thought it would be. There is such freedom now that all of our kids can ride.





This was a lookout tower on one of the paths--you can see the ship way in the background.

After our bike ride we had a snack--the fruit was wonderful! Then we picked up our snorkeling gear and we all did some snorkeling. The water was cold but beautiful. Thankfully we had snorkeled before so we all sort of knew what we were doing. Ollie snorkeled longer than the rest of us but that was okay. We enjoyed lounging on the beach and letting the sun warm us up. When the bar waiter came asking me if I wanted a drink and I asked for hot chocolate I just got a blank stare. About the time we warmed up Ollie came out and announced that he wanted to get back to the ship in 20 minutes to catch "A Christmas Carol" in 3-D. One of the cool things about being on a Disney cruise is that they have a big movie theatre with movies that are still in theatres. We made it to "A Christmas Carol" and later that night saw "Princess and the Frog." To fit that one in the girls and I went at 10:30 that night. Anyway, back to our afternoon. Ollie returned our snorkeling equipment while the kids and I went and got some lunch. They had a buffet line set up just off the beach and we got hotdogs for G and J, a burger for H, and fish sandwiches for Ollie and I and a few giant chocolate chip cookies and we were off for the ship. We made it just in time for the movie! After the movie I showered while the kids went to the pool with H and B. Then we came back and packed and got ready for dinner. It was a busy evening.

We had dinner--a French dinner, it was okay but not my favorite. Dessert was pretty wonderful though. After dinner we finished packing (had to have our bags out by 9 pm) and then went to the final show--"Disney Dreams." Well, the girls and H and B and I went to the show. Ollie and Joe saw "Princess and the Frog," so Joe could get to bed early (10:30 instead of midnight). The show was wonderful, the characters and set are just amazing. After the show we said good night to H and B and got something to drink and some ice cream and made it to the 10:30 movie. Then we crashed until the alarm rang at 6:30. We had to be at breakfast by 7 and then we disembarked and we were home by 10 am. Then we really crashed! It was a great time!!

Saturday ramblings

I am so thankful for a restful day after a very busy and fun, emotion-filled 6 days. I am so thankful for the cruise and the time away to be pampered and have some great fun with the family. I needed it and it's been a hard couple of days for me since we got home. After I got home on Wednesday and returned a phone call I found out that one of my close friends is in the hospital and isn't expected to make it out. Melanie has been fighting Melanoma for 3 or 4 years and things recently have gotten worse but no one knew how bad until she went into the hospital last week for a procedure to remove fluid from her lungs. She quickly went downhill and is in a medically induced coma and they don't think they will be able to wake her up. It has been truly heartbreaking. She has two kids and I am hurting so much for them. So, although we've celebrated Christmas and had some special family time, lots of fun presents, and unbounding joy from the kids there has been an undercurrent of sadness for me. If you are a praying person please pray for Melanie and for her family.
I've really been evaluating my life and the choices I've made with how I spend my time. I have little or no margin in my life. I feel like I am always too busy and overcommitted. Part of that is just the season of life with three kids and homeschooling but I also add a lot to my life and schedule that isn't necessary. When I think about how little time I've spent with Melanie and how little I've done for her over the last 6 months because I was so busy I just ache with regret. I am not usually one to make resolutions but I know that I want to make some changes in my life this year. A new year feels like such a fresh start. I already have some ideas to implement my plan to simplify my life a bit and I am praying for wisdom as I spend some time evaluating the things that take up my time. Well, I've rambled enough...how about some picture posts? I haven't finished talking about the cruise and posting pictures and then of course there's Christmas!

Day Two on the Disney Cruise--the Bahamas

We started our morning with a wonderful breakfast buffet complete with chocolate Mickey waffles and marshmallows!! As we finished breakfast the boat was docking in Nassau and we watched the whole thing from the deck. While we were watching we were visited by Goofy!

We spent the morning doing things on the ship. The kids and I ate lunch at the pool inbetween having the girls' hair wrapped. Hannah enjoyed her burger!
Grace and Joe in the Goofy pool--there is almost always a movie showing on a huge screen at this pool.
The hair wraps! You can't really see Hannah's in this picture but you can see Grace's. The girls are thrilled with these hair wraps.



After lunch we got off the boat and took a tour of Nassau with a couple of stops along the way. Below Grace and Joe are walking down the Queen's Staircase.

We spent an hour at Ardastra Gardens and zoo and saw lots of parrots, lorries, and flamingos. I was standing next to one on one foot being silly and got nipped by a flamingo!


There was a lorrie feeding right when we arrived and the birds would actually land on our hands and eat apples.
Grace on the boat--this one is out of order. Oops.



Back on the ship--Monday night was our Island dinner and a big Pirates in the Caribbean party on deck. Below Joe is eating his carrots like a pirate. Arrgh!

Grace being silly with her hair wrap above and below--my dinner. It was delicious!

Joe has an ice cream bar for dessert.

Aunt Harriet ordered nothing for dessert and this is what they gave her--"Nothing."

Hannah gets silly with her hair wrap too. Below--Hannah displays her appetizer, I can't remember what it was but it was good. She loved ordering off of the grown up menu.

Our waiter was wonderful. He cut up the kids' meat when they ordered something that needed to be cut up and when Uncle Billy said he wished he shrimp wasn't on the shell he shelled it. He also did a lot of fun tricks. I'll have to upload videos of his tricks eventually.



After the pirate party (complete with fireworks) they had a huge dessert buffet. We got dessert and took it back to our room. It was all amazing!