Don't know where to begin
It's like my world's caving in
And I try but I can't control my fear
Where do I go from here?
sometimes its so hard to pray
When You feel so far away
But I am willing to go
Where you want me to
God, I trust You
-Let the Waters Rise
So hi everyone! This is one of those posts that I need to write...not necessarily that I want to write. I started this post this morning before work. I was kind of a mess, the crying sort of mess. I'm happy to say that things have since improved. So I scrapped the dramatic post I wrote this morning and wrote out this one.
Essentially, yesterday (Monday), I felt that my world had flipped completely upsidedown. I say "I" but I think I can speak for pretty much all of my family. Background story: on Sunday, Annetta and I went down to Grandpa's house (my dad's dad...the one who loves right down the road) like we typically do on Sunday afternoons. Grandpa had made a crisp, and we ate it and read comics. He was fine. Problem: The next morning at 7 am, however, he called our home and told my dad that he was stranded in a coffee shop in a town about 20 minutes away...he didn't know how he had gotten there or anything. So my dad went down to Grandpa's house and attempted to convince him that no, he was not at a coffee shop, he was in fact home, and no, he did not spill coffee down his shirt. The entire rest of the day he was like that...Annetta and I spent about 4 and a half hours in the afternoon with him, and he had imaginary conversations (well, the convo was real, just not the other person), yelled at people who weren't there, etc.
Upsetting? You bet. Abrupt? No kidding. It was like the grandpa I'd known for the past 19 years was completely and totally gone, just like that. So my world kinda tipped over.
Today, he's been lucid 95% of the time (according to my dad). He went to a doctors appointment. He has trouble with his ears (anyone who knows him knows that to communicate is to yell. Forcefully :P ) and water retention in his legs. So he and my dad spent about 3 hours at the doctors. They prescribed him some blood pressure and water pills, and they want to see him again next week. They also did some memory tests, which he did relatively well with. Alzheimers does run in the family, though, which he is aware of...it doesn't make it easier for him that he more or less remembers that he was out of it yesterday, and he knows there's a good chance that he will do that again.
So we're currently playing it by ear. We'll see how he does tonight...tomorrow...the next few days. We're sorta cleaning up a bedroom downstairs at his house so that if he needs us to be there a lot, we can do that comfortably in that room. We'd appreciate your prayers so much...for patience (it's hard for my dad to watch his dad go though this), nerves of steel (hey, you try talking to a grandfather who's convinced that people are stealing his money!), for my grandpa's health, and just for us all to be able to deal with this.
I can't really think of much more to add at this point, so I shall say goodnight, and thanks for reading!
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Sunday, January 8, 2012
the wedding of the decade: part 2
Boy, I'm on a roll today! Be sure you scroll down and check out part one, cause I see from my handy dandy feedjit that only one person thus far has been on this afternoon (must be everyone has a life? huh.)
So after the ceremony, we trickled forth from the church (minus the wedding party and family and so forth) and drove cautiously and carefully through falling snow to the reception hall. Then we hung around and ate cookies.
While we did that, Logan did...something technical. I have no idea what it was, but I'm sure it was vital to the success of the reception. The only reason I say that is because he doesn't have facebook..if he did, my guess would be that he was updating his status to something like "wedding was nice, but I'm hungry now...think they'd notice if the cake and I disappeared?" But since he doesn't have facebook, we can be sure he was saving the world from disaster.
Then the bridal party showed up. It was nice they could join us. I got "pictures" of them coming in. The reason that that word is in quotation marks is because these "pictures" are so bad they don't even deserve the name. So I'm not posting them. The only one that came out even remotely okay was the entrance of the best man with the ring bearer. And neither of them read my blog, so I'm posting it. so ha.
Food! And I didn't get pictures of that (thank me later), so we move on to the after-food entertainment. (Duncan, you're famous now! Also Mr. R's elbow is famous too.)
Then we took some actual posing pictures. Someday I'll share with you my candid from-the-hip shots, but that day is not here yet (I heard that sigh of relief...). First, we have Arielle and Katrina
and Katrina with Jessica
and Jennifer and Jessica
This next picture...well, let me say something. I love all my friends. I really do. So when I say this, I say it with all Christian love and encouragement. And so I say: Reuben, YOU LOOK LIKE A STALKER! I'm kidding you.. you know that, right, Reuben? Reuben? Reub--he's gone. hmm. wonder why he left...
Then we come to this group photo. The game night group. This is where it started, and this is where it ended...(tissues?) Many thanks go to Mrs. F for the photo...her's turned out roughly 167 times better than mine did. I labelled some of the more interesting points for you.
The toast by Jess and Aaron was awesome. Unfortunately, the video is 167 MB, and blogger says that a video can't exceed 100 MB. So. I am currently uploading it to facebook. It doesn't look like it's working, so I will be working on uploading it somewhere and putting the link up, but that might be a separate post.
And so we now move on to the decorating of the getaway car. Balloons were used with abandon, glowsticks and a glowmarker were utilized, and jingle bells. This picture does not accurately portray the bitter freezing cold that we endured (have you ever tried to string jingle bells onto ribbon with frozen, numbing hands? It doesn't work well.), but such was our great dedication to the Task At Hand that we remained loyally on the job. We all did an excellent job, if I do say so myself :)
And then it was over, and Matt and Arielle drove off into the freezing unknown, and the rest of us cleaned up like industrious beavers, and then we went home and stared at the clock and were shocked that it was only 6 o'clock cause it felt like a lot later. And a few days later, I finally thawed out. And that was that.
So after the ceremony, we trickled forth from the church (minus the wedding party and family and so forth) and drove cautiously and carefully through falling snow to the reception hall. Then we hung around and ate cookies.
While we did that, Logan did...something technical. I have no idea what it was, but I'm sure it was vital to the success of the reception. The only reason I say that is because he doesn't have facebook..if he did, my guess would be that he was updating his status to something like "wedding was nice, but I'm hungry now...think they'd notice if the cake and I disappeared?" But since he doesn't have facebook, we can be sure he was saving the world from disaster.
Then the bridal party showed up. It was nice they could join us. I got "pictures" of them coming in. The reason that that word is in quotation marks is because these "pictures" are so bad they don't even deserve the name. So I'm not posting them. The only one that came out even remotely okay was the entrance of the best man with the ring bearer. And neither of them read my blog, so I'm posting it. so ha.
Food! And I didn't get pictures of that (thank me later), so we move on to the after-food entertainment. (Duncan, you're famous now! Also Mr. R's elbow is famous too.)
Then we took some actual posing pictures. Someday I'll share with you my candid from-the-hip shots, but that day is not here yet (I heard that sigh of relief...). First, we have Arielle and Katrina
and Katrina with Jessica
and Jennifer and Jessica
This next picture...well, let me say something. I love all my friends. I really do. So when I say this, I say it with all Christian love and encouragement. And so I say: Reuben, YOU LOOK LIKE A STALKER! I'm kidding you.. you know that, right, Reuben? Reuben? Reub--he's gone. hmm. wonder why he left...
Then we come to this group photo. The game night group. This is where it started, and this is where it ended...(tissues?) Many thanks go to Mrs. F for the photo...her's turned out roughly 167 times better than mine did. I labelled some of the more interesting points for you.
The toast by Jess and Aaron was awesome. Unfortunately, the video is 167 MB, and blogger says that a video can't exceed 100 MB. So. I am currently uploading it to facebook. It doesn't look like it's working, so I will be working on uploading it somewhere and putting the link up, but that might be a separate post.
And so we now move on to the decorating of the getaway car. Balloons were used with abandon, glowsticks and a glowmarker were utilized, and jingle bells. This picture does not accurately portray the bitter freezing cold that we endured (have you ever tried to string jingle bells onto ribbon with frozen, numbing hands? It doesn't work well.), but such was our great dedication to the Task At Hand that we remained loyally on the job. We all did an excellent job, if I do say so myself :)
And then it was over, and Matt and Arielle drove off into the freezing unknown, and the rest of us cleaned up like industrious beavers, and then we went home and stared at the clock and were shocked that it was only 6 o'clock cause it felt like a lot later. And a few days later, I finally thawed out. And that was that.
the wedding of the decade
December 17, 2011 was a day to remember. For one, it involved glowsticks and balloons and jinglebells. But another good reason to remember this day was because Matt and Arielle chose it as their wedding day. There were bridal showers and preparations in the days leading up, but that's a different story. Today's post is all about the wedding (see, I can stay on track when I want to. The sun is shining. I like birds. Hamsters are cute. I like the name Skippy for hamsters. Charlie would also be a good name. I don't like walmart's kind of gummy worms. Or their chicken...it's too spicy. Where were we? Oh yeah...staying on track.)
I have to give you some history here first (most of you know this anyhow, but this is for, like, my grandmother, or you know, people who read my blog from far away, like my grandmother and, um...okay, I guess just my grandmother. Hi Grandma Suzy!). Matt And Arielle met at our house, actually. We had just met his family and decided to invite them to the homeschool game nights that we do roughly once per month with homeschooled teens in the area. And the rest is history...a doozy of a history. Of course, at that time, who knew that history was in the making with a simple introduction?
Facebook now enters the story. Specifically, Matt's facebook profile. The speculations at this point were beginning... "do you think he likes her??"...and Matt's facebook would appear to support this. I mean, when a guy posts country love songs on his profile all the time (like, several per night??), it either means he was hacked by a conniving female or he likes someone. So for those of us also on facebook, we decided it was the latter option and commenced popping popcorn and charging camera batteries and drawing diagrams for decorating getaway cars. Matt graduated highschool and went to basic training...and Arielle (from all accounts) missed him, fell in love, he called her dad, they started a relationship, blah blah blah, called her dad again, engagement, blah blah blah, wedding. Which is where we are today. Pictures. Wedding. Enjoy :)
The first picture...watching his bride come down the aisle on her daddy's arm (sniff...tissues anyone?)
Who giveth this woman to this man? (TISSUES?? halp!)
Arielle's grandmother sang a song ("Each For The Other")...besides being an amazing singer, she's also a talented seamstress. The seamstress part came in very handy when the bridesmaids dresses were delivered a couple weeks before the wedding and needed adjustments done to prevent passing out due to lack of oxygen. (Oxygen = a good thing. Always remember this, kids.)
Next: the bridesmaids (here they're turned for Grandma's song). Please don't hate me, girls...you all looked amazing, and this is the only picture that I took that had you all in it :)
We also watched a slideshow of pictures of Matt and Arielle. (It's playing right above the groomsmen.)
The rest of these are from the exchange of rings. For whatever reason, I don't appear to have taken pics of the rest of the ceremony.
Gotta love the look on their faces... :)
awww...
Can you concentrate any harder there? :P
And my favorite :)
Next post: the reception.
I have to give you some history here first (most of you know this anyhow, but this is for, like, my grandmother, or you know, people who read my blog from far away, like my grandmother and, um...okay, I guess just my grandmother. Hi Grandma Suzy!). Matt And Arielle met at our house, actually. We had just met his family and decided to invite them to the homeschool game nights that we do roughly once per month with homeschooled teens in the area. And the rest is history...a doozy of a history. Of course, at that time, who knew that history was in the making with a simple introduction?
Facebook now enters the story. Specifically, Matt's facebook profile. The speculations at this point were beginning... "do you think he likes her??"...and Matt's facebook would appear to support this. I mean, when a guy posts country love songs on his profile all the time (like, several per night??), it either means he was hacked by a conniving female or he likes someone. So for those of us also on facebook, we decided it was the latter option and commenced popping popcorn and charging camera batteries and drawing diagrams for decorating getaway cars. Matt graduated highschool and went to basic training...and Arielle (from all accounts) missed him, fell in love, he called her dad, they started a relationship, blah blah blah, called her dad again, engagement, blah blah blah, wedding. Which is where we are today. Pictures. Wedding. Enjoy :)
The first picture...watching his bride come down the aisle on her daddy's arm (sniff...tissues anyone?)
Who giveth this woman to this man? (TISSUES?? halp!)
Arielle's grandmother sang a song ("Each For The Other")...besides being an amazing singer, she's also a talented seamstress. The seamstress part came in very handy when the bridesmaids dresses were delivered a couple weeks before the wedding and needed adjustments done to prevent passing out due to lack of oxygen. (Oxygen = a good thing. Always remember this, kids.)
Next: the bridesmaids (here they're turned for Grandma's song). Please don't hate me, girls...you all looked amazing, and this is the only picture that I took that had you all in it :)
We also watched a slideshow of pictures of Matt and Arielle. (It's playing right above the groomsmen.)
The rest of these are from the exchange of rings. For whatever reason, I don't appear to have taken pics of the rest of the ceremony.
Gotta love the look on their faces... :)
awww...
Can you concentrate any harder there? :P
And my favorite :)
Next post: the reception.
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