U-Dub!!!

We finally made it to Seattle to check out Hannah’s school (for the first time even though she had attended for a year at home now)! The University of Washington campus is gorgeous and we got perfect weather! We could see Mt Rainier perfectly.

 

Fifteen!

This boy is 15 years old today! He is one of the youngest of his friends and one of the last to get his driver’s permit so there was great anticipation building up to today. I’m enjoying this age immensely—Dylan is easy going, friendly (he has never met a stranger), makes me laugh every day, incapable of holding on to frustration for more than 5 seconds, obnoxious in all the best ways, hard working, a skateboard master, tall (6’2”), and so very fun to be around. Happy Birthday to my wonderful boy!

DU Graduation!!!

Mason graduated with University Honors and a Bachelor of Arts degree yesterday! She still has one year left to get her Masters of Social Work degree so we will do this again next year at a grad school ceremony. It simultaneously feels like these four years went by in a blink and took forever. Mason has become an independent, capable, mature woman in these four years and her traits of compassion, empathy, humor, kindness and concern for others still shine. I know she will use her degree to make the world a better place. How proud her Granny would be today, as we all are!

 I had to add these pictures two days later. I had no idea Mason had gotten Department Distinction in Sociology! She showed me this in the Commencement book! Yay, Mason!

A Day in Denver!

 

Completed Honors Thesis and University Honors Zoom Recognition!

Super proud of Mason! She is finished with her Honors thesis and has satisfied the requirements to graduate with University Honors. They had a Zoom celebration yesterday and tomorrow, she has an in person graduation from undergrad. I included the video they played at the Honors celebration and also her FB post about her thesis.

 

 

Beautiful Stones!

It's sometimes unsettling and feels unfair that the world keeps going about its business after the tremendous loss of someone you love. When my mom passed in March, spring was just beginning to bloom and it felt almost cruel that such beauty would happen without my mom to see it. Seasons still change, people still move on the Earth, and life goes on around you while you are just blown apart inside. I woke up on my birthday with a heavy heart because birthdays are one of those things that still come, too. I had only been up for a couple of hours when I got a call from the funeral home that my mom's remains were ready to be picked up. I'll never doubt that she had a hand in the timing of that call. What better birthday gift could have landed in my lap that day?

My mom had pre-paid all of her funeral expenses and had planned to be cremated like my dad 34 years earlier. At the funeral home, they offered another option of turning the cremated remains into "parting stones", stones that you can hold and distribute as you think is fitting. Miles and I not only chose to do that with my mom, but we also brought the cremated remains of my dad to be done as well. They both came out extremely nice, my dad a brilliant white color and my mom a speckled blue like little bird eggs, which I know would have tickled her to no end. Miles and I placed one of each in the Japanese vase that had been holding my dad all these years and we put one of each in my mom's favorite spot, in her patio planter. We have many ideas for the rest, but as of now, they reside together at the house they both loved more than any other, which has and will always be the family home where all the grandchildren gather for good meals, Murder In The Dark games, ghost stories (and sightings), cousin quizzes, and relaxed togetherness.

 

Taos!