Goodbye Grandma James

My grandmother passed away the 27th of September, 2018. She had suffered a stroke shortly after we last visited in Thanksgiving of 2017, but she was in relatively good health up until two weeks before her passing. She went on some painkillers to alleviate her complaint of leg pain, and my uncle found her barely responsive one day. The medicine is believed to have caused seizures, and she was sedated in the hospital. She only roused once during her stay at the hospital, while my cousin Becca was with her. She died in her sleep with family close at hand.

The silver lining to the situation was the family had cause to all come together. Such a gathering hadn't happened many years, where all but a couple of spouses and cousins on missions were able to attend Grandma's funeral. Due to a backlog at Ft Sam Houston, she wasn't buried until 12 October 2018.

Viewing was held at Porter-Loring North on 11 October 2018. Not a lot of attendance, but there was a very nice slideshow of pictures on presentation. At Grandma's request, the casket was closed.

Flying with a child between 1 and 2 years old is easy.

Waiting for bags at San Antonio

Koda and John meet. Krystal looks on as Eric does his kid act.

Chicken head at Target.

Chaos at Eric and Krystal's home

L to R: Aunt Tammy, her daughter Erin, her daughter Becca and husband Scott

Children of Aunt and Uncle KB and Kim, L to R: Kendelle, Corey, Erin. In front is Erin's daughter Charlotte

Immediate family of Frank and Valerie James, L to R: Felicia (my mom), Uncle KB, Great Aunt Patty, Aunt Tammy, and Uncle Kevin

Family of Patty Birkinshaw Wood, my great aunt, L to R: Chris Wood (Patty's son), Patty, Jenica (Chris's daughter), Julie (Chris's wife), Stacey (Patty's daughter)

 The services were held at Grandma's church building. We had a procession with police escort to the cemetery at Ft Sam Houston, which we barely made it into due to a last minute Whataburger run. We had an aggressive Dodge try and break into our procession and hopefully felt ashamed for throwing off our groove. And also, we lost track of the rental key with all the loadings and unloadings. Alison spotted it at last in the trunk--it fell in while getting out Tommy's stroller. We were only delayed 10ish minutes.

We arrived on a Wednesday, had the viewing on Thursday, and the services and interment on Friday. It doesn't sound like a lot on paper, but it was pretty tiring. I only managed this shot of the old James home in Windcrest late at night on Friday.

Apparently, unknown to me, Grandma had a preferred dining establishment in town, called Chester's. I had never been there. We always went to Fuddruckers. Nonetheless, we went to Chester's for lunch on Saturday, before we returned home to California.

A brief walk just before the rain hit

John Wayne and John Reese at the Santa Ana airport

Life moves on. We hope to see Grandma again when we pass on...hopefully not too soon.

We made an impromptu ice cream stop in Glendora Village on a hot summer afternoon.

John somehow fell asleep on a Sunday afternoon.

I became a videographer for a friend's 30th birthday party (sorry friends...I still need to do something with the video)!

The appearance of a box makes for hijinks.

I braved the Cal Poly Pomona Pumpkin-palooza. Alison was out with friends, so I went with Rob and Michelle and kids.

After returning home from San Antonio, we had high winds in the area. Trees and branches were downed all over, including power lines. We lost power around 11:30 AM and didn't get it back until after 7 PM. I had to go pick up John from preschool because they had no power, and of course I happened to be driving Alison's car, which didn't have a house key attached. No power = no access to the house, so I had to drive all the way to her school to take her house key to get in.

Grandma Debby was in town for one day, so we got to eat in the Buca di Beppo Pope Room in Pasadena. John did not like the Pope's eyes, so we had to be careful when passing around food on the lazy susan upon which the waxen pontiff sat.

We took the rare occasion to go out. Pasadena is a great place to visit as long as you don't have to drive there. Fortunately we have an excellent light rail right by our house. Downtown Pasadena is extremely walkable. We tried out this excellent dim sum house, Lunasia. I was very impressed, and any time you can eat out for two under $40 is a win. We saw First Man afterward, which is an excellent movie about Neil Armstrong, and don't let weird political criticism keep you away.

Hello, Life

Per the norm, it's been a while. Today I am home with a sick baby and a sinus infection myself, so it's been an opportunity to slow down, relax, and refuel a little in the hectic pace of every day life. I know it's odd that a sick day can be this, but often when you're on the mend but still not well enough to stand and deliver as an educator, a sick day can be a blessed reprieve in spite of masses of mucus causing headaches.

Some general observations about life in this new Fall 2018 season - Tommy is off the charts huge for his 13 months. He is walking, talking a fair amount in his own little ways: 'allo (hello) , 'I (hi), all dah (all done), uh-oh, gogo, OK, momma, d-dy (daddy), jaja (John John), up-a (up) & n-n-no! He stomps all over and is happiest when playing with John. He is all smiles and giggles, and has yet to meet a person he hasn't liked.

John seems to have adjusted pretty well to his new teacher and classmates at Foothill Christian Preschool. For a kid who went through a lot of hard transitions and drama at school when he was 2 and 3, his life seems almost strangely drama free. It's a nice change. He has lots of fun with his old friends on the playground (Dominick, Jackson, and Brandon still among those favorites), and he's made new little friends in his classroom this year, DJ and Logan. He also frequently talks about the guy who uses potty words and is not nice. We talk a lot about how he's still learning and we should be kind to him even if he makes different choices than we do. I feel like, hooray that he knows that's not how to act, and also, now let's teach him not to be a self-righteous jerk.

Gordon's had some excitement at work lately. In the summer he got to present the "dry run" of the Northrop Grumman pitch to NASA with clients and managers in the room. The guy whose job it is was out of town, and Gordon made the presentation last minute. One of the NG managers came up after and said he did such a good job, he should make the actual presentation as well. Gordon was not eager to jump into the Q&A fray with so little preparation, but it was cool that he got such high profile and positive exposure. 

He also had a customer presentation today and was all dressed up in his suit and tie on his way out the door. It seems like things are going in a positive direction for him there, and it's also been great not to have to deal with any launch testing schedules for most of this year. Having him around during regular at home hours and not having to work graveyards is great for everyone.

I've had some big changes at work as well. I got moved from a portable in the far back end of campus (technically outside the main gates) to a large room with lots of storage right off the quad. I have one less section of freshman and one more of sophomores, which is a step in the direction I'd ultimately like to go in, teaching more upper than underclassman sections of English. I also have a chrome book cart in my classroom this year which makes everything easier when it comes to incorporating digital assignments and grading. I am also the debate, fashion club, and unofficial GSA advisor. Coupled with being at the heart of campus and able to access the faculty workroom in a matter of 2 minutes rather than 8, my work situation has really improved significantly. Most notably, I have no student who seem unreachable. Even the challenging ones seem to want to do well, and I can work with that.

Gordon and I made some personal life goals before the summer ended to try and mitigate the chaos of life as we headed back into the two full time working parents mode. Even when we're not 100% successful, it feels good to have plans and work towards better together. In small ways, I feel like we're figuring this family of 4 thing out. Also, I can bear my testimony of Instant Pot. Pressure cooker dinners have literally changed our lives.

I also made a commitment to myself to try and be more human this school year. I read Cal Newport's Deep Work recently, and the take away for me was about work/home life balance and how to be more proficient and productive in both aspects of life. It's interesting, research based, and pretty profound, actually. I would put it up there with Gladwell's Blink in the degree to which it affected the way I think about the kinds of choices I make and why. Anyway, that plus making a point to actually spend time with friends and family in meaningful ways makes me feel less like I am lost in the work machine, and that allows me to go back without feeling quite so resentful of it. It's a win-win really.

Also, John has had snow tiger drama. He lost his favorite little sleep toy, "snow tiger," sometime in the summer. Since the Easter Bunny brought it to him, John asked if we could write Santa and he could talk to the Easter Bunny, then Santa could get his elves to make a new snow tiger like the first one so he could be happy again. His detailed depiction of how this would all play out was pretty impressive. Anyway, last week Friday when John came home from School he found a new snow tiger with a note from Santa explaining that he spoke to the Easter Bunny and had his elves make him a replacement Snow Tiger (not exactly the same, but close). Then after all that, the original snow tiger showed up in one of Tommy's clothing bins under all the folded laundry. So now there are two snow tigers! (Hopefully we can keep track of at least one at a time. Haha)

All is well here in Glendora, with the necessary exception of complaint that California weather is not yet perfectly autumnal. (I'm told by natives that complaining about the weather and traffic are SoCal cultural musts.) Two and a half years in, and this place has finally grown on me. If or when we leave, I will leave a piece of my heart in this place. I suppose that's all for this little slice of life update.

'Till next time,
Alison

Here are some photos for good measure:

Don't They Know it's the End of the Summer

Quarterly update!

When I last posted, John and I were still in Tucson. Mom left for San Antonio, leaving Dad and me in charge. Naturally, we decided to visit a hole in the ground.

I hadn't remembered that the caverns had only been discovered in the 70s, and only opened to the public in the 90s. We weren't allowed to take in phones, so no pictures of what's inside. John alternated between being excited and scared of the dark. I think it was a good time, although to this day the darkness of the cave comes up in John's barely awake nightmares.

Out in Benson, near the Kartchner Caverns park, there is a really nice hot dog restaurant called Wild Dogs. I actually opted for a brisket sandwich, which was pretty darn good. And their onion rings are the best I've had anywhere. The owner is real nice.

Dad took us out to a monument that commemorated the only "battle" that the Mormon Battalion was a part of, which was against a bunch of wild bulls.

John insisted that we go and walk the dogs after we returned. Being Tucson, it was like 105°F, so we only did a short scamper.

We made an excursion to the "Mini Time Machine Museum" in Tucson. I think John was both a little young and perhaps the wrong gender/interest set to really get into what they had there. First, of course, we had to distract the dogs.

The museum basically consisted of hundreds of miniature houses, towns, figures, machinery, and room interiors. A lot of it was really impressive, but couldn't really keep the attention of a 4 year old boy. We spent most of the time chasing him around.

Afterwards, we checked out this "Monkey Burger" place near Davis Monthan AFB. It was pretty good, although John was not interested in eating anything. I tried to explain to him that we could have a yummy banana milkshake if he ate some food, but it was insufficient motivation.

Always willing to swim, at least.

No visit to Tucson is complete without a trip to the Sonoran Desert Museum.

New this time was an expanded cafeteria and children's play place. John kind of went wild there for an hour. We knew it was time to get him out of there by his meltdown at the exit.

After that, it was time to head to the Amtrak station. It was another restless night, as John kept fidgeting and whimpering about his legs hurting (I think he was having growing pains).

I made the mistake of checking bags to Union Station. They take forever to get them out, unlike at other Amtrak stations, where they bring your bags out within minutes of stopping.

So, instead of getting a ride from Alison, we got to come home by the Gold Line. I had considered coming in to work that day, but I felt terrible. I took John to his preschool, came home, showered, and slept until 1 PM.

John has a habit of crawling on my back...like, always. Even at the Taco Man.

John barely ate anything, but he liked the dog at Firehouse subs. This was a day of moving tons of teacher junk at Alison's school, who is changing rooms for the next school year. I got to drive a golf cart for the first time ever, which was fun. I almost ran me and Chelsea into a wall when the brakes didn't quite kick in as strongly as I was hoping.

An afternoon at the "yellow park" (Ole Hammer).

An afternoon at "I lost Snow Tiger in the tree" park. I had a Nerf football. It took about 15 tosses before I could get enough displacement on the toy to dislodge it.

Also, our air conditioning had, for all intents and purposes, failed. It no longer cooled on account of low R-22 lost to unknown leaks, and the evaporator coils leaked water furiously. It simply no longer cooled. Prognosis for repair was unclear and expensive, so we started pricing out replacements. A/C replacement is expensive, on the order of multiple thousands USD. We got it done just in time for a major heat wave. So much for saving money this summer.

Mom and Dad came to visit us for the 4th of July. John likes posing for photographs.

Our plan was to go out to San Luis Obispo County, where we had an Airbnb for a couple of nights. We stopped to eat at a beach side restaurant on the way.

The house is a geodesic dome. It doesn't lend itself very well to conventional layouts, but the owner made it work. It was on a hill, with view to the ocean.

On the 4th of July, it was kind of cold near Pismo Beach. That's something I hadn't ever experienced before, but it was kind of neat.

Trying to get Tommy to drink water after eating a quart of sand.

We huddled together in front of the outdoor fireplace to watch fireworks from the hillside as night fell. It was a pretty good view to a lot, albeit not the "main event" firework display at Pismo Beach, which we had heard was a nightmare to drive to/from.

Of course, no 4th is complete without ID4.

Stopping near Santa Barbara on our way back to LA.

Outside of the Filipino restaurant LASA. Real good food--fish, pork belly, eggplant, and these cheese-filled dumplings that tasted like beignets. It's located in Chinatown, not far from the theater where we caught a performance of The Humans.

Mom and Dad left after our dome days to go to Uncle K.B.'s Air Force retirement in Seattle. They came back for an evening before heading back to Tucson.

Alison was also on a campaign to upgrade our back patio. This is the result.

Tommy after eating a chocolate bar.

Another trip to Houston in late July. John, in a rare moment of sweet release, napped on the way to Grandma Debby's house. Tommy was not great on the flight. The 1-2 year old stretch is real bad for travel.

Because Tommy turned 1 year old!

We played with water balloons, and it was incredibly hot. I was sweating just sitting outside in the shade. That's Houston.

Lots of swimming with cousins.

The Children's Museum of The Woodlands got an upgrade. John was very focused on his driving.

"I'm a dragon! Rawwwwr!"

We got a chance to go back to the temple where we were married. I look like I'm 10 years older in this picture.

Family gatherings involve a lot of phone usage in the room.

Cousin Elizabeth had a birthday party as well. Cowboy themed.

Tommy's babysitter, Carolina, threw a little birthday part for him after we returned.

And we had another party our pool, combined with our Fetzer-Smith friends' daughter's one year birthday.

John wanted this picture at the "yellow park" before we ran home to use the bathroom.

Tommy made a similar pose at home.

And that's the end of the game. Summer is near a close. Alison is running off to Denver to prepare herself for the new school year. We're going to be in for a wild ride. John has one more year of preschool before he's eligible for kindergarten, and Tommy has another year before he's eligible for preschool. Whee!