Once upon a time...

I was teaching at a rural high school in Kentucky, not too far from Cincinnati.  I had a brand new teaching assistant that day.  He hadn’t even finished out his two week notice at his previous employer, a gas station.  He was in for the busiest night of his position there that night, but didn’t know it yet.

The day was beautiful, and my class of students with disabilities had been away at PE for second period.  I'd been busy preparing for lessons when I heard them returning.  As the class came in, my first teaching assistant came in and asked me to turn on the TV.  I don't think we'd had it on yet that year, and found that the sound didn’t work, so we watched the skies of New York and later D. C. and a field in Pennsylvania with closed captions running.

I reached for the phone to have my husband watching.  I emailed my mom—I didn’t own a cell phone.  My cousin's train ran under the World Trade Center.  She had a long walk home, but was safe.

One of my students kept asking the question we all did, “Why?”

The physicality of signing the words, “A plane hit the building,” over and over is burned in my memory.

Justin and I had dinner plans with friends that night.  We kept them.  At dinner their phone rang, and they heard there was a run on gas.  Justin and the two of them went to fill up cars, while I sat with their little girl.  Then we watched, replays and rescue efforts, commentators, men dancing in the streets in a far away land.  We saw our President promise to keep prices from skyrocketing in people's panic.  We saw prayer vigils and flags.  Our nation united...for a time.

It was savage and beautiful: the acts of kindness in the face of tragedy.  People showed up: they drove boats to evacuate Manhattan, dug through rubble, and held open doors. They put up pictures in hopes of finding loved ones, lit candles, and joined in prayer.

It was 9/11.

Trip to Cincinnati

We had occasion to head back to Cincinnati over the weekend, for the memorial for Justin's PhD advisor.  One of Justin's former students from here has made her way up there to graduate school, and is in Justin's old lab, so she let him take a peak in the renovated lab, which was fun for him.

Despite the sad circumstances, we did find some things to do afterwards with the children in the city.  Generally when we have occasion to stay in the city, we choose a Drury Inn (dinner, snacks, and breakfast all being included and ready access to suites to accommodate our family), outside of town.  This was a holiday weekend, however, so we got a room right downtown.  We had assumed we'd have to drive to go somewhere during the course of our stay, but once we got settled in we found that just about everything we needed was in walking distance.

While we waited for check in, we stopped by Mt. Storm Park.

In 2002

In 2011, right after he defended his dissertation

There are several brands of Cincinnati style chili, but Justin grew up in a Skyline family, so that's the only place we ever go, so we had a late lunch of Skyline. 

Then we took a quick walk through Fountain Square Park, which was virtually across the street from us.  The sun was bright, but that didn't last too long!

We walked over to the Crew Tower, where we walked through the shops and found while many of them were closed, the Hathaway Cafe, where we occasionally would go to breakfast when we were there was still in business, though closed for the afternoon.  We picked up post cards for the older girls' pen pals, then, as we walked out the door, it began to pour.  We had about a 5 block trip back to the hotel, so we arrived rather soaked.  We took a hairdryer and an iron to our clothes to get them dry, while the storm passed.

Since the kids had eaten at the reception and had a late lunch, we decided on Graeter's Ice Cream and whatever snacks we could find at Walgreens for dinner.  The ice cream was wonderful, as always, but we found that the Walgreens had closed at 4:00!  So we missed out on that.  Our hotel did have some options in their little pantry that, while expensive, tided everyone over.

At midnight Justin woke me with low blood sugar.  Typically we travel with sugar ready, but as we never needed the car, we had not brought up the food on the second trip that we planned from the car (which was valet parked).  Most hotels with in room coffee have sugar, but this one did not, so I made a quick dash for the pantry and a Coke for him.  Crisis averted!

We spent less than a day in the city, but we crammed in as much Cincinnati as we could!

Kristy

Swing Set

When I was a little girl, my Daddy built a swing set for my sister and me to play on.  We spent a lot of hours on it--two swings, a tire swing, trapeze bar, and a set of monkey bars.  It also had a balance beam next to it.  We made a little obstical course out of it.  Across the beam, up on to the tire swing (without touching the ground), across the step for the monkey bars, and onto the trapeze bar, where we would flip over.  I remember growing too tall to set the trapeze bar so that I could sit on it and flip without hitting my head one way or the other.

When it became clear that Kate was out growing our metal A frame swing set, I had my old swing in mind.

 

Justin and I opted for a web swing in place of the old tire swing, and we'll still have a baby swing up for Ellie, but for the most part, it is my old swing set.  We added an extra post to stabilize the bar for the web swing too, since it is made to hold up to three children.

Holly, want to come swing?

Or we could just play in the mud...

 

Thanks for all your (hot) hard work, Justin.

Happy New Year

I guess I sorta got busy! I haven't written in quite awhile. I hope you had a Merry Christmas and are enjoying the New Year. We started back to our normal schedule yesterday. The professor was to be at work, so the littles and I went back on our school schedule. So now I can get caught up on all the writing I missed out on...well maybe some of it anyway!

We've done baking, visiting, sewing, shopping, baking, caroling, wrapping, and oh, did I mention baking?

The kiddos got some cute new PJs this year. These are a set from my parents that they modeled for me the other night. You might also be able to tell that both of the girls have had their hair trimmed. The girls adore long dresses and nightgowns. Gabby's brushes the top of her feet. It reminds me of Cindy Lou Who, and Nate has his 'Mergcy 'jammas. Covered in emergency vehicles, in honor of Aunt Holly.

Also in honor of Aunt Holly...

When we were little girls, we had some neighbors who we played with regularly. We enjoyed a lot of kickball games in our front yards, trick or treating together, and spent hours upon hours with them. The middle child was between Holly and me in age and owned a certain pair of slippers. They were 'bear claws,' fuzzy brown with plastic claws. As small children often are, Holly was scared of the claws, and she would run home anytime they came out. Of course, they were never brought out just to scare her off (ahem). Sorry Holly.

Anyway, that's why when I saw these on clearance...I just couldn't pass them up, so now Nate can scare his Auntie away. Maybe that won't work anymore though.

Curio

Can I let you in on a secret? I have a hard time letting things go...in other words I'm a bit of a pack rat. I'm pretty good about somethings, but I have a hard time letting go of the sentimental. We don't have much of great value, but I like my memories!

Thankfully, I have a nice, pretty place to display some of these trinkets now.


A few years ago, I inherited my grandmother's curio cabinet.


It has the kids baby shoes (and mine too),


The girls' silver cups and a figurine that was a gift when I was expecting Kate,


Willow Tree figurines from a sweet gal who worked with my mom--one for Kate when her great grandmother died and one for us when we bought our house in Kansas,


Our wedding cake topper,


An ornament we bought on our honeymoon,


Doilies tatted by great, great grandmothers,


Folded paper stars from our exchange student from Denmark and a teeny tiny tea set that my Grannie bought for me when I was a little girl.

So maybe I was stalling a bit on my unpacking by taking pictures...shhh.

Real Mail

I got mail!!! When I made my way to the mailbox yesterday, yes in my flip flops, there were several things out there. Statements from our insurance company, a notice from when I had Gabby's speech evaluation done that they were going to contact my insurance company, ubber exciting stuff. But there in the pile was a real addressed letter.

I love those, don't you? They often come unexpectedly and they are so very fun to get. If I had looked more closely before I opened it, I would have been even more excited. I knew the stamps were different and there were two, but I still didn't put it together until I opened the envelope.

Can you see the card?

There are little Danish flags all over it!

When I was a senior in high school, my family hosted an exchange student from Denmark. We loved her so much. My sister and I had a wonderful time running around with her. We learned to say things like "Is boutique" for ice cream shop, "Hjælpe mig!" (Help me!) and "Glædelig jul" for Merry Christmas. She learned that you don't borrow a bathroom, you ask to use it. At the end of her trip her whole family came to stay with us for a couple of weeks, so we got to meet her parents and younger sister too.

Our Danish sister had a baby this past year, so I sent her some baby blankets for her little boy and I received this thank you card. I couldn't have been happier!

My Iron

I nearly forgot my little promise! So here's the reason why I'm so sentimental over this silly old iron.

My husband and I were married when I was at the ripe old age of twenty. As most couples do, we made a registry and this was one of the items on our list. I received an iron identical to this one at one of my showers. However, when we got back from our honeymoon to Cumberland Falls I opened this one from an old school mate. I was so surprised that he had purchase me a gift, that I had to hang on to that one for some reason, so I returned the first one I received, chuckling to myself that he couldn't read a registry, thus the duplicate.

That was in June. In September, he died. He was in a car accident on his way back to college. When I went to the visitation, on a rather cool evening for September, I spoke to his mom about the iron. It turns out that he had sent her to choose something for me, being a 20 year old man and not knowing what to buy. She laughed as she remembered bringing it home and him looked at the registry and noticing it was a duplicate.

I always think of him and of his mother's laughter when I iron. So much so that when my husband needed to iron on some wood veneer, I made him buy another iron, so I would keep mine safe from the glue that might have ruined it. And truth be told, some day when I replace that old iron, I'm sure that anytime I iron, I'll still remember that fellow.

The Rocker

Every chair should be a throne, and hold a king
-Emerson

Okay so the little rocking chair isn't exactly a throne, but it was my grandfather's as a little boy. It's had fresh paint and some minor repairs over the years, but it has definitely stood up to a lot of children. There are picture of each of the four of us grandchildren in it. At this point, I'm the only one with little children, so we have the chair and it is technically Gabby's. We got Kate a rocking chair when she was one, so Gabby is using Grandpa's chair now.

Here she is on Christmas morning in 2008. She was so tiny.


This is a picture of Kate taken at my parents' house in the chair as well--she was 8 1/2 months old.


And of course Nate had to have a turn too.

Big House

As I was driving the other day, the song "Big House" came on the radio. Kate started singing at the top of her lungs. I love that she loves it. It was a popular song back when I was in high school. Anytime I hear it I think of a trip my youth group took to Camp Kavanaugh. We stayed in the McCoy House. The song really fit that house. It was a huge old house that we shared for the weekend, sleeping in bunk rooms, having to sign up for shower times, and truly enjoying one another.

I had a lot of fun growing up with that group of kids. Many of us had been together since we were little children in Sunday School. I hope our kids are blessed with those relationships and that foundation as they grow.

This is a picture of many of us who were there that weekend, though this was at Lake Junaluska during the week of the 4th of July in 1996.

It was pretty rainy that weekend, so we spent much of our time inside playing Spoons and talking when we weren't in our group. I don't remember much about our discussions, but I remember the friendship we shared and that song blaring on the radio and it being sung as we ran up and down the stairs. Got to love a little Audio Adrenaline!