Four Generations

I never thought I'd be part of a four generation picture.

My mom was born with a kidney disease that was so rare at the time that it didn't have a name. She was told she might not live far into her adult years. 

It's now called Medullary Sponge Kidney. She also has Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) (which she passed to me along with IC).

In her adult years, her doctor told her she wouldn't live past 70. He's passed away, and she turned 84 in January. 

She had me at age 30. I am the youngest, but the only one with children. I had Tyler at 28 and Jessica at 29. Jessica had River at 24. So no young grandmothers in our family.

All that to say, none of us thought my mom would live to see great grandchildren. While we don't have any award winning photos, we do have some typical ones.

And take two:

And I have some of my mom with River:

And Rick's parents with River:

I want to get a couple of 8x10s for wall. Which ones?

Vacation and Memories

Nothing builds memories like activities where you work together. Like rafting--and tubing. Especially when you go over waterfalls, get landed on by another tuber, lose your tube and bounce face first down the rocky river bed on your face. We have a lot of "war" stories from both rafting and tubing.

Our two families together have 20 kids, but not all of them were there. Two of Felicia's grandchildren were there,

Joselyn and I don't look too sure about this.

Ty and Jasmine were in this raft. Kaleb and I were in the other. Rick and Kayla were on their way. My other adult children couldn't come this time. But we hope to do this again.

Adoptive Families on Vacation

Parenting isn't always easy, especially when you have a nontraditional family. That's why it's nice to get together with a similar family. That doesn't happen often for me. We are not part of any adoptive family groups and don't know of any local ones.

But Felicia from Stare if You Must and I planned to meet up in the Smokey Mountains for a few days this year. We both have adult birth children, one adult step child each, adult adopted children, children of all shades, and a crazy age range. We are dealing with similar issues. That's what I love. When she woke up to find one of my children with his hand in her bag of chocolate bars, she didn't say, "Oh you poor thing. You didn't mean to steal that, did you?" She said, "I guess you don't need to have any smores with us tonight since those were for smores." Great answer. And she thinks nothing of it if I have a child in time out missing an activity. She probably has one right next to mine.

But we have had a lot of fun and all of the children have gotten to do the majority of the activities. Here are a few photos.

The rafting was a very bonding experience!! Felicia's son and son in law were the guides for the rafts.

Internet is in and out so I'll post more later.

Raised Garden

We recently finished a project that many of us had a part in.
 I decided to make a raised garden. Because of the dogs, it had to be high enough they couldn't get into it.

In our city, people throw their junk curbside to be picked up. I was driving and saw a wooden structure in a trash pile. I told Rick and Ty about it. Next day I drove by it again and hoped it would still be there later when Rick got home from work and was going to get it.

But on my way home from my errand, I saw the trash truck at that pile. It lifted its claw and came down smack on top of the pile, and wood went splintering everywhere. My heart sank. I'd just lost what I was going to use to build the garden.

Or so I thought.

But then I turned onto our road and saw this:

Ty had seen the truck pass our house. He didn't have his van yet, so he grabbed the wagon and ran down the street and got the biggest part of the wood structure. He was definitely my hero that day.

So this became the base.

I bought a board for the top and cut it to 43" x  48".

We used a staple gun to attach black material that is actually to keep weeds from growing. For this project, we used it to cover the board.

Then we used screws to fasten the board to the frame. 

We bought boards for the garden sides. We waterproofed them before cutting them the right size.

Rick put on the corner brackets.

The walls are 10" high. 

Rick put lattice around the base for looks and to keep the dogs from getting under it. You can see that we've gathered more "junk" to make more gardens.

This one is done. We may try another one soon. What projects have you done lately?