May 2011

May: the month of Isaiah's birthday and the month we're all tired of homeschooling and can't WAIT to be done. We set a goal to be done by the end of this month and Isaiah RACED through his work and finished by the end of the first week in May. Very impressive. Allegra worked steadily through May and finished just about everything by our goal date. I alternated between keeping Isaiah busy with non-school projects when he got bored enough to start BUGGING Allegra and I, and gently reminding Allegra of the school projects she still needed to finish. At the end of May we all breathed a sigh of relief. Cliff, meanwhile, is in the thick of finishing up all the internship paperwork for the 116 student interns that he places and supervises. He is counting the days until June 16th, when he'll be done and FREE for the summer.


Every week, Cliff posts the menu. This week the kids shanghaied the menu board and wrote down what they'd LIKE to see on the menu. He retaliated with the menu you see here. Yum yum.

Our Expedition has been our dependable bus for 11 years now. We have put over 250,000 miles on it with our many driving trips here and there, often filling all 9 seats with family and friends. It has been comfortable and strong and we have loved it. But! It's aging and is developing problems that are not worth fixing. This month we have finally decided to get rid of it. So, good-bye to a wonderful car! For the next few months I'll drive Chase's car while we decide what to get to replace the Expedition. (Something that uses a LOT less gas, for sure!)

Isaiah's "red-headed Irishman" blossoms. He takes such good care of these cacti!

My dearest grandma begins to fail. On this day we thought we were going to lose her, she seemed so absent from us. Mom called all the family and most of us gathered to say good-bye--one cousin even flew in late at night from Utah. By afternoon, Grandma was unresponsive to everything. This was all new to us. Early this month she went to the hospital with pneumonia, but she recovered! They discovered, though, that one of her lungs had collapsed and they told us that she would not live too much longer--it was inevitable, they said, that the other lung would slowly fill with liquid and she would slip away. They sent her home and put her on hospice care. But she seemed to rally! She was her old (post-stroke) self again and even started to regain some of her pre-pneumonia strength! But here, at the end of May, she dramatically began to fail. It was sad and stressful. On this Sunday, Grandma, before she became unresponsive, didn't want to be alone, so my momma and I sat with her. Here's Mom, slipping into a little nap by Grandma's bed. My beautiful mom. Losing her mother will be so difficult for her.

Happily (and surprisingly!), when Mom went in on Monday morning to check on Grandma, Grandma greeted her with a bright "hello!" Wow! We all expected that she wouldn't last the night, but there she was, back with us! We enjoyed her company all that day and she faded in and out of strength for the next few days. Finally on Thursday of that week Mom and Dad decided to get her to Colorado immediately. Colorado is her home and is where she wants to die. They loaded her and all her stuff (oxygen, meds, clothes, wheelchair, etc etc) into the car and drove straight through--18 hours--to Colorado where she perked up a little more. She was so glad to be home! The oxygen company and the hospice people made the switch from California to Colorado SO very easy! They are so wonderful!

On a happier note, Isaiah turned 13!! I have no more little children in my immediate family--they are all teenagers or adults. I never imagined this day, and here it is--reality! Here is Isaiah with his birthday loot.


And here is his birthday dessert: butter pecan ice cream pie with homemade praline topping. VERY sweet and rich. He loved it!


So May has been full of happy times, lots of schoolwork, and some worrisome and sad times with Grandma. I guess that's sort of what life is all about: happiness, hard work and some sadness too.