littlehippie

A Mission To Mars

November 11, 2011 by littlehippie 3 Comments

An astronaut. A candy bucket. A fun night.

This year’s version of Halloween featured a bummer (I had to work) and a special guest (my Aunt from Israel), but still was centered on Ezra’s planetary exploration of the neighborhood candy-producing solar systems.

As Ezra does have a small allergy to peanuts, we try to avoid them as much as possible. I think that we were all amazed at how much candy contains peanuts, or cannot promise to be peanut free. After weeding through Ezra’s stash, his got a lot smaller, and ours got a lot bigger. But, it would be nice if there were more peanut free candy givers out there (I hesitate to say that we didn’t even consider it this time)….take note for next year.

Filed Under: Ezra!, Photos Included

41 Months!

November 10, 2011 by littlehippie Leave a Comment

A little fisheye lens fun for this month’s photo…

Filed Under: Ezra!, Photos Included

Parent’s Support Group – A Return To The Hospital

November 9, 2011 by littlehippie 6 Comments

Sometimes the biggest challenges are the smallest mountains. Or the smallest mountains are the biggest challenges. I don’t know which way sounds better, but you get the point.

A few months ago, we received an invitation from Children’s Hospital to a support group for parents who have lost children (if I’ve said it a hundred times before, it still pertains: it absolutely sucks to be part of a club like this). The group was open for parents only – no friends, grandparents, siblings, other family, etc – and was going to run for nine consecutive weeks in the mid-fall (ie: now). While there was some initial trepidation, there really wasn’t any true apprehension, as both of us have been seeking ways to help deal with the grief and the range of emotions from this past year. Us, along with seven other couples/individuals responded, and the group was set. Start date, end date, time, child care…set.

But between us and the start of the group, there was a gigantic emotional monster that had to be confronted: the return to the hospital. See, the group would meet in the hospital, near the cafeteria that we ate at for nearly every meal of our two months there. It would be our first time back to that general area, the first time on that road, and the first time in the building since we left without Liam. I think that Ahna was a lot more realistic as to the difficulty that the first meeting would be, and I told myself that it wasn’t going to be that bad. When in fact, as the first meeting date drew closer, the reality was beginning to set in. The best way that I can try to describe the feeling is through a recipe: take that nervous pit in your stomach feeling that you get when you go in for a job interview (or anything super important), then add 10 tons of emotion.

As we drove up to the hospital, the roadway rang of extreme familiarity. As the miles to go got smaller, the nervousness and anxiety grew. Off the exit, the car got quiet and my hands began to shake from energy without a focus. We pulled into the driveway to the hospital, then into the same parking garage that we did so many times before. It’s crazy how familiar you can become with a concrete building designed to temporarily house cars. Ezra was with us on that first night back, and it’s moments like this where it’s good to have him around….on the drive to the hospital, he asked a lot about where we were going and for what reason. He refers to the hospital as ‘Liam’s Hospital’ and once there, his comfort level with the building was the key to having to find a way through all of our adult feelings. I think that had he not been with us, we might have just stood just beyond the front doors for a while and found it more difficult to actually go inside. Once we got into the main foyer area, and then in the cafeteria, it was nearly overwhelming. Memories came flooding back. Hundreds of them in a single pass of the main entryway. Then, we had to chase Ezra.

After we got Ezra tucked into the child play area, we had our first meeting as a group. They explained that the first two weeks were going to be extremely difficult, and that we should really hang on until the third week before we started to feel any true forward learning momentum. They were right. The first two meeting were basically comprised of learning about each other and each other’s child. For some reason, I envisioned that it would be a group made up of people that all lost children of similar-ish age to Liam. I don’t have a clue as to where I got that impression, but it was far from the truth (for the privacy of those in the group, this is about as much detail as I will share about everyone). The causes of death and the age ranges of the kids are equally as vast, and there is really only one other couple in the group that has had a similar experience to us. It has been interesting however, that it doesn’t matter if they were two months old or 23 years old, there is a lot of commonality in the difficulties that we face now. We learned about lives short and shorter, about stories of relatively sudden loss and ‘expected’ loss, and about how together – and seperate – people are attempting to deal with the new realities. It’s some heavy shit.

We left the first two meetings with very sad hearts. We tried hard not to add to our loss by internalizing the loss of others, but you can’t entirely help it. The group has forced us to reengage some of the emotions that have been suppressed or passed due to the rest of life – both a good thing and a very difficult thing. The sadness felt after the first two meetings lasted for days. The second trip back to the hospital wasn’t nearly as charged as the first one, although the meeting was. Perhaps that’s some sort of metaphor for our current process. Or perhaps it’s just a matter of having to get to a meeting.

Filed Under: Liam!, Life in General

Uphills And Downhills And Uphills And Downhills

November 7, 2011 by littlehippie 2 Comments

A good friend has embarked on a journey of his own, and he has restarted his blog to share some of it with all of us. Perhaps you can read about it, share stories, and maybe even reach out to him if you feel so compelled. Below is a part of his most recent post, and a link over to the rest of the story.

“The next day I met with Dr. Gonzales, the oncologist, as a follow up to the surgery. (This is where I found out I can read a pathology report better than my surgeon and the 5th year med student). It took 2 doctors to inform me that I am “seriously” ill. What???? How can I be so seriously ill, but not feel it? We started to discuss my treatment options, which are limited since melanoma does not respond to chemo or radiation. So this is where we are in our journey/ride…for now.”

Click here to go to the blog and follow his story. [PS – Firefighters: drop what you are doing, unless you have a hose/tool in hand, and read and follow this. It’s too important.]

Filed Under: Life in General

A Trip To The Pumpkin Patch

October 19, 2011 by littlehippie 2 Comments

Cold and windy seems to be the recent theme when it comes to spending time outdoors. I suppose that could be attributed to either dumb luck or to the changing seasons….let’s go with a little of both. We took a recent trip up to Anderson Farms to hang at their Fall Festival for a few morning hours, and we were treated to all sorts of cold in between the lightly scattered rain showers and the 20mph wind gusts. Ezra had a lot of fun feeding the goats, playing in a wooden train, and running like crazy through three differently sized mazes – including the large corn maze. We ended the morning with a long trip out to their pumpkin patch (long because you have to ride a wagon and you are on their time table – which is apparently indifferent to the current weather situation). While out at the pumpkin patch, we were able to pick a few pumpkins to bring home – trust me on this one…the camera was inside my jacket being protected from one of those brief and ill-timed rain showers. A few wind-whipped red cheeks later, we wrapped it all up with a cozy car ride home.

Filed Under: Ezra!, Photos Included

Rocky Mountain National Park – A Photo Excursion

October 18, 2011 by littlehippie 6 Comments

Many, many moons ago – like all of the way back to the 2010 holiday season, I received a pretty cool gift: a 6-hour photo safari with a guide in Rocky Mountain National Park. Fast forward ten+ months and an entire lifetime, and we arrive to last week when I finally made it up there. A good friend of mine (Adam) and I went up there for the six hours with a fella by the name of Jared and spent an amazing morning touring around the east side of the park playing with photography.

Since sunrise and the hour immediately afterwards are perfect lighting opportunities for photography, we met early: 6am in Estes Park…which means that there is a leave-the-house departure time of 430am. During October, the front range of Colorado’s weather fluctuates all over the place: snow one day, 80 degrees just a few days later. But up in the foothills and mountains, things aren’t nearly as up and down…they are just simply trending colder….and this morning was no exception from that trend. The air temperature wasn’t too bad – just below freezing at sunrise – it was the wind that was difficult: 25-30mph gusts. All that means is that you quickly learn to manipulate the camera with gloves on.

We enjoyed a beautiful sunrise at Moraine Park before heading over towards some aspen trees. The aspens were my initial goal from the experience, but two things played against us in that hunt: a foot of snow a few days prior to our trip, and the high winds. We did find a few remaining stands of aspen trees, but nothing earth shattering. Rather, both Adam and my favorite part of the trip was doing the macro photography. In order to really accomplish this well, you need a very specific camera lens, and a special tripod capable of making those angles. What makes the experience so fun is that you do all of the photography, you use your camera body, and you can use the guides lenses and equipment were wanted. The macro shots, and a few long shots were where we used his stuff (the long shots were simply an excuse to use a $6,000 lens and didn’t really amount to anything). Oh, and those cold temperatures for the morning? Turns out that when you slip into a stream and get your shoes/pants wet up to mid-calf, the wind doesn’t seem to help dry it quicker….instead it makes it really, really cold for a while – like ‘get back in the car, turn the heater on, change socks, and hope for feeling in your toes’ cold.

Anyhow, I’m pretty stoked about how these pictures turned out and I have already planned for one of them to make it’s way to large canvas print – come by the house sometime and take a look. It was a blast to be up there with Adam, Jared is a really nice guy, and if you are in need of his information for yourselves, I’ll gladly pass it along. What’s that? You want to buy one? Send me an e-mail, let’s talk.

my favorite from the day

moraine park at sunrise

: my favorite from the day

: moraine park at sunrise

Filed Under: Life in General, Photos Included

A Couple Random Shots Of Ezra

October 17, 2011 by littlehippie Leave a Comment

We are amazed and astounded at his continuing growth in writing ability. He absolutely loves to write all of our names, and his enjoyment of doing it is really starting to show in his ability to write better and better.

Fashion statements by Ezra.

Sit in a box? Sure, no problem. Sounds fun to me.

Filed Under: Ezra!, Photos Included

One Person’s Snowfall Is Another Person’s Birthday Gift

October 16, 2011 by littlehippie 1 Comment

Can it get much better than a birthday gift of snowfall on Oct 8? Well, obviously it can, but a winter teaser this early in October is pretty tough to beat as birthday weather goes. I had the fortunate opportunity (you can read sarcasm or not) to work over my birthday, which has some pretty clear negatives, but also some unexpected positives. Because I wasn’t with my family on the actual day, the birthday celebrations got spread out a little; and because I was with my firehouse family on the actual day, I got teased a lot….oh, and we got to have some pretty good ice cream via Ahna and Ezra stopping by. There was also a mini-celebration with some close friends that featured (for the first time ever for me) birthday donuts, and a trip to the museum with Ahna and Ezra. Oh, and as far as a gift goes? To find out what I was lucky enough to get, you’ll have to join me out here on the slopes of Arapahoe Basin sometime this winter (ps – season has already started).

Filed Under: Life in General, Photos Included

The One Day Study Makeover

October 8, 2011 by littlehippie 1 Comment

Inspired by what seems like a near non-stop exposure to HGTV (I admit that some of that is my doing), I embarked on an attempted surprise for Ahna that featured a one day makeover of our study. The study has been a place that was mostly lost in the house, and as it’s the first thing that you see when you come in, it was sorely in need of some help. We had planned on painting the entire house earlier this year, but circumstances prevented us from being able to financially commit to that project. So, some overtime came into the picture, and with that extra income, a fun project like a room makeover came into focus.

Disclaimer: here was lots of lying involved. White lies, or otherwise, I still had to hold to a story that wasn’t entirely what was actually happening. After we got the first paycheck with the overtime included, Ahna asked if we could use some of that money towards redoing the study……sorry, nope, we needed it elsewhere. For over a month, I would have to concoct some alternative answer to questions about my day, or suppress any further digging into what was happening. And then there was the reliance upon luck that she wouldn’t see some of the things that were happening for the project: like expenditures, like things hidden around the house, like things stored at my parent’s place, etc (it’s interesting to write all of this down, because as the back story is shared, I am near certain that a surprise like this will never be able to be pulled off again). And the day of the project? I had a meeting to go to, of course.

So all of the planning, all of the pieces, and all of the parts came together exactly at 0730, just minutes after Ahna left for school (this was the first time in 10 years that I have been glad that she had a long day at school of parent-teacher conferences that would keep her there until 7pm). Room evacuated of stuff, painter arrived (extra expense, but needed to make this happen in one day….and he did a fine job by the way), and movement of things into the basement began. Everything going according to design. Then the first and, really only, ~~disaster~~ speedbump reared it’s head. While my Dad (the extra set of hands that were needed for this project) and I were moving an old bookcase into the basement, we heard a loud bang and crash/shatter. Rewind a few minutes with me, and when Dad was staging the bookcases in the room for removal, he had a gut feeling that he shouldn’t have placed one of them in the middle of the room, on carpet, with nobody holding it. If you take anything from reading this story, it’s this: listen to gut feelings. Ok, back up to the crash/shatter noise. That bookcase? It fell into another piece of furniture (no big deal, that one was leaving too) and then straight into one of the slider pieces on the front window – shattering one of the panes of glass (since this is essentially the only good story to come out of the day, we are spending some extra time on it now).

A quick cleaning of the large and small shards of glass and a few four letter words – aloud and silent – later, we embarked on fixing the problem. A long story shorter, we got tremendous help from the neighborhood construction supervisor for Meritage Homes, and were able to find a slider piece that would work in the interim until we can get the original fixed. It’s amazing how quickly blood pressures can rise and fall.

The rest of the makeover went pretty much on schedule. We spent a long time putting furniture together (thanks IKEA for making it not too difficult), and then an equally long time putting the room all back together. After starting the transformation at 0730, we finished it all up at 501pm, some 10 hours later…and just a couple of dollars over budget. The surprise went of flawlessly, and Ahna was shocked. Part of me wishes that we had a camera filming it, but a large part of me is excited that Ezra and I get to keep that reaction to ourselves; it was just so awesome. We are really happy with the room, and it has take a large load off of our dining room table. When surprise meets organization meets design meets function, it creates a wonderful space – an even better story.

And for the record, Ezra was the first one to use it.