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More grows in the garden than the gardener sows. ~Spanish Proverb
Flowers and fruit are only the beginning. In the seed lies the life and the future.
~Marion Zimmer Bradley
Find the seed at the bottom of your heart, and bring forth a flower. ~Shigenori Kameoka
The creation of a thousand forests is is one acorn. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
Whether you tend a garden or not, you are the gardener of your own being, the seed of your destiny. ~the Findhorn community
Hannah graduated from pre-K yesterday, and before work I was treated to their farewell program and a rousing version of Noah's Ark. Hannah was the cheetah. It was quite cute.
Here she is walking up to the altar... she couldn't help but sneak a peek at Mom and Dad.
Each of the kids made a hat to represent a different animal on the ark.
Always paying attention, my girl. Just like her Mama.
Here she is getting her diploma from the Principal.
Then it was off to a small party and some playing with her BFF's
What a great experience Prince of Peace was. I'm so glad we decided to have her spend time there before kindergarten. She was able to mature in so many ways and come out of her shell socially. Her teachers were absolutely wonderful, patient and kind women.
She's going to public school next year, to a highly-rated school a few miles up the road. She's already gotten registered and is excited to ride the bus. But I'm going to miss this place.
For the past three years Dwayne has organized a group of riders to go to the Red River motorcycle rally, mostly people from work that ride. I am not much of a biker chick myself, but I love to do my part by making a nice breakfast for everyone before the ride.
This year Dwayne's Dad and his two brothers, Mike and Jim came from Arizona, as well as Malcolm's riding buddy, John. I took some photos of all the bikes and people. It was a nice turnout this year.
Here's my hubby on his bike. Somehow I forgot to get a photo of him last year (oops):
Here's "Scuba" Steve and Mrs. Scuba. She's a super nice woman and I'm glad I had the chance to meet her and visit a little bit before the ride. Scuba is one of our full-time flight nurses.
Don is one of our good friends and camping buddies. Here he is with Dwayne, getting ready to head out.
Here's Malcolm (aka Pops) all tricked out from head to toe:
Here's the whole group headed for Red River. Notice the low cloud ceiling... unfortunately, rain followed them around most of the day.
There were four cold, bone-chilled and slightly wet men that arrived home at the end of the day. Good thing I had done some cooking and had a little something for them to eat when they got home:
... and other things to warm a man up...
I mean the coffee, of course.
So after a night's rest, Jim and Mike are headed back for Phoenix. I was able to snap a Father/Son photo this morning.
Good-looking group, isn't it? I have to take my hat off to the person responsible for this gene pool.
Jim does a last minute adjustment before heading out...
And here's Mike on his bike...
It was a quick visit with the brothers, but fun to see them. They are both nice guys, and it's good to stay connected with family.
Malcolm and John are taking a recovery day today and are heading to Tucson tomorrow. I'm taking a day off myself.
I got home early last night... I wasn't supposed to get home until almost midnight but got back to Vegas early and hopped on an earlier flight. And PTSD/nutjob dude was on the same flight back to Albuquerque!! How weird is that!
Anyway, it's great to be home. It's cool here, and green and, well, it's home!
I'm getting ready to be invaded (in a nice way, of course) by Dwayne's Dad and brothers for the weekend. The only way I know to handle all that testosterone is to cook a lot of meat. It should be fun, though. They are all going to ride their motorcycles to Red River on Saturday for the rally, and a bunch of people from both the hospital and Medflight are joining us here first and I'm making breakfast for the whole group.
Here's some pictures from last weekend's family day cake, and Miss Hannah enjoying herself eating it. Notice it has four candles (for four years together):
After some serious planning and some light construction by the hubby, we were ready to put in our garden today. We have three new beds, built in the square foot gardening style and are using two of our existing beds for crops that take up more room like squash and corn.
I'll spare you the ugliness of the unweeded, unmowed mess that it was earlier in the week and just post the pretty pictures. The pretty ones consisting of Hannah helping out. She really loves it and (mostly) helped me plant almost everything with me only needing to go behind her a few times and fix things.
Here she is putting in some patty-pan squash...
Adding some compost tea to the mix. Notice she is one colorful, stylish gardener!
Then you have to water it all down...
Here's a look at the new beds:
And the whole garden area (please excuse our yellow withered grass and the dog paths. It is a hot, dry spring here in New Mexico and we are -- as always -- trying not to deplete our well so we can mow our lawn more often. We live in the Southwest and we are at peace with that):
Today we celebrate being a family for four years. Four years ago today Hannah was placed in our arms. She was not happy...
She actually looked a little upset...
I quickly noticed I had the cryingest baby amongst our group that day...
(That's Woobie there with Miss Hannah)
She finally stopped crying on the ride home to the hotel...
By the time we got back to the hotel she totally crashed out, exhausted from such an emotional day...
There were times when I thought she would never bond with me, and times when I thought she would never let me out of her sight. But with love and patience we are a family.
We are doing something special today for Family Day. The original plan was for a picnic in the mountains but since there are rain clouds hovering at about 7500 feet and it's chilly outside, we might amend our plans to include a movie and lunch. As long as we do it together, right?
Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there on their special day.
My day has been low-key, just doing everyday weekend things with my family. Dwayne worked last night at CCU and went on flight call at 1300 so we are staying close to home, which is fine. I love being at home and doing everyday things with my family: pedicures with Hannah, Hannah and I hanging out laundry in the sunny, breezy New Mexico weather, making dinner while Dwayne sits in the kitchen with me and we talk about our week, cleaning and refilling the bird feeders...it's just ordinary stuff but it makes me happy. To be home with my family, doing things together.
That's not to say that I didn't get treats. Dwayne is Dwayne, after all. Him being a father (and me making it possible by being the mother of his child) is a huge deal to him. So I got these yesterday...
I also got a digital frame, something I've been wanting for awhile, so I can have my photos at work.
I feel a bit torn on Mother's Day. Profoundly grateful for the daughter I have, but knowing that my good fortune came at another woman's ultimate sacrifice. I think of Hannah's biological Mother all the time, and there's no way I will ever know anything about her since Hannah was abandoned with no note or any way to trace her. I can't imagine the pain of having to make that decision. I know she wanted Hannah taken care of otherwise she wouldn't have left her at the orphanage gates. I wish there was a way I could let her know how beautiful and smart Hannah is, and how much she is loved.
I also can't help but think of Maggie, the daughter I had for a very short time. Her mother died of AIDS; I know that. Is she healthy, does she have enough to eat or is she hungry in the slums of Hanoi? I wanted so much to be her mother, and my heart shattered into a million pieces when her adoption fell through.
So I think Mother's Day will always be a mixed bag for me, although maybe that's okay. Maybe that's the way I will always be grateful.
So here's the girl that made everything possible today...
Love you, Hannah!!
Dwayne finished this awhile ago, but I haven't posted any photos of it yet. The lighting is kind of funky as there is no natural light but here goes.
We had to rip out a bit of that wall behind the washer and dryer to put in the venting for the dryer and the plumbing for the sink. Dwayne then did his first attempt at drywall, and he did a fantastic job. The floor is just vinyl peel and stick -- I mean, this room is in an unheated garage, after all.
We decided to get the tricked out steam washer and dryers on the pedestals and they are just wonderful! Honestly, between the beautiful clean room and the new machines we have been fighting each other (Mom, too, when she was here!) to do the laundry.
There's a nice organized place for a hamper, storage and for hanging clothes.
I've wanted a utility sink since I moved in, especially with the ongoing construction projects we always have going on here. And with the super strong walls we have here, it's wall-mounted, making it very sleek and making the floor easy to clean. (Like I clean floors, that's funny.)
With all the changes, though, there was one thing that we had to leave the same. The wall. We have been having Hannah stand against the door frame of the laundry room to measure her since first moving here, and if for any reason we move, we are taking that piece of wood with us!
Yes, it is Cinco de Mayo, but the cinco we were concerned with today was the five immunizations Hannah received at her five-year check-up.
Poor little pumpkin, she was such a trooper! A few tears -- and honestly the nurse worked like lightning and was on the third one before any pain really registered -- and the second the shots stopped and the band-aids went on, Hannah stopped all fussing completely. I heard them whispering in the hallway as we exited the building... "I just gave her FIVE and she hardly cried at all!"
I think sometimes I tend to think that Hannah's a lot more delicate than she is. But that girl already survived a whole lot before I met her. She's a tough little kid.
The rest of the check up went well -- perfectly healthy, 75th percentile in height and 30th percentile in weight. (Of course, those are American growth charts. She evens up a bit when using a Chinese/Asian growth chart). Even with the 30th percentile in weight, she is strong and well-developed and probably just tends to be slender. Her Mongolian spot (which Dwayne calls her "tramp stamp" because it is the area of, well.. a tramp stamp) is still there and probably will be there until she is 7 or 8. Just as long as it's well-documented since we are going to a new school in the fall.
She got a little special treatment tonight for being so brave, and her little legs hurt. Here she is getting a little couch time:
