A Dear Friend

For those who know me well, or have known me long, know that I was once in love with another man. Yes, it is true. But we aren't here to talk about him. I was blessed enough to love another through him. His beautiful sister Ginger. I remember the fist time Ginger invited us over to her house. I couldn't of been more then 17. I was slightly intimidated knowing that this was the guy I was datings sister, and those are always hard to please (good thing Sterling doesn't have any :P). I had met Ginger plenty of times before, but I know that Derek had a special place for her. She was different. I quickly understood why. Within seconds of walking into Ginger's home, I felt welcome. And after minutes of sitting down with her and having a conversation, I felt as if I had known her forever. Derek and I spent most Friday evenings with Ginger and her family and soon just Ginger and I would be out getting pedicures, taking her kids to the beach, watching the Bachelor and American Idol and some days, just hanging out. I quickly learned to love Ginger, as I would my very own sister. Wherever we would go, she would correct strangers if they ever called me Ginger's friend. She would always say "oh, this is my sister."

Once Derek and I were no longer dating, I was sure I would lose Ginger as my sister. I personally know what it is like to be 'the sister'. When my brothers stop dating a girl, we rarely see or speak to them after. It isn't necessarily by choice, but our of respect for the loss of love. Well, Ginger wouldn't let that happen. We still went to the beach, lazed around and watched silly tv shows, got pedicures, and spent valuable 'sister' time together.

After being diagnosed with Endometriosis, Ginger was there for me every step of the way. After every surgery I had, Ginger was always one of the first calls I received once coming home from the hospital. She got me through the hardest parts of it all.

One day, I remember receiving a text from Ginge asking if I wanted to get a pedicure 'next week'. I clearly remember this being a Tuesday. I quickly agreed and looked forward to our little date.

That weekend, I drove up with Sterling to visit my Mom in Arrowhead.

Sunday morning I awoke to a phone call from Derek. I thought it strange that Derek would call me at 7:00 in the morning, so I answered inquisitively.

Derek informed me, through slightly monotone, tear filled words that our dear beloved Ginger had passed away that morning. The cause was still unknown, all he told me was that she simply stopped breathing in her sleep.

I couldn't speak. I don't remember saying anything back to him but ' oh Derek' and 'thank you for calling me.'

I slowly entered the room where Sterling was sleeping. I told him what had happened and he just sort of stood there, shocked as I was.

As I went into my Mother's room to give her the news, I lost every bit of 'shock' and hysterically broke down. My Mother cried along with me.

Everyone who knew Ginger was blessed to have had such a special person in their lives.

As time has gone by, and the initial blow of losing a loved one fades, I have wished I could still share my life with her. I wish I could have called her to tell her I was pregnant, get pregnancy advise from her, and now, motherly advise. I am comforted to know that she was too perfect for this world, and was peacefully taken to live with my Heavenly Father. Her time on this earth was brief, a mere 31 years, but she impacted many lives, especially mine.

She was an amazing mother to her 4 children, wife and friend. She never judged or had a bad thing to say about anyone. I am not even exaggerating. She was perfect, and I love her.

She passed away 3 years ago just last week.

Ginger gave me this apron the night before I left for Culinary school. We went to Golden Spoon and spent so much time talking in the car that we killed her battery hehehe. It is one of my fondest memories with her. Unfortunately, since my old computer crashed, I lost the pictures I had together with Ginger.

Every day she shows me an example of how I should be. Her testimony of the gospel has always been such an example, one worth following. I can't wait, dear Ginger, until we will meet again one day. God be with you till we meet again.

Kael's 'problem'

OK, It is much easier for me to inform you all what is going on with my sweet baby boy here, than it is to update on my status on Facebook.

Back round...

Saturday night, Kael woke up screaming. He was completely inconsolable and I knew, being a true mother, that something wasn't right. He never wakes up at night and if he does, he doesn't cry like this. The screaming went on for about an hour and a half and as I was walking out to catch a taxi to take him to the hospital (we were in New York at the time) he stopped crying and fell asleep. I thought it was odd and decided to keep a good eye on him.

The next day, Kael refused to eat and I was only able to get him to drink a small amount.

Same thing happened the next day, but a fever joined the mix. He was so hot that I couldn't hold him. His skin felt like it was going to burn me. The day the fever set in (Monday) he had another screaming episode. When he has these episodes, there is nothing I can do to help him feel better. The thing that sticks out to me is that he won't let me sit down, as if whatever is going on with him hurts worse when his legs are crunched up.

Tuesday, the fever continued to rage and I started to believe he had an ear infection, so I decided to take him to an urgent care near by. Upon arriving, the urgent care told me that they do not treat children and to go to the hospital. So that's where we went.

When we arrived they checked his ears and they were totally fine, so on went the investigation. They did an ultrasound to see if his intestines were spasming. They weren't. They took X rays to see if he had anything wrong with his lungs. He didn't. They took blood and everything looked fine. So what is causing the fever, screaming, and lack of appetite?!?!?!?! Ugggghhhh!!!! So frustrating!!

There were benefits to the tests though....

During the ultrasound, the tech had mentioned how full Kael's bladder was and how he was going to pee any second. Well.... he didn't. In fact, he never peed on his own. 10 hours after the last time he had peed, he had a straight Catheter inserted. They had to dig around to get his bladder to release everything he was retaining. They said he was a little dehydrated so it was probably crystallizing and blocking the passage.

He was almost instantly a new baby once they relieved his bladder, but it didn't last long. The screaming continued until they decided to give him an enema ( the x ray showed a whole lot of poo up inside of him) he felt better once everything was out of him, but he was still sporting a major fever.

Since we had to catch a plane home, the doctor decided to discharge us, but she was very hesitant and you could just tell in her eyes that she felt as if she was making the wrong decision.

Our flight was canceled so we stayed one more night in New York and our son seemed to be his old self once again. We were so happy and relieved. It felt so good to see him eat and drink again.

And that brings us to today,

Although Kael slept most of the way, the flight was hard. we kept him drinking (in fear of him becoming dehydrated again) and he had peed during our layover in Dallas at about 6:00am Cali time. He screamed in the airplane when he wasn't sleeping all. Well, mostly, he did give us a break from screaming for about 10 minutes. It was rough. When we got home I had received a call from my doctor saying he wanted me to call him as soon as I got his message.

When I called the doctor he asked me some questions and demanded to see Kael as soon as possible. From 6:00am to 3:30pm, Kael had not peed. But, of course, as soon as we see the doctor, Kael's fever had broken and he had peed literally minutes before we arrived. The doc sent us home with a clean bill of health and just figured everything was caused by a virus + dehydration.

BUT

Here's the bad news....

He told us to call him if Kael was still having trouble peeing/pooping and here is why...

He believes the problem could be neurological and that Kael's brain isn't sending messages to the ares in his body that produce waste to release the waste they have built up in them. This could be a serious problem but he didn't go into much detail about it because he figured Kael does not have the problem.

Wellllllllllll.....

Kael hasn't peed since this afternoon at 3:30 and has currently been napping for the last few hours diaperless..... He also hasn't pooped at all today, which is very very abnormal for him. I'm starting to get a little worried as he also had another screaming fit this afternoon since we have been home from the Doc's....

None of us have slept the past 4 days and Kael still has a fever. Not quite sure what to do or what to think. I apologize for the long post but this could potentially be huge and life changing. I need your help, love and prayers. I am also open to advice. Please pray for my sweet little guy, he is so sick.

Some thoughts for tonight.

My sweet baby boy is an excelent baby, I mean, toddler. Still getting used to calling him that....

He is sweet, he listens, he plays with himself nicely and he willingly gives away kisses.

Recently, to attempt to get things done without having baby (toddler) tug and pull, I have turned to modern technology and let him watch TV. Well, he only watches Thomas the Train-the old ones that George Carlin narrates- and Toy Story. The original. He refuses to watch anything else, with that I feel like I can quote every-single-line from Toy Story word for word. The entire movie. And I have Thomas the Train theme song stuck in my head all day/night long. There isn't much winning for me. Most days, I try to ignore the TV and try to get things done, but sometimes I can't hear or think past the show he is watching. Makes me want to go batty. Happy it works. Bummed that I will be checking myself into a phyciatric ward at an early age.

A Gigantically Enormous, Very Huge Day.

Saturday was HUGE! We did so much and had so much fun!!

Kael and I started the day off by visiting with one of my best friends, Renae. We went with her out to Moorpark to look at her wedding venue (she is getting married in June 2012). The place is called Walnut Grove and it is gorgeous! The ceremony takes place in the middle of a walnut grove and the reception is located near by. It was so cute and quaint. I loved every little bit of it. I can't wait to see her wedding there. It is going to be amazing.

After spending some much needed Renae time, Kael and I met Sterling to head up to Ventura to meet up with my brother, Collin. He lives in Santa Barbara and I feel like we never see him enough. We joined him for Indian food at the Taj Cafe. YUUUUMMMM!!! I feel like I can never quite eat enough when I go there. And for those of you who stick your nose up to Indian food because you 'don't like curry' you are seriously missing out. Many of the dishes don't have any curry in them at all. They use lots of fresh ingredients and the Taj Cafe offers many Vegan and Vegetarian versions of their dishes, something I think is so neat because the food still comes out incredibly tasty! Collin is a vegetarian so he greatly benefits from the Cafe's offerings, as does my tummy. We spent lunch talking and enjoying company. After lunch we walked around Main street for a minute or so before heading back to our cars and saying our goodbyes. I caught some pictures of my baby boy and my brother before Collin had to head back up to Santa Barbara.

After lunch, Sterling and I decided to take Kael out to the beach. For those of you who don't live in this area, Ventura is a little city located right on the water and where we had lunch was walking distance from the ocean. First, we took the stroller out and walked along the Ventura Pier. I LOVE the Ventura Pier. It is so raw. There are always men fishing off of it and occasionally, if you are lucky, you catch a glimpse of someone reeling in a shark or some other kind of large, unlucky scaly creature. I love to walk to the end and look down to watch the tide lick the beams holding the pier up. When the tide recedes, you can see barnacles, muscles, and starfish clinging to them. We walked a little way with the stroller and quickly decided to take Kael out so he could get a better view of the water. He loved it. That's my Boy! After the pier, we walked to the beach where Kael played with sand for the first time (last time we were at the beach Kael was 3 months old...he didn't really care about the sand) He had a blast!

Kael's first view of the water.

Touching the sand with his feet for the first time

After the beach, we headed home. On the way home, we decided to stop at a little farm stand and pick up strawberries. There is nothing like getting home from a day in the sun and filling yourself up with fresh, crisp strawberries! The farm stand we stopped at is one that we have stopped at many many times before. It is on the way home from Ventura and they always have a large selection of very fresh fruits and veggies. The farm also has a tiny group of farm animals that you can feed and pet. This is the very first time we have ever gone with Kael. Kael went straight over to the goats, who of course, walked right up to him expecting him to feed them. They have an alpaca and chickens and sheep as well, all of which were very gluttonous. At the time, Kael was nursing a very large strawberry, and the animals were going nuts for it. Such a tease hehehe....I snapped up some pictures of Kael at the farm on my phone so they aren't as good as the ones from the rest of the day, but you get the idea....

Goat Mooch!

Chicken Mooch!

When we got home from this very big day, we were all exhausted! But that didn't stop Kael from taking his first REAL steps and walking. All. By. Himself. Kael is now a walking boy! 13 months old and the day has finally come! I still can't believe it. Today, he has been practicing his new moves and falling down all over the place. It reminds me of the first time I went snowboarding (although, after a couple of hours of falling on my bum, I gave up. I had been defeated and I spent the next week sore.) I guess it is time to look into those rubber things you slip over the corners of your coffee table so your kid doesn't give himself a black eye..... We got video of Kael's first steps and I am going to see if I can load it onto here....

Our Orchard

The orchard in our backyard is equipped with an apricot tree, a plum tree, apple tree, key lime tree, Meyer lemon tree, orange tree, and nice plump, juicy grapes. It was planted when the house was built 4 years ago, and only last year, we saw fruit from the trees!

I have made countless lemon desserts with our tasty lemons! Our tree produces hundreds! In fact, we have to pull some off the trees and throw them into the garden so they don't break the tree down! We have yet to see any fruit from our Orange tree... it always buds and then we find big bug eaten holes in it. This year I have been spraying the leaves with garlic/jalapeno water. Hopefully it will keep the bugs from eating them! We planted a peach and nectarine tree also, but they never made it.

Last week I made a Key lime pie with our little key limes! Last summer we harvested 10 apricots and about 5 plums.... The apples grew nice and big and were quite sweet! A pleasant surprise for a southern California tree.... I remember being a kid, walking home from school and picking our neighbors apples. They were small and very very sour! So it was lovely to get nice big sweet apples from our very on back yard!!

Our apricot, plum and apples trees are just starting to bloom this spring. We are anxiously awaiting the sweet summer fruit! Here are a couple shots I took of the orchard in it's beautiful spring bloom.

A cute little apricot bloom

Our Meyer lemon tree and a bee enjoying the sweet smell

The only budding apricot (so far)

Our plum tree is looking promising this year!

The single bloom on the apple tree

Oranges budding!

The single apricot bud and bloom :)

Snow in Simi Valley CA

Earlier this afternoon, Kael, my mother in law Heather, and I took a 3 mile hike/walk. It was cold and brisk but not unbearable and I just had a long sleeved (fairly thin) shirt on. The day had been sunny with big beautiful white clouds in the sky. We had heard that it was supposed to rain, but we hadn't seen any of it.

two hours later, Sterling, Kael, and I take a trip to the grocery store to pick up things for dinner. It was crisp and clear when we walked in. As we were leaving, the girl scouts stopped us to ask if we wanted to buy some cookies (we did, of course!). They said that someone had just walked by and told them it was snowing on Erringer ( about two exits away) and it was coming this way. I looked at her and said "it doesn't feel cold enough to snow" well, I ate my words. Right as we got into the car, lo and behold, it started to rain..but this wasn't just rain... it was frozen rain. At this point, it was the size of rock salt, a little more like hail. But as soon as we started to drive home, it turned into snow!

It was so odd to drive down my street, in the snow! When we got home (about a 3 minutes drive) we had big, fluffy flakes! We took lots of pictures and video! I am so excited to have been a part of this rare moment in history! We live in Southern California, about 30-40 miles away from LA. We see snow when we go to the mountains, but never here. I don't believe the street we live on has ever been snowed on (it was built about 4 years ago). Waaay too cool!

Poor little Prius had no idea what to do with it's self!

Snow flakes that stay on your nose and eyelashes

I could't stop laughing! I was like a little kid!

I think we froze Kael. His face stays the same in each shot.

Obviously, he didn't catch my excitement.

*note* I am still in my work out clothes!

Kael turns ONE!!

Well, it is very very hard for me to believe, but my baby bear is one year old. Where did that time go!?! I know probably every parent says that about their children, but sheesh! It really does just feel like last month that he was born, yet at the same time, it feels like we have always had him here with us. Interesting feeling. Today I sat (and cried) while I watched his 4D ultrasound video. I was 27 weeks and 2 days pregnant. What an amazing moment that was for us. He is such an amazing blessing in our lives. He gives us hundreds of reasons to smile or laugh every day. He is our very special little guy. Happy first birthday Kael. We love you so extremely much!

For Kael's birthday party, we invited friends and family over for a little birthday celebration. I made lunch and Carrot cake for everyone (including a small carrot cake for the birthday boy)... When I was pregnant, Sterling specifically asked me if I could make a carrot cake for Kael's first birthday. Kael wasn't even born yet! None the less, I promised him that I would. It was pretty yummy, I must say. Here are some pictures from the party. It was a WHOLE lotta fun! Thanks to all who made it out!

Cake time!

Our little dumpling boy!

Happy Birthday Kael!

YUM!

I filled our little pool up with rice. The kids LOVED it!

Freezing Water and Security Guards...

So the other day my mom came down from Arrowhead to grace us with her presence for a whole day and a half. While she is down here she likes to shop given that there aren't any places to do so in Arrowhead ( the place is kinda sad and only has a couple outlet stores and a whole bunch of horrible restaurants.... just don't say that to anyone who lives there... for some reason, after being kept away up there for so many years, they think that all the restaurants they have dragged me to up there are "SOOOOOO good" I can honestly say that I have, not once, had a single thing from a single restaurant up there that I would ever eat again...) She had her heart set on a new pair of jeans. So Sterling, Kael, my Mother and I all went to the Thousand Oaks mall for a little shopping. We parked at the far end which is now the outdoor part. It holds some pretty good stores but my mom really wanted to go to American Eagle. After some serious shopping, my mom went back into AE to get the pants she had tried on a few hours earlier and put on hold. Sterling, Kael and I waited outside patiently for her. We walked Kael's stroller over to an outdoor fountain so he could watch the water, but being that he was a little too low to see it, I took him out and we sat on the edge of the fountain for a better look.

Well, Kael wasn't satisfied with just looking. He quickly scooted himself over to the edge where he could dangle and splash his feet in the freezing cold, completely chlorinated water. Before long, that wasn't enough and he wanted IN that fountain. Now, being the young and whimsical mother I feel like I am, my first instinct was to plop him right in and let him splash and play until he couldn't feel his toes or fingers anymore, but Sterling was right over me so I decided to FORCE Kael to stay seated and be happy with the little bit of feet splashing he was going to get.

Suddenly, from what felt like nowhere, was Sterling's voice saying-"just put him in, you only live once.".......WHAAA?!?! With that, Kael was in the fountain faster than you could say slippery baby. He LOVED that water! He had so much fun and I was just clapping and laughing along with him. Well... a few very short minutes later, that same voice that was so carefree and light quickly said-"ok, get him out. That's enough."

Fine! I said. "Ok, c'mon Kael... this is a public place after all... and daddy says it is time to get out.." I scooped him up and stood him onto the sidewalk next to the fountain. Dripping wet, and completely soaked (he was fully clothed and in a cloth diapie) Kael stood at the edge of the fountain ready for more and clapped the whole time I was peeling his wet clothes off of his little cold body.

As I was laughing about how fun that was and trying to put a diaper on a slippery wet bum, I look up only to see a security guard. Boo! I thought. What kind of loser called security on us? "Yeah, Hi... there are two little kids dunking a baby in the fountain out there.. come quick!" grrr..... He asked us if Kael had fallen in... I said 'No' at the same time Sterling said 'yes, well kinda'.... and he sorta laughed it off but made sure I dressed my little naked baby as quick as possible and hurried us away from the fountain.

As we walked away, I couldn't of been happier with how the afternoon had turned out and I just couldn't wipe the smile I had off of my face. The few minutes he was in that water he had such a blast! And so did I! I danced and clapped and splashed along with him, happy as can be! It probably made the security guard angry that I couldn't wipe the smug smile I had off of my face as we walked away. But oh well. I'm thinking the Andrews' family is ready for some pool time!!

You can see here how we even tried to occupy him with a PB&J (His Fav)

but that water was too darn enticing!

I wish this picture showed Kael's face

It was glowing. Lit up like I had never seen it before!

And the picture also doesn't capture the amount

of splashing that kid was doing...