sherriknits

Wow. What a wild 10 days we put in. I just have not had the energy to do anything. Sammy and Rhianna came home yesterday and life is returning to normal, whatever that is.

The bruising is gone.

Samuel responded well to treatment and really, the only reason they were there was so he could get his 10 days of antibiotics. There was a problem along the way with getting the iv in and they almost got transferred to Tacoma, but there was a nurse and an iv specialist who prayed over the needles and his iv went in first try….after numerous attempts by other shifts.

Uncle Tyler is thinking this guy is pretty cool.

I am so proud of my kids. Rhianna did so well in the hospital made friends with the nurses and just did a great job.

Kyle spent as much time as he could with her, but he also went home and spent quality time with Mayah. I really feel for him because he had a big job being with his family here and there. His devotion is evident and I am proud to call him a son. It’s wonderful to see your daughter well taken care of.

One night Rebecca and Chase were there the same night we were. In the Special Care Nursery only 3 adults are allowed in the room at a time, including the parents. Once in awhile one of the nurses let us cross over.

Rebecca is such a great auntie!

Another night, Kyle and Mayah were there so we played with her in the waiting room.

Every one of my pictures of her was a blur because she does not stay still. Here she is headed toward that door that leads to mama and daddy, but she came back to play.

\

It was days and days before I finally got to see his eyes!

I spent two different days with Mayah. Whew, that girl can keep you on your toes!!! We had a good time together. I had her on Tuesday this week while Kyle was with Rhianna. Rhianna slept much of the day and Kyle spent time with his new son. Mayah did well with me, but it broke my heart at bedtime when she kept talking about Mama and Dada….she did not understand they were coming home in the morning. I kept trying to reassure her and she just sadly laid down and I never heard a peep out of her.

It’s fun, they have a video monitor now and that little stinker never did take a nap although she was stumbling tired in the afternoon. I watched her play for hours in her crib. I guess it was a blessing in disguise because while she was sad about her mommy and daddy, she was too tired to protest much.

Kyle came home that night and they headed up the next morning to bring home the boy.

Yesterday it seemed that the whole 10 days hit me hard. I was dangerously tired. Work was hard and long and I was thankful a friend came in to visit at the end. I couldn’t believe it last night but I watched American Idol and went to bed and slept like a baby all night.

Life is so good, I just love having these little babies, I love my kids, I just can barely contain the joy each one of them brings me. Kenny and I are so blessed with all of our kiddos.

And, since I haven’t been a faithful blogger, I hadn’t had a chance to share my good fortune! I won a blogiversary drawing! It happens to be one of my favorite blogs and Mary has become a friend. She lives in New York and I love following her through her days and through the city she loves! Hop on over and visit her!

Look what I got!!!!

This bag is so beautiful! It is made by Maruca and I loved the little tag inside….It’s the Hannah bag…”Meet Hannh..Hannah hannah bo-bannah…Bountiful Hannah! Love it!!

But that wasn’t all!

I can’t figure out where I put the label to this beautiful angora. She thought it might become a pair of booties for little man. I started them but my brain has been mush all week so I will have to get moving on them soon. Love this yarn!!!!

And last but not least, oh my, how I love this!!!!

I love this so much and it’s been going back and forth to work with me. This is Mary’s lys and I think I may have to visit it some day, although the store she showed us today on her blog might be a must-see, too!

Thanks, Mary!!!

Today I took my mom to visit and see her great-grandchild for the first time.

Mayah was eating lunch and Uncle Tyler had to come visit. I will have to get some video of him talking to her, it is so sweet.

But then, so is she!

Tags: my life

Samuel Elias!

Don’t be alarmed at his color, he was bruised during birth.

It hasn’t been an easy road for him though. He contracted a blood infection during the birth process and will be in the hospital untial at least next Wednesday. He is improving in spite of the ordeal of a spinal tap today.

He was 8 lbs. and 21 in. long. I have yet to see that sweetie with his eyes open. He’s been in the special care nursery since he was a few hours old and I have only been able to go in and see him twice now.

I don’t know if you can even see this, but the sign says “my face is bruised” so the nurses coming on duty don’t get scared when they see him.

The lights were off in the room and I couldn’t flash but here is a closer picture that I lightened, really bad quality.

(maybe when I’m not so tired)

how cute is this?

It’s kind of hard. Tyler was not allowed in the special care area so he is waiting for dad to come out. He was a real trooper.

He sees dad ocming and Kyle had taught him to wave his hand in front of the automatic door opener so here’s his chance!

and he gets to see the new mommy.

Today, the got special permission to let him in. I thought I had a picture but maybe I didn’t upload it yet, will show later if I did. The nurses there have been wonderful to Tyler. He has spent 2 long days sitting in the hospital and I love the respect they have shown him.

Of course, it wasn’t all bad.

Here he picked up Mayah’s doll on his own and is enticing her to come play.

It was so much fun to watch.

She says her baby is in her tummy.

They just have a special bond that brings tears to my eyes.

And was the little miss happy to see her mama? You tell me…

I don’t know why I don’t seem to have pictures of Kyle, too. I am so proud of my kids! They have been dealing with it all so well. I am so blessed by them as I am sure many others are.

We’re taking turns with the other grandma watching Mayah. Her whole world has been turned upside down. They moved part of their stuff, we went to Oregon for a long weekend, then finished moving. The house is full of boxes because the last of the move happened Saturday and Mr. Sammy made his appearance early the next morning! We’ll do what we can to bring a little order to it all, Rhianna had planned to have everything in place before baby but he didn’t want to wait!

I loved when we got to the hospital today. Kyle had taken his girl off for some lunch together, just the two of them. She loves her daddy, too, and it was so sweet to see them come back after their date together.

Stay tuned.

Tags: my life

I had to share some pictures I haven’t taken time to share.

I couldn’t pass up this little coat for Mayah.

Girls are way too much fun!

The kids are in the process of moving to a bigger house. She’s doing pretty well with the move but doesn’t get far from mom.

And now for the laugh of the day. On Facebook it seems everyone was posting pictures of themselves with their loves. I thought I’d share a blast from the past.

I actually snapped a shot of a 1×1.5 in picture we have. 35 years ago!

Tags: my life

We were able to get away for President’s Weekend. It is our tradition to go to Lincoln City, Oregon for the annual firemen’s ham dinner fundraiser. My father-in-law has been a volunteer fireman forever.

This is the second year we rented a house. This one was so beautiful, very relaxing. We had a bit of an ocean view. Of course, I neglected to get a picture of the outside. Here’s the living room the first night we got there and the in-laws came to visit us. Notice the tv … we had planned to watch the Olympics with the family, we got there in time to watch opening ceremonies. Unfortunately, the owner had disconnected the cable and did not notify the rental agency. We strongly requested a price adjustment. We’ll see what they do for us.

This ottoman that missy is sitting on we discovered later was missing a leg. I sat on it to take a picture of Rebecca and did a slow motion topple to the floor. The look on Rebecca’s face was priceless as I fell towards her. I’m sure mine was the same. No injuries.

Mayah is learning stairs and doing pretty well. They just moved to a house with stairs so she’s getting lots of practice. The house was 3 levels. This was looking up and down.

This is one end of the master bedroom….this room had an ocean view.

Tired and ready for bed!

This is the landing on the way upstairs….Mayah had a lot of fun running around here.

Bored with it all….

(no tv, no internet, what’s a boy to do?)

Rebecca made her own birthday cake, with Chase helping. Ben and Brittany bought ukeleles at the outlet stores…here he is having fun with the first one before he went and bought one for himself.

Valentine’s day breakfast.

Chase actually did the bacon and wasn’t standing around much at all.

Dutch babies!!!

We toasted.

Yum!

Early afternoon we headed to the ham dinner and met up with Aunt Wendy, Uncle Todd and Zoe. Sparky wanted his picture taken with the kids.

He wouldn’t leave until he had a picture taken with Grandma and Grandpa too.

These firemen are so efficient.

We posed for a family picture.

Later we had to eat cake…

birthday girl

I got time to knit….

and frog.

This was the view driving away from the house we rented.

Tags: my life

I got to go with Rhianna today to her midwife appointment. Since we’re headed out on a big weekend, the midwife brought in her little ultrasound and we got to see baby! Rhianna has been so concerned about position and this was reassuring to her to see everything is in place. She’s started dialating but it doesn’t look imminent, although everyone knows babies do what they want. It was so, so wonderful to hear that beating heart. It’s so hard to realize this is really happening, we are going to have another little baby in a very short time!

Mayah is pretty used to the whole process and makes herself quite at home. I had a moment of absolute contentment when we went to the waiting room to wait for Rhianna and Mayah came running and wrapped her arms around my legs and held tight because of all the people in the room. This girl does not do this so I just enjoyed the moment.

We made a quick trip to Toys R Us that ended up being fruitless although I got a little Graco car seat for the baby I bought her for Christmas. I wanted to have something to give her to help her be a good mommy, too. We then went to Target and I found the cutest little spring coat for her….I’ll get a picture of her wearing it when I take it to her tomorrow.

Rhianna had a very funny experience this morning in their new house. She wondered if Mayah’s room gets too cold so she snuck in to see how it felt. Mayah stood straight up out of a sound sleep. It was dark and Rhianna pinned herself against the wall and said she stood there a good 10 minutes waiting for her to lay back down. I can’t remember exactly how it went but at one point, Rhianna was trying to crawl out of the room with her belly dragging on the ground only to have Mayah see her and let out a blood curdling scream and then called for “Mama!!! Daddy!!!!” It woke Kyle up and he heard footsteps running and didn’t realize Rhianna was up. I’d have liked to have been a birdie in the house!

The sweater is coming along and remains enjoyable to work on. I hate when I feel pressure.

Tyler is a happy dude because we got a little portable dvd player for his netbook so when we spend time in the car, he has something to do.

So, what did you think of the Saints yesterday? We actually watched the whole game and there was lots of whooping and hollering in our house when it was clear they were winning! Who Dat????? Yahoo! And now I”m glad football season is over. lol

Tags: my life

What is happening to me in my blogging life? Not much, huh.

Well, I am happy to report that I am knitting again. I’m going to be a Grammy for a 2nd time in a little more than a month! What could make a knitter want to knit more than that??? We don’t know what baby is yet so you know what that means….green, yellow, white. I’ve had a pattern I’ve wanted to knit for a very long time so I’m working on that and liking it. We might see a hat to match, but we’ll see.

We got a new table a few weeks ago~we got a “gathering table”….tall that pulls out square. Now when the kids come over to play games, we can actually be comfortable. We used to always eat at the table but somewhere that got lost….now we actually are enjoying meals together again. No pictures, but perhaps to come.

Last month, we celebrated Ben’s birthday. How sweet to go to their house and have them entertain us.

How cute is that couple? It’s so wonderful to see our kids happily settled with their spouses. It just does a mother’s heart good.

We did have fun at Ben and Brittany’s.

Tyler is in to taking pictures with his phone these days. He doesn’t use it for much else, which makes me want to cancel it until I see him get a call from a sibling and light up like he does. We’ll see. The point was to have it on him so we don’t lose him, but does he ever have it on him when it would help? nah…..

Ribbit had fun at the party.

That is, until little missy tossed him aside….

Oh well, Ribbit is a good sport and he just keeps on smiling.

It was fun while it lasted.

She was having a great time.

Rebecca is taking a photography class. She was teaching me one of the rules she learned, something like the rule of 3rds.

We had lunch one day at Applebee’s and Tyler took the change well. The funny thing was when the waitress brought his water and when I saw the lemon sticking out of it and my eyes grew kind of big, how cool was it that she “got it”. She rushed away with it and came back with a plain glass of water. There is just something that smiles inside when people notice and enjoy making it easier for us. Funny things with that boy. Some battles you just don’t want to fight.

Tyler is just thriving with his new netbook. We have discovered a new thing…he actually “chats” with us and I can barely contain my joy when he actually communicates! Imagine how I felt the day he typed “I Love you, Mom” !!!!! That’s exactly what it looked like when it came across. He likes to send a message and then run by the door and see the reaction, laughing his silly laugh on the way by. He’s able to do 4 or 5 comprehendable interactions before he launches in to movie and song titles or words to songs. We’re always working at interaction with him so this is a bonus I had not expected!

We took the netbook to therapy one day and showed the therapist.

She was properly impressed.

Tyler gets to pick his last activity during his session and this particular day he wanted to do music.

Here he is using some funny paddle thing for a guitar. Notice the expression. He loves to imitate.

This last week it was “directir” (this is what he wrote) and he went into acting and directing mode. lol

Do you have any superbowl plans? We’re not football fans, but like so many others, I would love to see the Saints win for the sake of the city of New Orleans. (gosh I hope I got the right team name! lol) We’ll probably even watch the game!

Rhianna and Kyle are moving and first thing on the agenda was getting their tv set up for their superbowl party. They’re spending their first night in their new house tonight. How very fun to have lots more space for their expanding family! And the view….up on the hill overlooking the river running through town. They’ll get to watch the ships coming and going and she said the sunsets are beautiful.

Got a busy week ahead and I get to end it with a 5 day weekend! I plan to knit and relax!

Hope to not wait so long before I see you again! the end.

Tags: my life

Here we are, a new year!

We spent a quiet evening and the best part of it all to me is that when I told Tyler it was time to come in and toast in the new year with us, he came with the biggest smile on his face. We’d been given some sparkling cranberry juice so we used crystal glasses and toasted each other, the 3 of us. Tyler’s grin was priceless. We even got him to yell out the door when all the fireworks were going off.

Yesterday we drove up to Sumner to the Old Cannery Warehouse, a furniture store. They have a train the runs close to the ceiling.

Tyler had to sit down for awhile to watch it.

This store is fun to go to on a regular day, but at Christmas time, it’s really fun. I should have taken more pictures. There are talking statues and farm animals all over.

I got a chuckle. There was an older fellow with Down Syndrome walking around the store with a mom and sister. He wore swim goggles. As we walked by him one time, I smiled and then looked at his mom and smiled. She said hi as they passed and I knew that volumes had passed between us~sometimes you want to laugh and cry at the same time.

I couldn’t get him to go stand by the train, and he wouldn’t cooperate next to the mountain man inside either altho he loved it all. lol

Today at church was rather interesting. I woke up at 9:00!!!!!! I couldn’t believe it. We barely made it by 10 and as we were walking in, I saw a friend visiting from Houston. We stopped to visit and then when I went in to sit down, *our row* was full of other people!!!!! LOL

Anyone who regularly attends church knows that we all have our regular “address” and get thrown off when someone else sits there. I am not so stuck that I can’t function, but being late and not being able to find any family was kind of weird (half the family was on the worship team today and the spouses were either teaching or not there!) I found a friend who had half a row empty so I sat with her. Then I realized Tyler wasn’t where he always sits! I went to the back and immediately saw him in the front row on the other side of the church. Ok, good, Kenny is right in front of him. After Kenny was sitting with me, an usher climbs in our row over the family intently looking at ME. Uh oh. He whispers that Tyler is in the conference room, he wasn’t sure if that was ok. No, it isn’t. Kenny said he’d go take care of it. Before long, he came back with a boy in tow. This is the end of independence for awhile.

We’ve started having trouble with him going to Kids Church after worship is over. The kids are released earlier but he loves being there for worship so we’ve let him do that. BUT, since he goes in late, he has also decided it’s ok to leave early. The workers felt just terrible today but Rhianna assured him that it wasn’t their fault, he’s just too good at getting out of the room. Evidently someone else had seen him in the big empty game room and had told Kyle w ho was teaching the kids, he texted Rhianna who had gone to check on him but evidently by then he had moved to the conference room. ugh.

Rhianna told me a story about one youth church night. They got out early. She saw him leave so she followed.He was clearly sneaking across the parking lot. When they got in the main building, he saw that the adults were still in class. He was going to go into the offices when Rhianna surprised him and said No, now that you have come over here, you can go sit with Dad.” Kenny was right inside the door, leaning against the sound booth. Rhianna went in and tapped him to tell him, that fast Tyler was gone. They found him upstairs eating cake with the younger kids!!!!

Never have I understood the “it takes a village….” as well as I am these days. Thankfully we have very helpful people and security is tight at the church so he doesn’t get too far without people knowing.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I forgot to mention the wonderful gift the kids all got us. They all gave us beautifully framed wedding pictures of themselves and had taken a picture of Tyler sitting on Rhianna’s steps. They made us a picture wall! Well….at least it got started. I am sitting here smiling at my wonderful family. We spent a long time trying to get it right and I was promised that the one that needed moving would happen very soon. A week and a half later it hasn’t been done yet, but I am sure it will……lol I often look at them and count my blessings, we’ve talked often the last few days about how great our kids are.

You’d have laughed when they were hanging the pictures. Rebecca got the only wedding picture we have here and set it on top of one of the frames. Our picture is about 1 inch by 1 1/2. I guess maybe some day we should frame one of ours and set it over them.

Has anyone listened to Susan Boyle’s cd? I could listen to her day and night.

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Getting back to today….we had a baptism at church and Kenny was asked to pray over him during the baptism. It’s been so exciting to see this fellow come along. We got invited to lunch afterwards with their family.

Something was said during lunch about did he get to have his picture taken with Ribbit since Ribbit seems to be everywhere and get his picture taken. Out he came to enjoy lunch with us all.

Here he is with a chip on his shoulder.

Let me add that during church, he was sitting on our friend’s knee (same one who let him sit in his glove during the Mariner’s game) and he bounced off and into the row behind. It might have been a little embarrassing when the fellow behind us handed him back to a row full of adults. lol

It didn’t help when our friend spanked him.

Anyway, Ribbit had fun with lunch and he did get to spend some time with the baptis-ee who wanted the honor of being photographed with Ribbit.

We had a great time.

And now I am wondering if I should wake Kenny up, he’s been asleep for hours on the couch and I am wondering if he’ll sleep at all tonight!

Tags: my life

Ours was so different this year, but I have to say I really enjoyed it.

Tradionally, we get together with the store crew for breakfast Christmas Eve morning. My mom invites extended family and in the past we have gone to a restaurant, but this year we had the absolute privilege of going to the home of friends of ours who live in a wonderful 100 year old home. It was a long shot when I emailed and asked if they would be interested in cooking for us on Christmas Eve so you can imagine how thrilling it was to find out not only would they love to do it, but they invited us to their home. It was wonderful. I put together a short little video.

Then on Christmas Eve, all of our children were here! We had dinner together and gifts.

Not sure what the spots are on the picture but I really only took time to snap a few pictures.

The little girl was having a great time.

It was a fun evening. We went to church for candlelight service at 9. For once, no one in the family had duties. It was a wonderfully relaxing evening. At the end, we formed a circle around the sanctuary and lit candles in the darkened room. It was really beautiful. It was also short and sweet.

We were blessed greatly that the kids wanted to continue the evening so we went to Rhianna’s and Kyle’s. Rhianna had to miss the service because Mayah was “done” for the night so she was put to bed. We ate dessert and spent a little bit of time together before we all headed home.

We always get new jammies for Christmas so we came home and put ours on and headed to bed. At 8 the next morning, I couldn’t wait one more minute to give Tyler his gift so I woke him up, and woke him up, and woke him up! He was out cold. There was nothing on the agenda for the day so I figured he could get up and go back to bed if he needed to. (take a guess, do you think he did?)

I took video of him opening his one present, but it is way too long and I can’t figure out how to cut a section out. I did take a little snapshot out of the video though….

Yep, he got a 10 inch netbook and he is one happy boy. We have actually been chatting on google talk. Yesterday we went to Barnes and Noble and sat at the same table and chatted with each other. It’s a great tool for communication, helping him interact more.

And I have to take this opportunity to say that I was able to use $55 worth of swagbucks to get the netbook at Amazon. So…. Black Friday sale + Swagbucks = a good deal! (to date, $140 in Amazon gift cards from Swagbucks!)

Christmas day was quiet here as they kids all spent the morning with their spouses and then did Christmas dinner with their other families. We stayed in our jammies all day and had a very quite pleasant day. This year Kenny and I decided to do joint gifts so we got new bedding and a gps navigating system for the car and also a new TV which we’ve needed and finally used our income tax refund on. It’s nice to ha

Today at church, one of my sweet friends was home from New York for Christmas. She saw me digging in my purse and asked if there happened to be anything special in there…..

Yep, Ribbit had a great time visiting with Callie. I looked over at one point and Callie and Brittany were each holding one of his hands because he hasn’t learned to sit alone yet!

I do hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

Tags: my life

The family is dealing with the pain. I’m thinking Christmas Eve when they all come here is going to be a little bittersweet and then New Years, which was Wiley’s birthday is inevitably going to be a hard day.

Ben came over last night while Brittany had a work party at their apartment. We spent hours laughing over crazy Wiley stories. When he was a puppy, he ran at every opportunity. He was a bullet when the door opened. He has seen the inside of Walmart by accident when he got out of our car. How embarrassing! Amazingly, his predecessor ran into Penney’s in the same way, is this common???

Once he got loose and Rhianna chased him, he took a quick turn and darted through a neighbor’s house, in the back door, out the front. As Rhianna tore through their house she said hi and bye to the people living there. I kind of remember them not being amused. You know the beautiful mansion across the street? Yep, he’s been in there, too. I will never forget the owner carrying him out after he skidded in on their beautiful hardwood floors! I didn’t think he’d ever outgrow that, eventually it got to not be so bad….altho even in the last 6 months, I know he got out and disappeared. The only way I could ever get him was to drive after him and make him get in the car. He always proudly sat on the seat, but was afraid to get out because he knew he was in trouble. lol These parts I will not miss, I do like to live in peace with the neighbors. Amazingly, the owners of the mansion really liked him and were not mad even though they have a fortune’s worth of treasures in the entry hall alone! ugh.

Yesterday at church, we had the most wonderful illustrated sermon. Afterwards, I came home and I have no idea how this came about, but Ben and Kenny saw Tyler walk in looking like this:

The costume was not used during the play, but evidently he went to the drama room when the costumes were being put away and had some assistance getting dressed.

I’m sad I missed it. Ben snapped the pics on his cell phone.

Are you getting ready for Christmas? I am sure I am missing something but this year we have seriously cut down on everything. it is amazing how nice it is to have a peaceful time leading up to Christmas day. Our parties all fell at the beginning of the month, which is so good that we had this last week to deal with the heartache and not have to be somewhere.

Several friends asked if we could drop gift giving and for that I am so grateful. Last year I was so embarrassed to be months late with one friend’s birthday and Christmas gift (birthday was in Oct., I think I gave her both gifts in February!) I sent off the one thing I had to mail today and wrapped up some simple things and got them under the tree. I have one thing I have not figured out yet but Kenny and I are going to go to Olympia tomorrow night so I have all day to think about it and all afternoon to run errands when Tyler is with Rhianna.

Rebecca and I have been talking about blogging. Both of us love it, both of us have been very lax at it. She has the sweetest blog and I am hoping she gets going again. When she does, maybe I’ll link her here.

For years, I was a closet blogger and had another one that I wrote just for people I knew, much less on it than here. I am wondering why. I don’t think I bear my soul here more than there, but hmmm.

Anyway, enough rambling, I should try to find something constructive to do, Tyler and I just got the dishes done and I like being lazy in the morning.

Hope you’re all getting a chance to enjoy a little bit of the season!

Tags: my life

Ok, I was the one who always said I just tolerated him. I am finding different this week.

We had to have our dog, Wiley, put to sleep today. He would have been 11 on New Years. He was a good dog and the pain of losing him is really evident in our family today. Rhianna brought him home and she loved him and took good care of him. When she moved out, he kind of became Ben’s dog. He slept with Ben every night, much to my dismay. We were never surprised to hear a big thunk on the floor when Wiley fell out of bed. One of Tyler’s favorite things to do was to come home and check the couches for a warm spot and an obvious indentation where he had been sleeping when we weren’t home. We rarely ever caught him at it, but he always looked guilty as ever.

I asked Kenny not to put Junior Mints in my stocking this year. The last several years (you’d think I’d learn), when we were gone, Wiley would eat them, box and all. One year, Kenny replaced them twice and I never did get to eat any. Some of the times, they were put up in a place you’d never think he could get them. And yes, he had seizures a few times from getting in to my chocolate~scared the living daylights out of us. He was resourceful and intent on getting it, though. I even saw Kenny give him CPR once.

We noticed this week that he was having problems and knew he needed to be seen. We heard the inevitable. After many, many tears yesterday and a bad night last night, we knew it was time. The kids came to say good-bye. We all wept. One by one, we said our final goodbyes and left the house. Kenny couldn’t bring himself to go back to work so he spent the day doing things he’s loved doing with him. They went for a ride and they went to a park. I wish they would have had one more time at the beach, but I don’t think Wiley could have done it. Kenny said Wiley had a little bit of a burst of energy while they spent their time together but he said it was rough afterwards.

He brought Tyler to me at my shop so he could take Wiley in. Tyler and I ended up coming home and tried to get some things out of here before Kenny came home. You can only imagine his heartbreak when he called to tell me he was on his way home and what they did today.

We left early on our date and took Tyler. I texted the kids to say we were on our way out of town, the only way I could tell them it was over. Within seconds, I got 3 texts in return….wanting to know if we were ok. Ben and I texted our whole drive to Olympia. He really touched me. He said how much he was going to miss Wiley and that Wiley would be the dog all future dogs he may have would be compared to. He teased me and said they all know he loved me a lot. He reminded me he loved me ever since I saved him from the starlings…so much he wanted to see me so bad he’d climb on the neighbor’s roof.

When he was somewhat of a puppy we had a very bad year with starlings, they sat on the neighbor’s house. At that time I think we must have fed Wiley on the deck. However, those starlings took to taunting and diving at Wiley and he was terrified. The kids all remember me moving everything inside and watching out for him when he went outside. lol

The roof thing was hilarious. I was sitting and doing bookkeeping on my computer when suddenly in the reflection on the monitor, I see Wiley looking in the window behind me. I slowly turned and lo and behold, he was on our neighbor’s carport roof! How he got up there I don’t think we ever quite understood, it was quite a climb! The embarrassing part was, their were workers on the roof of the house and Wiley got really freaked out and started running the length of the roof, skidding to a stop at the edge. I was so freaked out, I started screaming for poor Ben to come help….which he did time and time again whenever Wiley pulled his shenanigans!

Wiley was the reason Tyler wandered away from home when he was 8. He used to bolt out the door whenever it was left open and one nice day, Tyler accidentally let him out. Within minutes, we all realized he was gone. We spread out over the neighborhood and Kenny got in the car and started driving. He came across so many houses with people working in their yards who said they’d seen him go that way. To this day, it makes no sense to me. Tyler was barefoot and obviously should not have been out alone. Wiley was ahead and Tyler was on the run. I was talking to Kenny on the cell phone and asked if we should call the police. Kenny said he just saw a policeman and circled the block to flag him down. He did and when he hollered and asked if he’d seen a boy and a dog, the policeman turned and said, “Have I seen a boy and a dog?” and Kenny hears this proud little, “Yes!” Kenny yells in to the phone, “He’s got him!” and threw the open phone on the seat as I’m nearly hysterically screaming where, what, how!!! lol After that, we had a period where Tyler took the dog looking for a policman!!!!! Not a fun time. This is when I started knitting again.

As Kenny said today, Wiley never raised his voice at Tyler. He tolerated a lot from him and was always kind. They were buddies.

Tyler doesn’t really understand, this is his first experience with anything like this. When Kenny held him and told him, Tyler looked grief-stricken but he has not said a word. He knows the story of Marley and Me and we are hoping this will help him understand.

All in all, we know it was for the best, but that never makes it easy. I’m going to leave you with a short video I took today. I couldn’t bear to get any more when Ben came in right afterwards and he and Rhianna grieved together.

Thanks for listening~we’re now walking out the future with all the changes that have come our way and this is one more.

Tags: my life