kayaking pics

that i promised :) not sure if you can see them but there are three ducks swimming close to the shore in the pic below :)

some geese that i am not sure where they are from LOL i don't recognize them.




some of the mountain side when we first started out from shore :)

this is my best friend Sasha, she owns the kayaks and just got a new camera for christmas.

kayaking (sp?)

i went kayaking for the first time this last friday and it was FUN FUN FUN!!!!! sasha and i went and we took our camera's. yes yes a little bit crazy taking my dslr camera in a kayak when i had never gone before LOL but hey it was fun and i felt so comfy, like i had been kayaking my entire life :)

let me just say it is very difficult to get non blurry pictures while in a kayak LOL i mean you're in this tiny boat that is constantly moving and the wind was blowing that day too. i can't wait to go again :) you should have seen our set up. we both, obviously, had life jackets on and then we had zip hoodies on, we put our camera strap underneath the hood and then zipped our camera's up inside the hoodies so they were somewhat protected. The really funny part is that i wanted to go kayaking in this hypothermia water LOL. Basically this water, i think, dumps either into the river or into the forebay? or afterbay? anyway it comes from the bottom of the lake from the damn so it's VERY VERY COLD, but OMG sooooo very gorgeous. i was really hoping we would see the river otter there but we didn't. maybe next time :)

anyway i do have pics to post but i left my camera at sasha's house like a big ole dork. not sure how well they turned out since i only have the xt and the screen on that is tiny LOL. i'll post them later because i'm bringing my camera home today.

well i hope everyone has a great day, i'm off to finish the book i started yesterday :)

jeeze

it's been a long time since i blogged LOL. ohh well i just wasn't in the mood to write and really not sure what i am going to say right now either LOL.

we have all, meaning jason, the kids and i, been spending TONS of time at our friends house that we had not seen in over 3 yrs. long story and i won't go into the details but needless to say we are over there all the time or they are over here. it's been really nice but at the same time i am missing my sis and nephews and my mommasue a lot as well. i guess i need to find a happy medium lol. i have spent most of the last 3 and a half years on this darn computer and it feels really good to not be on it sooo stinkin much and have friends in real life that only live a couple miles from me. it feels really good to have a social life again, but i MISS talking to my sister all the time too and her sharing with me what's going on in her life and i MISS talking with mommasue.

i MISS the small details. like for instance i didn't even know my nephew lost his first tooth a couple weeks ago. HOW could i NOT know that? i guess i just feel like i am missing out on a lot of stuff with my sis but i don't miss being on this computer so damn much. so what do i do???? someone please tell me that LOL. i can't just hop in my van and drive up to heather's because my van is a POS and i don't trust it at all and she lives about 50 minutes from me :(. i really want to go up and stay the night and reconnect with her AND i am sure it's just me feeling guilty about not being in as much contact as i used to be, but i get the feeling that she's hurt that i don't talk to her as much. who the hell knows. i just know that i love her and miss her but at the same time i don't miss this computer.

ohh well!!!!!! i plan on getting a new/used vehicle with my income tax returns at the auction in orland. so hopefully i can get a good one and then i CAN drive up there when ever i want :)

we used to talk about everything, no matter how little or big and now she barely tells me anything. even when i'm home and chatting with her. i just feel like i know nothing that is going on in her life or mommasue's and vice versa. i really have to figure this out and it would really help to have a dependable vehicle.

okay well that's enough of that.

talk to you all later and have a great day :)

ASHLEY'S BDAY PARTY :)

Ashley's birthday was on the 6th and she is now 7 yrs old. omg where does the time fly? We didn't have her birthday party till yesterday (7th) because daddy had to work. Omg my house was PACKED lol, there were 13 kids there not including ashley lol so 14 kids altogether lol and then there were 10 adults, so 24 ppl packed into my tiny 1012 sq ft home LMAO. it was so much fun though. all the kids had a lot of fun.

this picture below was just me playing with my camera lol, i think it came out pretty cool.

this is a pic of all the kids minus corbin, joey, kirsten and dyllan

ashley opening presents and omg she made out like a bandit lol.



all her presents after they were all opened :)

daddy bringing her the cake :)


her blowing out her candles :)


she had soooooo much fun :)

grief

is such a weird thing. you never know how you are going to feel until someone you love dies.

For instance, i truly thought that if my mom died that i wouldn't feel much because of everything that we went through together growing up. As most of you know she was bipolar and because of not realizing it or not seeking help or what have you, she became an alcoholic and drug addict. I went through many things with her, some of which included abuse when she was high, being homeless in a car for 6 months when i was in highschool, her living in bars while i took care of my youngest brother etc etc. Needless to say i had a TON of resentments towards her and anger, lots and lots of anger. But in her last years, especially her last year, she changed. she quit drinking (she had quit drugs about 12 years before) and she found god and tried her best to make amends to me.
We talked quite a bit on yahoo messenger, and almost every morning she would say "good morning sweetie, i hope you have a wonderful day and know that i love you" Now sometimes i wouldn't write back for whatever reasons, just not in the mood to talk on that thing, or just because of whatever mood i was in at the time. I now regret that big time. I wish with all my heart that i had talked to her more.

anyway, my brother was going out to visit her and was leaving on sept 7th early in the morning to catch his plane out there, then he was going to be bringing her back for a visit. My brother and i were very skeptical of this visit because we had been lied to by her so many times. we weren't sure if she had actually quit drinking etc etc, But we were still excited to see her again, and FINALLY meet her grandchildren. The day before my brother was supposed to get on that plane, she had a massive stroke. I was up at mommasue's when my hubby called me telling me my sister called and it was about mom and that something had happened. So i called my sis and she told me, at first i was numb, like it wasn't a big deal and it can't be serious. so then i got home and called my sis again to see if there were any updates, turned out she had a massive aneurism (sp?) type of stroke and that she probably wouldn't make it through the night. A couple hours later it HIT me HARD that she was going to die. I never in my life thought that her death would hit me so hard, but it did. For numerous reasons, I felt so many things, Robbed of a childhood with a good mom, angry that she had done so many stupid things, sad that she lived her life the way she did, Sad that she put us kids through so much crap, SAD that she wouldn't ever meet her grandchildren. i could go on and on. i have to get one thing straight, as messed up as she WAS when i was growing up, I STILL LOVED HER, SHE WAS MY MOM. she was no saint but when she was sober she was an awesome mom, very loving, huge heart, sang us songs, all the stuff a normal mom would do. She just wasn't sober all that often, she tried so many times to stop using and drinking and it would last a while and then she would break and go back to it. So just because she was an addict/alcoholic DOESN'T mean she wasn't a good person deep down, because she WAS.

I LOVED HER VERY MUCH.

so i guess my point to all this is that just because i went through hell and back with her doesn't mean that i didn't love her, nor does it mean that losing her isn't going to affect me, because losing her affected me more then i ever thought it would. She wasn't all bad, deep down she was the most loving person i knew when she was sober. i cherish those GOOD times now, more then i ever have. doesn't mean i don't think of the bad times because i do, but i would much rather CHERISH the GOOD times we had together, especially the last year or so that she was with us.

my sister made this beautiful siggy of her and the poem on it is AWESOME, mom was in a lot of pain her last years of life and now she feels no pain and that brings me peace. Also DON'T ever think that you are going to feel or not feel a certain way when someone you love dies, you NEVER know how it's going to affect you till it happens.

thanks for reading :)

here is the siggy my sis made

strange

okay so a long time ago when i was about 8 or 9 my mom bought this really cute glass kitty candle holder. I loved it, it was so cute and pretty. Anyway I am not sure what happened to it, probably got lost over the years or shoot maybe she still had it, need to ask her hubby about that. anyway a week ago on saturday (mom had her stroke on a saturday) Dyllan came home from his friends house who was having a yard sale, and the dad said he could pick out ONE thing and he picked out the SAME kitty candle holder that my mom had. Dyllan never knew about that candle holder either. When he got home he gave it to me and at first i thought to myself "why does this look so familiar?" then on wednesday I figured out why it looked familiar, that mom had one just like it.

Isn't that strange? that of all the things he could pick out, he picks that out. I truly believe that mom sent it to me as a reminder of her being happy and in a much happier place.

I will treasure it forever.

here are a couple of pics of it :D

well i guess it's been a while since i last posted

just haven't had much to say.

anyway it's been over a month since mom passed away and i am doing pretty well. i still have my moments where i miss her terribly but i know she is in a better place and not in pain anymore.

i've been talking to my gramma a lot and it's been so nice getting to know her again. she is going to come visit us in the spring and i can't wait. i sent her mom's journal through yahoo messenger but she said she can't print it out for whatever reason lol, she is 75 after all. sooooo i printed it out for her and am matting all the pages on cardstock and then making a cover and back cover out of chipboard and will decorate it all pretty and then bind it and send it to her. i have had NO desire to scrapbook so i think doing this for her will get me back in the mood.

anyway i guess that's it for now