It has been a while since I have last posted so I will do a quick run down of the events and happenings in the Dewey household for that last month. It has been a busy month filled with a lot of fun. My Nana came to stay with us for a week at the end of March. She has dementia and is living with my parents. My dad is an amazing person for all that he does! She is a very pleasant person and I love her dearly, but her condition makes it very difficult and tiring at times. I thought I would give my dad a break and take the opportunity to enjoy some time with her. Family is so important to me and I love both my grandma's very much. There is so much you can learn from those who have lived a full life. It is nice to see my husband and son interact with her as well.

My cousin Roman lives here in Corvallis. We took Nana out to gelato so she could visit with him. She absolutely adores him. It was quite funny to watch and listen to her brag about her grandson. Due to her condition, we did hear the same thing over and over again, and explained who he was, and where we were, but for the few moments in that conversation it was nice.

Daniel was such a sweetheart to Nana. She loved my grandpa Frank so much and misses him. She loves to be on a man's arm and Daniel was always so sweet to walk her around and make her feel like the lady of the night.

This video is funky and not the best camera job but I was cracking up. Daniel was salsa dancing with Nana's walker. He sure does know how to make us laugh!

After Nana's visit we drove back up to Hillsboro to visit family and celebrate Easter.

Our first stop was at my nephews 5th birthday party. It was a lot of fun!

I love this picture! It's so nice for Isaiah to have so many cousins and it means so much to me for him to get to see them as much as possible.

Shortly after the party we headed over to my parents house to eagerly await the arrival of the Heiner family. I love these guys so much and miss them all the time. They live in Idaho, but I feel we have been fortunate to see them quite often for an out of state family.

This little stinker has soooo much personality! I could watch her all day long. She is always doing something funny and in fact, if you are not watching her she is probably getting into your make-up or lotion. She is a little comedian just like her mom, Mindy.

Anytime a sister comes and visits from out of town we try to get together and do something. This night was a blast!! We were missing Bridget and Monica joined us later. This was our first time renting a hotel downtown Portland for out sister's night. This was a great idea because we were able to stay up and play games as long as we wanted and not have any of our kids to wake us up in the morning. Thanks to all the husbands for letting us have this great night!

Next was our BIG family Easter egg hunt! Things just don't get any better than this. I am so lucky to have an amazing family!

The loot!

This was Christopher's first Easter egg hunt in America and in his life for that matter. He is such a sweet little boy with so much happiness for life. We are so lucky to have him in our family.

Next on our list is the wedding of my baby sister. I can't believe she is getting married! I am so happy for her and I love her so much. Her fiance's name is Daniel, so of course when we talk we are constantly saying, "your Daniel or mine?" It's kind of fun and makes us laugh but we are definitely going to have to come up with some sort of nickname for her Daniel since mine was first to join the family:)

Seattle

For spring break this year we decided to take a trip to Seattle. We had no idea how expensive it was going to be! It's not cheap vacationing in a city. We had a lot of fun and we were glad that we got to go. It was something that we have been wanting to do for a long time.

On our way, prior to Daniel getting a speeding ticket, :) we stopped by a huge Cabella's store. I was excited because I have been looking for a heater we could use inside our tent when we go camping and had been unsuccessful until now! They call it, 'The Buddy,' and it sure is. I am going to get some good nights sleep this year at Crater Lake! Daniel says he's never going to be able to get Isaiah and I out of the tent. What can I say..it's stinkin' cold there in the mornings.

Back to Seattle...

We really enjoy cheese in our family. We eat a lot of it. There was a little restaurant by the Pike Street market that we went into a few times to have a cheese sandwich and watch cheese curds be made. I don't get big smiles like that from Isaiah unless he is really excited. Like I said, we really like cheese in our family!

The Pike Street Market was a fun daily event for us. We walked down from our hotel to eat fresh fruit and walk around. Isaiah couldn't get enough of the fish. There was this mackrel that he had his eye on the second he got there. He kept saying, "Dad can we pleeeaaasse buy this one?" Isaiah has never had mackrel before and I don't think he would ever want it again, but Daniel and I knew we were not buying that fish. We tried to distract him by the men tossing fish back and forth, but without fail he found his mackrel every day we went. He would say, "Look dad it's still here!! Can we buy it now?"

I think the crab and lobster dinner made up for the loss of the mackrel.

Isaiah and I were very excited about the tools we got to use to crack the crabs open.

We decided to spend the money and go to the top of the Space Needle. Once we were up there I said to Daniel, "I feel bad for the rest of our kids because we aren't coming up here again." It made me motion sickness, and honestly for what it cost I just don't know if it is worth it.

It was a pretty view from the top though.

Of course Isaiah loved the elevator ride. We should of asked for a few trips up and down so we could get our monies worth.:)

Isaiah turned into quite the photographer while we were there. We went into the butterfly exhibit and spent a lot of time there. Isaiah had so much fun walking around taking pictures of all the butterflies. Here are a few of his shots.

He looks very somber in this picture but he is actually trying to stand very still to see if a butterfly lands on him. I don't know why it creeps me out so much to have them flying so close to my face. They are very pretty. It was quite funny when this one butterfly took a liking to me. It fluttered over my head for at least 5 minutes. Daniel was so impressed he told me to start walking around to see if it followed me. It followed me 2 times around the entire loop. By the second time around I had everyone in the room watching to see when it would leave me. I felt like Snow White!!

We had some long days of walking around! It was nice to go back to the hotel and relax.

We met some kids at the pool one night that recommended this place called Game Works. We thought we would try it out. We aren't really a video game playing family so we stuck to the stuff we knew.

On our way home we stopped at the Rainforest Cafe. I went to one in Chicago when my sister graduated from college and I have wanted to take Isaiah to one ever since. The food is just normal, but it is a very cool environment. Here is some more of Isaiah's photography.

Isaiah has been on swim team for 3 months now. He started off swim lessons with Daniel when he was 3. He took 3 sessions of swim lessons at Osborne Aquatic Center to get to level 6 so he could join the team. He is on the Novice team and he is so small compared to all the other kids. He was so brave his first week. They just swim laps for about a half an hour and then do relays the rest of the time. He had never swam more than once up and back in a row before. He did a good job. The coach tells them which stroke they need to do and how many laps and then watches and instructs. His first day she had them do the butterfly. He had never done that one before and she didn't give a whole lot of instruction since most of the kids knew how. I was surprised at how well he did. There are a few short videos to follow of his first day on swim team.

This one is the dolphin kick. They were supposed to keep their hands at their sides.

This is stream line on their backs.

The good thing for me is that he actually looks forward to swim team. He is swimming three times a week for an hour each. He has gotten quite well and we are very excited to see him compete this summer!

No Smoking Please

I am not a real political person, at least not outwardly. I heard on the radio today the cigarette tax has gone up to $1.01 a pack! I don't smoke so you might ask yourself, "why do you care?" They were interviewing smokers to get their opinion about the tax. I felt like screaming through the speakers. Instead I will just dump all my thoughts into this nice little blog.

Right now a pack of cigarettes costs about $8.00. I would say an average smoker smokes at least a pack a day. One week would cost about $56. A month of smoking racks up to about $1,700!!! This just blows my mind. That is a house payment! I get so frustrated by this because I have worked in a doctors office for almost 10 years now and have dealt a lot with people in the welfare system. Please don't misunderstand me, I am completely for government help for those who are in need. I would have to say that 75% (and that is a very rough estimate) of the people that come to the doctors with the Oregon Health Plan are smokers. Seeing those numbers above I just don't get it. How can you afford to pay that much to smoke, but you can't afford to buy food or health insurance. It's already frustrating enough to see people smoking in the parking lot prior to appointments, with or without children. Okay on this one.

A man was asked what he thought about the cigarette tax. Now imagine an old, somewhat smoky, hillbilly voice, "I don't know why they keep raising the tax. I think they just want to pick on us ol' smokers. They try and say that it's bad for you and causes cancer and all that stuff, but I don't even know if I believe that."

There's not a whole lot I can say about that comment but WOW!

Oh, one last thing. Since the taxes keep going up on cigarettes people have now taken to buying tobacco by bulk and rolling their own cigarettes. As if it wasn't already addictive enough, now people are going to be sucking straight tobacco without a filter.

It's been awhile

Computer life has been quite frustrating for me lately. About a month ago I had to take my computer into work to have some things worked on. I haven't been able to log onto my own desktop since. I can't access any of my files and it is very frustrating. After a month of my computer tech trying to fix the problem remotely, I finally gave up and brought my computer back up to be fixed. I got a call today saying that everything is now working great. We shall see.

There are so many things that I want to post but I am going to wait until I can access my pictures. Life has been very busy, very exciting, and very fun. We are so excited that Daniel is officially into his last term of school. I can't believe it's already here. He only had two classes that he needed to take to graduate but needed at least 12 credits. He has a pretty fun schedule. He's taking tennis, weight lifting, swimming, golf, and a men's salsa class. I am glad he was able to take these classes because the last two terms have been pretty brutal. It's nice to have easy going, relaxed Daniel back. He makes me laugh!!

The most exciting news we have to report is that Daniel got a job! Hoffman Construction Company hired him. He interned with them for two years. They had 18 interns last year and they only extended offers to 2 of them. We feel so blessed that Daniel was one of them. It's not a very easy time for people to be graduating and looking for jobs. Daniel worked very hard for Hoffman and of course I felt he was definitely worth hiring.:) We will be staying in Corvallis for at least the next 2 years. We are all very excited because we love it here!

Facing Fears

I will probably get made fun of for having this fear. I didn't make any official New Years resolutions. I tend to keep my goals in my head and never write them down in fear of not achieving them. Instead of writing down any goals I have decided that 2009 will be the year that I tackle some of my fears, (maybe I should add writing down goals to my list). So I already failed at one attempt of a certain fear, but I won't disclose it until I actually succeed:)

I did have success at facing another one of my fears. I gave blood!! I know it sounds so stupid but seriously this has been something that has been haunting me for 11 years! My Junior year in High school the Red Cross came to our school for a blood drive. I signed up to give blood. I was scared to death but didn't realize how real my fear was until the interview process. My face went completely pale and I couldn't stop shaking. The nice lady asking me questions took one look at me and said, "I don't think your quite ready for this yet." I agreed with her and haven't attempted to give blood since. Every time that sign up sheet goes around Relief Society, it kills me that I am too scared to sign up. It's one thing to just not want to do it, but I can't stand not doing things because I am too scared to. I usually take the easy way out and sign up as a volunteer. This time I took the plunge and signed up to give blood. Once I made the decision I just told myself there was no backing out and I was doing it no matter what.

So the day comes and Isaiah and I head off to the church. I dropped Isaiah off in the Nursery and signed in. As I was signing in I saw a lady I used to play basketball with leaving. She was turned away because she was anemic. For a quick second I allowed myself to hope I was anemic but quickly brushed the thought aside because I really needed to get this out of the way. Well I made it through all the questions and blood test and 45 minutes later found myself on the luxurious lawn chair. I made sure my phlebotomist knew how nervous I was and I did not want to see the needle or anything else associated with the process. I turned my head and closed my eyes until he got the needle in. He actually did a great job because I didn't feel a thing. He let me know that my blood was flowing really fast and I should be done in 4 minutes. This is the hard part for me because just the thought of a needle stinking in my vein and my blood draining out into a bag makes me nauseous. I quickly informed him he couldn't give me a play by play or I would freak out. I kept closing my eyes and he kept telling me to open them. I told him I needed to keep them closed so I could concentrate. He told me I needed to keep them open so he knew I was still conscious. Fair enough. Ten minutes later he told me I was done. I relaxed just as he was saying, "I just need to get a few tubes for testing." Big mistake. I had allowed myself to relax and be done and now this needle was going to stay in me longer. The last thing I remember saying was, "I feel a little bit dizzy." Then lights out. I slipped into a nice little dream, and when I came to, I was lying on my back with my feet up and people all around me. I couldn't believe it. The first I said was, "Were you able to finish?" They were and I was glad. I didn't want it to be all for naught. I felt like crud for the rest of the day.

Though I did face this one fear, the thing I realized is that the hard part is not going to be facing my fears. The hard part is going to be to revisit them later. I have to continue to give blood until it is no longer hard for me. With that being said this is not going to be a 2009 goal of mine. I will be doing this for the rest of my life!

When I was talking to Daniel about this he said something that got me thinking. He said, "It's funny how things work out. You have a fear of giving blood, but you are able to do it. It doesn't scare me one bit, but I can't do it."

I think this put some things into perspective for me. We are all given challenges in this life and most of them are ones that we are capable of getting through. We just have to realize our potential. It's the challenges that we have no control over the outcome that takes the real leap of faith.

Well that's my Monday morning thoughts! I do realize how lame my fear of giving blood is, but it did teach me a thing or two:)

Three Years!

02-08-06

I know to some three years is nothing, but to others it is more than they were granted. Daniel and I have faced so many challenges together in these three plus years it feels like we have been together for much longer. Daniel has taught me to be more patient and not worry about the things I can't control. He has kept me level headed on more than one occasion. He is truly an amazing person who I love very much. With that being said, he's still Daniel:) He can be my second child at times. He is so fun!

As you can see by my attire, these are some pictures from dating. Daniel wanted to take me to go play tennis. I am not very good at tennis, so I thought I would at least make it fun by dressing up.

Also pre-marriage. Daniel took me to my favorite restaurant, The Melting Pot, for my 23rd birthday. As you can see by the look on his face, the check was not sitting well with him. We had a fun time though!

I added the pictures of Daniel and Isaiah because their relationship means so much to me. Daniel and I dated pretty non traditionally. I was very hesitant to start dating and it took a long time for me to finally go on a date. Daniel would call me and ask me what I was doing. I was never just sitting around doing nothing, so I would always tell him what I was doing. His response would be, "alright, well I guess I will just catch up with you later." After he hung up I was always baffled. I was like, "dude why don't you just ask me out if you want to go out with me?" Well our first official date was pretty funny. My sister Debora invited Isaiah and I to go with her and her family to a cabin in Bend. I decided I would ask Daniel to go with us as our first date?!?! Anyway, that is where it all started for me. He was absolutely amazing with all the kids and especially Isaiah. We got to have some alone time as well and after that trip it was all over for me:)


This picture makes me laugh every time I see it. It looks like Daniel and I getting ready to kiss right? Nope, it's my little sister Monica. (for those of you who might be wondering they obviously didn't kiss:)

Below are some more pictures prior to marriage that bring back fond memories.

Daniel and Isaiah drawing right before a sleigh ride with Santa.

Camping with my sister Lindsey and her family. Isaiah and Connor (3) think they have won the battle as Daniel is playing dead on the ground. Little do they know he is about to jump up and chase them as soon as they get close enough.

Trip to Bend with my sister Michele and her family. On this trip Daniel stripped down to his underwear, (which were basically spandex type things), and jumped in the river from a rope right in front of my sister and her husband. What a man!

Next on our list, graduation!