My Grandma Shirley...

.....passed away on November 4th, a day that will be etched in my heart forever. Instead of talking about the moments, decisions, and utter craziness that surrounded her death I want to go back to the memories that will be everlasting.
Coming from a young mother and father my grandma's played an essential role in my early years of life. Watching me, picking me up from school, taking me to my extra activities while my parents were working. More like a second mom in a way. I often remember riding in my grandma's Cadillac, going to pick up my grandpa from work, sitting on the middle consul (oh the safety regulations then) listening to Sinatra and Barry Manilow ( my grandma loved to torture me with the song "Mandy", which to this day I can't be called Mandy thanks to Barry). My grandma would do anything to please her "princess Amanda" (that name has a nice tune don't you think??) including making me sugar sandwiches or allowing the extra cookies....but that is what grandma's do right?!?
As I got older the necessity to watch me like a baby was no longer there but that didn't mean that I still didn't love hanging with my grandma. We would watch the home shopping channel for hours contemplating on which new piece of jewelry she might need. I often remember spending the night at there gi-normous house in Texas and would sleep in their room (because I didn't want to be alone upstairs) listening to them have a snore off all night....but it was worth it! In junior high my grandma would take me to get my nails done or go shopping for the school year ahead. My grandpa and her would also allow about 7 junior high girls spend the night at their house many times throughout the year (that is shear craziness if you ask me).
All through my life my grandma was an essential part of my being. Always there, always supportive, often opinionated (smile) and loving. I am thankful to have had such a loving grandma and I am even more so thankful that she got to see Jackson grow for almost two years of his life. She was able to see her linage passed on another generation which I know made her proud. I am going to miss my grandma more than words express. We take for granted the simple moments in life not knowing sometimes if they are going to be the last. But, she is now in eternity with our Lord living life to the fullest in heaven where one day we will meet again. Please continue to pray for my grandpa (they were married for 60 years and she was his everything), my dad and aunts, and the rest of my family who is mourning the loss of a wife, mother of 4 , grandmother of 10 and great grandmother to 1. God is good and he will help my family get through this.
Here is a link to my grandma's everlasting memorial on the web....
http://dignity.mem.com/ViewImages.aspx?ID=2695734

This blog was also written in remembrance of my grandma Arlie and Rick's great grandma Nana. May they know they are forever in our hearts!

Halloween.....

....oh crazy crazy week! I flew in from California on Tuesday night, boy was Jackson excited to see his momma! Thank goodness we didn't have a lot going on on Wednesday so we mostly just snuggled all day. Thursday was work and school, we also carved a pumpkin that night. Halloween day was spent running tons of errands and grocery shopping. That evening I made beef stew and cornbread and had the neighbors over for dinner. Then Rick and our neighbor Drew took Jackson trick or treating, while Kim (his wife) and I sat in the driveway to pass out candy. There really wasn't a whole lot of kids this year. We suspected it was because a lot of churches in our area were doing fall festivals. Anyways, here are some pictures of the cutest turkey you'll ever see!!

The end of October....

Since my last blog saying that there was nothing new going on, we have had quite the busy last part of the month. I learned 2 weeks ago today my best friend Risa, of 15yrs, lost her father to cancer. I didn't find out till Sunday night and I was scrambling around trying to figure out how I was going to get to California for the funeral on Tuesday. Risa decided that it would be best that I fly out for the weekend so that we could spend some girl time. So I worked it out to fly to California, minus Jackson, to spend the weekend with her.

I got in Friday morning and spent the day with my family since it was going to be a short trip and I wouldn't get to see them much. On Saturday morning we got a call that there was something wrong with my grandma. We rushed over there to find the paramedics and fire department and a bunch of chaos. She had stopped breathing from what we later found out was a pulmonary embolism (blood clot to the lung). Her heart stopped and they got it started back with some drugs then rushed her to the hospital. Where she is and has been for a week now on breathing machine. She suffered a large amount of brain damage because she was out of oxygen for maybe 10 minutes. She will never be able to live a quality life again, although she is not brain dead, she doesn't have any cognitive parts of the brain functioning.

It is amazing to me how God works, because of a tragedy early in the week I was able to fly to California and be with my family in this tremendous time of need. God knows that I would not have been able to sit in my house 1,000's of miles away while my family went through this. I am SO thankful to Him, that he allowed me to be there and for starting her heart again so we can all say peaceful goodbyes. Please pray for my family right now especially my grandpa!

Nothing Super New...

...going on in our neck of the woods. In one month exactly from today Jackson will be 2 years old!!! Time sure does fly! His new word this week that he learned at school is "MINE"....oh the pleasant words they learn. It could never be something like "love" or "gentle" it has to be "MINE"! Also, now when he jumps he actually gets off the ground. For awhile there he was putting all is effort into jumping and not even getting off the ground!

This weekend we had another garage sale, I know, I know we just had one! This one was community wide though and when we were moving things around for the hurricane we found some more things to get rid of. Then the rest of the weekend we did a whole lot of nothing, which was nice. Oh we did put up Jackson's newest toy from us. We bought him a bouncer, we were going to rent one for his party but found one at a sporting goods store around here for the same price as a rental. It will last us for years for birthdays and we have his birthday gift taken care of for this year! I love killing two birds with one stone! Then last night our friends invited us over for a delicious meal and dessert, great way to cap off the weekend!

This week is busy busy for us we have something to do every single day! It seems to be that way until next month!

WOW....

... Has it really been a month since I last posted??? What a crazy month it was to say the least! Before I get started I wanted to thank everyone who thought and prayed for us during the hurricane, we appreciate it more than you will ever know!
SO, the last post I wrote was about Jackson's first week at MDO. An update on that, he is doing great there now...he even did great after not being in MDO for 2 wks after the hurricane! Our big man!!!
Rick's sister flew into town on Sept. 11th (the night before the hurricane) with her son Alexander (13 months). We warned her on what was coming our way and she decided to brave it out with us. The day before the hurricane (Friday the 12th) was spent getting our house prepared, boarding up windows where we were going to be in the house, pulling all the lawn furniture in and getting all of our important things in one spot. By about 830pm that evening that wind was really starting to pick up, our power flickered at that point and we lost our cable. Our neighbors across the street still had theirs so we would run over to check updates on how things were looking. I have to be honest I was getting VERY VERY nervous at the unexpected by this point. God was my calming source! We all "slept" in the living room at first, we felt very safe there. I knew our house would with stand a lot because its brand new and built to withhold hurricane force winds. Our main concern was flying debris, which you can't prevent with 120mph gusts! By 115am we lost power completely, and at about 2am we went into our "hunker down" spot in Jackson's room/closet. I think I maybe slept 1 hr that night, it was pretty bad outside until 430am when it went completely silent (the eye was above us). We (rick and I) tried to take my mom's dogs out to go potty really quick at that point, but they knew something was up and wanted nothing to do with being outside! It was SOOO crazy it be in the eye, the humidity is almost breath taking and there is complete and utter silence along with stillness. Its not a very comforting feeling because it almost feels like something bad is going to happen. Then the back side of the storm came through, felt like it was worse then the front side but at least it was starting to get light out at this point so you could see what was going on. The storm took about 12 hrs to pass us completely. There were a TON of trees down in our neighborhood and surrounding areas. The first 3 days after the storm there was no gas, no power and a lot of stir crazy people!! Rick's sister and baby left as they had planned on the 6th day after. Jackson and I flew out to California a day early than planned since we were still without power. We did not get power for 17 days at our house. We are thankful to the gracious Lord that we did not suffer any bad damage to our house and continually pray for those still suffering from the effects of the storm.
Rick flew out to California for vacation with us on the 25th. We really enjoyed seeing everyone and I know everyone enjoyed seeing Jackson. Jackson is in aw of his Auntie Ally and would spend most days trailing behind her every move! It was a nice break for mommy, the usual entertainer, and Auntie Ally loved every minute of it! We came home on Sept. 30th just in time to start a new month at home with power!!!!

First day...

... of mother's day out was this week for Jackson. For those of you that don't know what MDO is, it is a program where kids go to school at our church from 9-2pm Tue./Thurs. The first day for Jackson was REALLY rough, he cried almost the entire time! He wouldn't eat or drink, they got him to nap for an hour though and it then started all over again.

It broke my heart to hear that he was so sad at school since he is such an easy going (but strong willed...shocking) little man. Jackson is VERY much an observer (meaning strangers are good from afar) and has been since he was tiny and he is all about personal space. Which is nice for mommy because he doesn't want to be hanging all over me all the time. But these two things combined make it hard for Jackson to go to people he doesn't know easily. Once he "knows" you he is waving me or daddy off as if we are chopped liver. I am hoping it will get better over time, I can only except that it will because of how he has been in other situations (like nursery at church).

Today was positive though, they said that he did much better. Not as much crying, but still a lot of "observing" his surroundings and the new kids. He actually ate and drank today. They did say what a sweet boy he was and what a good listener he is....which makes mommy proud. They wanted me to pick him up early so that he would leave on a good note today to make the transition easier. SO...all in all today was promising.

I have included a pic of his first day at school...and the pic of him laying down is him saying his new word for this week.....can you guess it???? That's right the big fat N-O.....he has been saying "oh no" like when he dropped something for awhile but has just realized that he can say "no" to something he doesn't want. Here comes toddlerhood!!!!

This weekend...

Was pretty relaxing...nothing exciting around the Zeller house. Saturday we spent most of the day just being lazy, which I LOVE!! After Jackson's nap (and mommy's too) we decided to head to the mall for a little window shopping. It was SUPER crowded there, I guess because school is starting this week. After the mall we went and shared fajitas at our favorite mexican spot in town. When we were done stuffing our bellies we came home and went on a long walk to the lake. We ended the evening with some Olympic watching. Since they have been on we have not been getting to bed till 11pm which is rather late for us!

Today we decided to check out early service at church, we normally go to the 11am service, but today we managed to get out the door in time for the 820am service. It was actually very nice to go to church and get home with a ton of time left in the day. So we might start going to that service on a regular basis. When we got home we had some minor things to do around the house, hang a few things, file some papers, mow the lawn etc. My brother Jacob came up later in the afternoon to spend the night. When I am done writing this we are all going to sit down and watch the closing ceremonies.

I have included some pictures of our newly organized garage...I know it still looks full of stuff but before to the left of my car was just heaping piles of boxes. Shelving works wonders!!! Of course I inserted some pics of noodle too!! I hope each of you had a great weekend!!