Seattel Brain Cancer Walk 2013 - Big Success!!

 

Just like that – the 2013 Seattle Brain Cancer Walk is in the books.  Every year I think the same thing: this is just like a wedding.   You spend a whole year planning and then *poof* is over; the whole time you’re saying “hello” to all sorts of people and promise “we’ll get together soon”, pose for a quick picture and the onward! It’s all a big whirlwind but so wonderful while it’s happening.

 

The first thing you really need to know was that the weather forecast called for 70% chance of rain (not showers, but actual rain) AND possible thunderstorms and that’s just not normal for Seattle.  For a week we did our “anti-rain-dance” and hoped it would just stay dry from 7:30-10:30.  That’s all we needed.



Group shot of this year's Patients & Survivors.

After months of prep it was show time.  The alarm went off at Aaron and I turned it off and went back to sleep.  I woke up when Aaron rubbed my shoulder and said, “Guess what?  ….it’s not raining!”  That seemed like a good enough reason to get out of bed.  That and my ride was due in the next ½ hour or so.

We made it to Seattle Center at 5:00am – quite a while before sunrise and started to setup and just after 7:30 all sorts of brain cancer patients and survivors started to make their way to our area – the Patient/Survivor Pavilion.  


Entry into the Patient and Survivor Pravillon



Just one of the tables holding 169 donated Experiences
for patients to chose from.



This year Aaron ended up volunteering in the Pavilion and reports “it was fun!”  I know he didn’t say that for my benefit because it really is the place to be on walk day.  Ben and Karen also volunteered there too and that was a big help!  We gave about 100 patients an “experience” to enjoy, like sports, dinner, movies, etc. 



Patient/Survivor picking an Experience.

Cute kids having special treats while waiting in the
Patient & Survivor Pravillion

Aaron volunteering.  A patient called me today and reported,
"Your husband is just adorable".  ...ya, he sure is!  :)

We had a great time with Karen and “aunt” Janice who the two most positive and upbeat people I know. We just have so much fun with them.  Karen and I actually got to spend a few hours together earlier in the week.  I love her company so it was a treat to have a little time together before the walk.  Plus the entire team went out from our traditional post-walk brunch which has become one of my most favorite times of the year. 



I love this phot of me, aunt Janice and Karen. The SBCW photgrapher captures this one every year.
He's gotta be getting tired of us and our boas, but too bad!!

It’s hard to sum it all up without droning on and on, so just let me way this--- we had over 2,500 walkers, about 100 brain cancer survivors, and raised $460,000 so far.  The day was a huge success, super-fun and I’m absolutely exhausted. 

BIG thank you to all of our friends and family who support us every year, come out to the walk, donate, volunteer, wish us well…all of it makes it even a more special.



Ben and Karen both volunteered all day. 

Cynthia and Brigit both suprised me and joined us for the walk...
along with Maggie the dog.

Plus, as luck would have it, the weather stayed dry all day long AND the sun came out during closing ceremonies.  The day was meant to be perfect, and it was.


A few more pictures from the walk: 


Balloons in walk colors.  Kids LOVED them and we ran out.



Seattle Philharmonic has played at the walk for four years. 
Plus they donate a pair of tickets for every patient.  Pretty darn generous!



Karen's cousin Holly on the left. She's a survivor and gave a speech at the Walk.



Karen's sister Linda...who's glamorous as always!



BRUNCH!  I was hungry by then and the
truffel mushroom omlett will require it's own blog entry
and don't get me started on the gourmet donut holes!



Nan (my co-chair and partner) makes these amazing bouquets
for every walk.  They are alway sunning and I never turn her down
when she sents one home with me at the end of the day.

Happy Birthday America!!



 

 

You could easily have thought we've forgotten about our blog, but not so!! As you might have guessed, things have been absolutely crazy lately, but we are starting to right the ship.

 

Immediately after Aaron finished up his most amazing sculpture he took off for a well-deserved vacation with his Pa. They took in some fabulous art and a baseball game and even caught a foul ball (reenacted below).

I was lucky enought to walk into the studio at just the perfect time to capture this historic moment.

 

The flowers and garden are doing great!!  We are really, really enjoying the yard this year.  Things are definitely hitting the "thriving" stage. When you're first starting out, you just don't believe it'll every look nice and "full" and then five years later: kaboom!  Flowers everywhere!

These are lilies Aaron gave me a few years ago. I like how red they are.

We re-made the "wedding container" (Thanks, Mom!).  Now it has a "climbing" fuchsia in it. 
It's juuuuuuust about to bloom.  We can't wait to see it really grow.  They are supposed to get up to 10 feet tall!

These are lilies Grandma Elsie sent to me right before checking into the nursing home. 
They lived at my old house for a while and then made the trip to our house after I moved in.
They seem to be doing pretty good after 5 years and a couple of transplants.  
They, of course, remind me of grandma every time.

This is the biggest bargain of the year. Aaron found these dahlias for a few dollars at the supermarket.
They were all dying and spent, but we gave them a new pot and a little TLC and look at them now!

And finally, the big event: Fourth of July!!!  It's a toss up which holiday I like best: Opening Day of Baseball or 4th of July, but they are both great.

We had an absolutely wonderful time with friends over for grilling.  Since the house just is not big enough for more than a few people to dine, we moved the dining room into the garden room.  I've gotta say, it was pretty much right out of a magazine (except, maybe for having to use a bed sheet as a table cloth, but you can see Aaron made even that look pretty darn good). 




The yard, completely with stars and a Captain America shield.

These people are dangerous!!!  They made me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe...and then they kept on going.
Let me just say, we were all completely and totally spent at the end of the night.  Way too much fun!  Naturally we went out to dinner together again the next night.  (Now that's a good sign!)

This pretty much sums it up.  Good friends and good food.

We capped off the night with a trip to see fireworks.  Aaron didn't think we could get close enough to see them, but he was a good sport.  To our happy surprise we found a great spot in Fremont that was out of the crowds.



And the night ended with a bang. 
(We didn't quite have this view, but close enough.)

Hope you had a wonderful time too!

Waiting for Spring

Destination: Port Angeles

 

It's late April and we are still freezing out here, but the bummer is that we can't even complain about it!  No way, not when my family in the Midwest is still having school cancelled because of snow!  At least the rain doesn't have to be shoveled.

 

A few weeks ago Aaron took the whole weekend off to attend an important artist workshop. Then at the last minute the class was cancelled.  What to do, what to do???  Aaron said he could just offer to work and I told him to hush with the crazy-talk (the lack of sun has affected his thinking).  Instead, I split from work at the first available opportunity and we met at the ferry dock on a Friday afternoon and ran away to Port Angeles for a two-night get-away. 

 

Waiting for our ride out of town.

 

It was a quick cure to the cabin fever and we had an absolutely wonderful time!  Turns out there's quite an arts community in Port Angeles, which is near the entrance to the Olympic National Park.  We took a long walk through "Webster's Woods" a 5 acre sculpture park, just packed with really cool installations everywhere we looked.  We were constantly surprised, "Hey!  look up there!...whoa, check this out!"  Most of the pieces were really site specific (colored pins stuck into tree trunks in funky ways to look like growths, mirrors hanging up in branches to give specific reflections...), but some of them were more of the "professional" type.  This cool Pi sculpture is by Micajah Bienvenu (www.artmb.com).   Aaron recogonized it instantly because Micajah was one of the speakers at the Seattle Metals Guild lecture series he organized back in 2008.



I like pi.

Port Angles can pride itself on the nicest customer service around.  It was definitely "small town" in the best sense of the words.  We saw a waitress hugging every customer who came or went.  At one breakfast I spilled my tea (I'm good for that sort of clutz move) and as I was dabbing it up with my napkin a waitress showed up with new napkins, a towel, and new tea all at once.  She said, "Don't you worry dear... if you don't make a mess, I don't have a job."  Well!  Aaron would say she found her dream customer.

Possibly the best part of whole trip was living without a TV. We listened to the frogs, watched the stars in the dark sky, and cuddled up and read books together. It's only been a few weeks, but we're ready to go again and highly recommend Port Angeles!

Hiking in Olympic National Park.

Go Mariners!

Five years ago Aaron mustered up the nerve to ask the question he knew the answer to.  As tradition holds we considered the baseball home opener, "Anniversary Observed".  It was one of the funnest baseball openers we've attended in a while AND the Mariner's won. We had a GREAT time with our other baseball friends stopping by to say hi throughout the evening.

Check out the GIANT new video screen!  It's something like 150 feet long and 50 feet high!  Biggest in baseball!  At least were the best at something...

Cookies and Ice Cream = Speedy Recovery

And then there's 100 year old Grandma Elsie.  Last week I got a call from Nurse Sue at work.   She says that grandma has broken her hip.  My heart sank.  I almost instantly thought, "Oh.  This is how it's going to end..."  Nurse Sue gives me what little information she has and asks if I want grandma transported to the ER.  I consented and immediately started working the phone to make sure Andy and Mary knew what's going on.  Without typing out every last detail...Andy meets her at the ER and that's really where our story begins.

Grandma Elsie when she was just 95.

The doctors ask, "Elsie, does your leg hurt?"
Grandma, "No"
The doctors ask again, "Elsie does your leg hurt?"
Grandma, "Nope."
Doctors lift back the blanket and lightly touch her toe and grandma yells out in pain.
Doctors leave.
Andy leans over and wispers, "Grandma, does your leg hurt?"
Grandma, "Oh yes...it hurts bad!"

They decided that there is no choice - we have to do surgery.  This sounds like risky business to me and Andy, but we know it's the only way we can make grandma feel better.

Grandma gets prescribed all the pain meds she wants. 

Next morning, Andy invites grandma's 95-year old brother to visit her.  I make sure he tells her that we love her. Then she heads to surgery.  We wait.  And, if I'm honest about it, I'm bracing myself for the next phone call and I'm trying to tell myself there are worse ways to go than when you're asleep.... whatever...you can tell yourself that all day long, but when it's all said-and-done, it's grandma Elsie we're talking about and it's too hard to think about it.

Andy calls and texts a variety of messages over the next four hours that go something like this:
Grandma just left for surgery.  No change in plan.  Should be a couple of hours.
She's in recovery.  Everything went as planned except no anasthesia.  They gave her a spinal instead.  Grandma was AWAKE for surgery.  (Seriously?  Seriously!)
Grandma is heading back to her room.
Eating cookies and ice cream.

WHAT?  Does he mean he's eating cookies and ice cream?  Um.  No, he doesn't.

Nurse tells Grandma to pick a clear liquid for dinner: beef broth or 7-up?  Grandma says, "I want cookies".  The nurse starts to read the list of clear liquids to pick from, "Cookies!" she demands and apparently grandma must have been yelling.  A short time later another nurse walks in with cookies and ice cream, "When you're 100 you can have whatever you want."  We couldn't agree more!  Four hours after surgery, grandma was eating cookies and ice cream.  Aaron is so, SO proud to be related to grandma Elsie.

Grandma continues a steady stream of pain-killers and dessert and drifts off to sleep.  Andy curls up on the hospital couch.  It's a slumber party...and apparently the Respiratory Guy wants in on the action.  A little after midnight he wakes grandma up.  She's NOT HAPPY (and neither am I when people wake me up at midnight...um, Aaron).  He wants her to breathe into the little tube that makes the balls bounce up and down.  I'm sure the point is to ward off pneumonia, but grandma isn't interested.  I sense she might have been a tiny bit hostile about it...and looped up on drugs. She leans back, closes her eyes and then out of nowhere just starts to belt out the national anthem.  "Oh say caaan yoooou seeeeeee?"  The respiratory guy looks at Andy and says, "well, that's probably more lung exercise than we were going to get any other way." He makes a check on her chart and leaves.

Andy spends another day with her and then heads home.  On the fourth day, I call the nurses station, "She's doing fine...but she doesn't really eat her food.  She just eats cookies...".  I confirm that this is normal.

She just looks so tiny in her hospital nest of blankets.

And then as fast as all started, it was over.  They sent her back to the nursing home and in less than a week she was back in her own bed at the nursing home.  No special skilled nursing care, just back in her old routine...skipping her meals, eating her cookies.

Mary tells me she hasn't looked this good in a long time, proving cookies and ice cream are medicinal.

Amazing.

 



Mid-morning dessert.  (Aaron calls these "elevenzies".)

SUP-ER LOGAN!

It's been a long time since me and the socks have gotten down to business.  I thought winter might come-and-go without one single project even getting started!!  I've been distracted by a long list of unexpected house projects (for example, see our blog entry on the flooded crawl space), but a few weeks ago the stars aligned... and so did the socks.

 

Inspired by this photo of my co-worker's 4-year old nephew:  

 

 

Cutest kid, eh?

 ...I created SUP-ER LOGAN!

You can see SUP-ER LOGAN shares the love of the color blue.

He's sporting yellow "goggles".

His pillow case cape says it all: SHAZAAM!

This was one of the funnest critters to make. I really liked trying to re-create the essence of the photo.
SUP-ER LOGAN is destined for his Forever Home with his name-sake in the wilds of Wisconsin.


In other news - the Seattle Metals Guild Lecture Series has resumed!!  Aaron volunteers for the SMG setting up the series (7 years now!).   Last week was the second lecture of the year, with speaker Jenny Fillius (www.jennyfillius.com).  She is a tin "upcycler", which means she takes old cookie (and other) tins, cuts them up, and nails them back together again to make really cool wall hangings.  We'd have to say anyone with a shred of a sense of humor would LOVE her presentation.  Absolutely hysterical with great photos of her tins spilling out everywhere.  And, of course, images of her work.  She does wall pieces - sort of painting sized - that are very clever, all with cut up tins.

This is Aaron, as the sign suggests, welcoming everyone to the talk (he does a great job!).

Finally, on Friday it was time for our annual tradition: Leave work early and go to the NW Flower and Garden Show.  Apparently, it's the second biggest F&G Show in the nation.  We enjoyed smelling and touching all the flowers and this time of year, it's exactly what the soul needs!

Here I am by the Hobbit House display, one of the amazing full-sized demonstration gardens.

In an unprecedented event, Aaron and I made it all the way through the show and did not spend one cent!!! Unheard of!!! It wasn't for a lack of cool stuff.  Had we had a recent lottery win, we may have purchased this $28,000 fence.  You've gotta admit: It is amazing, and it was made by a metal artist right here in Seattle.  It goes on the bucket list of things we dream about.  I think imagining this fence around our front yard was worth the price of admission.

Birthday Month Gets Better and Better

It wasn't enough that we got a new roof for birthday month 2011...but this year Aaron carried on the tradition with yet another fine home improvement.

After several months of nearly no hot water in the kitchen, I lost it.  (That's right, only a small trickle of warmish water since Thanksgiving.)  All I wanted  was to wash my buttery spatula...which isn't easy with cold water.  Somehow I had come to my breaking point yelling out, "Can't we just have hot water in this kitchen!!"  (Aaron would say there might, just maybe, have been a curse or two in there as well, but I don't know what he's talking about!)  Probably about the time I threw the spatula.  Has anyone, besides me, noticed how aerodynamic rubber scrapers are?  Well, I'm sorry my Hubs had to pay witness to all that, because I know he doesn't appreciate the flight of the spatula the way I do.  He very calmly said he'd take care of it.  (eh hem..Aaron, I hope I thanked you.  If I didn't say it out loud, I did say it in my head.  I promise I did.)

The next day I get home from work to a kitchen faucet gushing burning hot water.  YEEHAW!!!  I was so happy I danced around the kitchen and planted a big smoocharoo on my Fella. I have the best Hubs in the whole-wide-world.

Then Aaron took me by the hand and sat me down.  He told me he had some news and I wasn't going to like it....

Apparently, part of getting the faucet fixed included a "free" inspection from the plumber. Hmmm, "free"?   I knew he was right; I wasn't going to like this.  The plumber says that our water-heater is on borrowed time and that we can leave it and risk flooding the mud room with 55 gallons of water, or, get a new water heater right now. 

I pointed out that the plumber had a vested interest in this diagnosis.  Aaron said he checked online and apparently 17 years is kind of a long time for water heaters.  I went to work the next day and ran it past my boss...he knows a thing or two about infrastructure, large and small.  When he didn't even ask one question and just said, "sounds like it's time for a new water heater" I knew the plumber was telling the truth.  Boss Man, is a thoughtful and methodical guy.  He doesn't just willy-nilly recommend a new water heater.  I expected a long list of questions, followed by a long list of options, followed by advice on how to do it ourselves.  When he jumped immediately to, "get that taken care of" I knew there was no room to negotiate. 

I called Aaron.  "I authorize expenditures for a new water heater.  Just don't tell me about it...in my head I'm pretending we're paying in pesos." 

By the time I got home, there it was: the shiny new hot water delivery system.  And let me just say the water all over the house is hot, Hot, HOT!  LOVE IT!!!!!  I can wash buttery spatulas for hours and hours and still have hot water to spare.

We also had some excitement with a broken sump pump.  The quick version of the story is: just days after the new water heater was installed, Aaron discovered that our crawl space was flooded with several feet of water. Okay, that sucks.  I said call the contractor.  He said "no".  I said, call a fix-it man.  He said "no".  I said, go get our way-ward-looking neighbor and see if he knows what to do.  Aaron said, "great idea".  Apparently in the next 90 minutes or so, our neighbor was in the crawl space with hipwaders and beer.  He fiddled with the pump and POOF in minutes the crawl space was drained!!! He's now my favorite neighbor and I'm feeling like I've had just about enough of house fix-it projects for the time being.

That's right...water at least up and over the first step.
One syllable: EWWW

Oh, and a new light switch was installed which doesn't sound like much, but that story has just begun...can't wait to see how it turns out...umm...
So that is how we end Birthday Month.  Hope everyone's houses are in good repair and you're off to a wonderful start of February.  Happy Groundhog Day!

Best Birthday Ever

Haaaaappy biiiirthday tooooooooooooo meeeeeeee. 

Can I just say it has been one of the funnest weeks I can remember??   I think it's because I really didn't have any expectations so everything that happened was a big surprise.  So thanks family for making birthday month a lot of fun.

My actually birthday started off with a bang.  I was on a crowded bus, heading to work, when I could see Mary was calling. I didn't answer because I couldn't talk easily on the bus.  Then 15 seconds later, I saw that the nursing home called.  My morning-brain went into a tail-spin and I immediately thought, "Oh no...grandma dies on my birthday!"  As my brain chugged through figuring out what I would need to do if grandma was gone and choking back the tears, I jumped off the bus and called my voicemail.  To my relief, there she was!!  Grandma was disoriented yelling into the phone, "Ann??  Ann...are you there???"  Grandma is alive!!! 

Then I listened to Mary's voicemail.  She thinks that grandma somehow remembered it was my birthday and knew what day it was and put it all together. That seems a little bit impossible because she can barely remember anything...but maybe she did?   Who knows?  So I called Grandma back and we had a nice conversation...."Hi Ann...do you know what day it is?"

"It's Thursday."

"No!  What day is it for YOU!"  She quizzed me, probably in the same fashion people do to her all the time.

"It's my birthday!"

"Yes!  That's right!  It's YOUR BIRTHDAY!!"  Grandma wished me a happy day and wished me a the best year ever (her normal birthday greeting).  After that, I knew the day would be spectacular.

In the afternoon my team surprised me with cupcakes, which was, in fact, a total surprise.  I think they enjoyed surprising me as much as I liked the surprise. I was in the middle of a meeting when they bardged into the room wiht nutella cupcake and singing.  You just can't go wrong with nutella. We all had a good time.

When I got home, all the curtains were drawn.  I knew Aaron was up to something and boy was he!! He decorated the entire house.  And I mean - every - last - inch...was covered in birthday decorations.  He made a totally four-star dinner..from scratch.  And not just pasta, either!  I say kudos Hubs, kudos!  We opened presents and by then we were both totally exhausted we collapsed on the couch.

It was a good, good day.   Here are some random pictures...I'll admit they don't all go together or exactly "tell a story" but there were some of the highlights from last week.  Watch for all the decorations in the photos.

We had friends over for Game Night.  Here we are "pre-gaming it" with
homemade chocolate cake and ice cream.
 I picked this picture because you can see some of the decorations. 
Aaron must have worked for hours.



Martin and Cynthia joined us.

 



Aaron bringing out the main course.  Isn't he the best?

Dinner is served.  Tortilla crusted tallapia and veggies.  Nom Nom Nom...

 

My birthday 40 years ago.
The was my traditional birthday cake: an Angle food.