Serenity Lane Girls!

Thanks to my beautiful Lacey, the door was opened for me to meet a group of ladies who helped me survive the early years of Lacey's recovery from addiction. Her AA birthday is December 29, 2001, so this coming December she will be celebrating 8 years! And let me tell you, we celebrate every birthday. We make it a big deal and make dinner reservations and Dina, Jamie, Aaron, Lacey, Scott and I all go out to celebrate this great day.

So for me, it was in April of 2002 that I first went to the Serenity Family Group meetings where I met these beautiful women who were going through the same recovery process with either a spouse, son or daughter. We have a lot in common in that we all live with a recovering addict and let me tell you in the early years it is not an easy task! We were led by a wonderful counselor named Gary and then after about 1 1/2 years we had another counselor named Lloyd. Both pushed us to look deep into ourselves and to be accountable for our own feelings but also to be kind and caring to ourselves.

We still get together several times during the year, not to "work the program", but to renew our friendships and to hear all the good stories that are happening in each of our lives. So far, everyone from that group is still 'drug' free just like Lacey. What a testament to all of them for their hard work, and to each of us for our hard work to achieve a life of serenity!

Front row, left to right, Colleen, Judy (her birthday today and reason for our gathering!), Julie.
Back row, Gerry, me, Kathleen and Betty (our hostess!) one person not pictures is Toni, she was in Hawaii with some of her family!

Sunset on the drive through the Gorge

More Lake pictures and stories

As I look back I don't have any pictures of Scott golfing. However I did capture a family of turkeys ( that kind of sounds like I am comparing Scott to a bunch of turkeys, doesn't it? lol!!) walking around our house and so many deer all around the lake. Addie has the eagle eyes when it comes to spotting deer, she yells out: "deer,deer!" The best picture was an osprey feeding it's young. Unfortunately, my camera couldn't zoom in enough to spot the little ones with their mouths wide open for food, but you can clearly see the osprey and the HUGE nest sitting at the top of a tree. Very cool!

I couldn't help but snap a picture of this sign posted at the golf course near the 100 year old cabin that they use as the pro shop. If only....

And on the drive home, we had a beautiful sunset and there are so many windmills up through the gorge! It was a great trip thank you for taking the time to read through my lengthy stories and view the pictures of my family!

Gozzer 2009 - Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

Well....another memory for the scrapbook! The 12 of us all headed to Coeur d'Alene and specifically Gozzer Ranch for golf and lots of water activities which included: fishing, swimming, wake boarding, surfing, boating, and wave runners!! Too bad the weather didn't cooperate a bit better this summer. We did manage to get about three really nice sunny days, but we also experienced some very heavy rainfall! A couple of days the water temperature was warmer than the air temperature! ha...that is not cool, we could stay home for rain!

Anyway, we all were in one house this summer right on the Gozzer property - it was called a "cabin", yeah right, like a 3800 sq. ft. cabin! At times the noise was quite deafening - remember now we have 2 two year olds, and boy do they each have a set of lungs! Jalen is quite the sneaky one and knows how to push all of Addie's "buttons"...he grabs her 'blankie' and she falls to the floor in hysterics crying for her 'blankie'. Then he spies her juice cup, even though his is right there, he grabs for hers and has to drink out of it, oh and there she goes again, falling to the floor screaming for her cup! Oh my! And then there was the pounding on the heads, but that was shared equally! It was not all 'bad'....one great picture was of them sitting on the steps each with a pink 'DS' belonging to Ellie and Lily, and they think they are so clever pushing buttons and watching the screen. And of course, Jalen is quite the 'lover', he goes up and grabs Addie's head and gives her a big kiss. Like he thinks that makes up for all the pinches he has given her!

And our little Addie is quite the "fisher girl". Unfortunately for her mom and dad, she woke up quite early every morning, and Aaron, being the great dad that he is, whisks her off to the lake for some very early morning fishing before she manages to wake the entire house! And she catches fish all by herself!! Early in the week of morning fishing, Addie was sitting on the dock and her pole got caught on something. She called for her daddy, and he said he would be right there...but she had to look over the side and see what was happening and sure enough she fell into the lake!! Aaron heard a 'splash', looked and didn't see Addie!! He dropped his pole and ran to her, and there she was under the water, but coming up with eyes like saucers, arms stretched out and still holding the pole! Aaron grabbed her and hauled her out of the water! I do believe he learned to put a life jacket on her from that day forward. (thank goodness!!)

And Jalen is really obsessed with balls! Good thing we are on a golf course with lots of balls!! He has the stance down pat, but he does take out a few 'divots' when he swings! And all the kids love to swim. At the lake there is a slide and what fun they had going down the slide into the lake! We rented a boat a couple of days and the kids tried wake boarding. Caleb and Ellie got up and were so excited. Caleb actually did some wake surfing and was quite pleased with himself when he was able to surf across a wave!

All the kids went to Silverwood, a big amusement park, Scott and I chose to stay home and relax in the quiet of the house! Even though the weather wasn't great, it was nice to not have the hot sun beating down on them, but it was still really crowded and they had to wait in long lines just like at Disneyland! Bummer....

Joe and his family joined us for a few days of swimming and golfing. Joe is helping Scott build our house. They both deserve a vacation for all the hard work they have done, and we were happy that his family joined us in the fun on the lake. One day they all went to the movies since it was raining! We shared several meals together and the kids had fun playing on the beach of the lake.

All in all, it was a great time had by all and it was really fun to live with the little kids 24/7 ( I say this with tongue in cheek!!). And our littlest one, Tristan was SUPER! He slept through every single night and we hardly heard a peep out of him (unless you happened to be riding in the car with him when he is awake...oh my, he does NOT like the car and let's you know it quite clearly and LOUDLY!)

Another great family vacation with wonderful memories that we captured on film and in our hearts!

The Last Lunch

Bill and Elsa came over to the house and brought sandwiches for our lunch. This was the last lunch to share with Anne Brita. The three of them wanted some time alone to reminisce from 42 years ago when A.B. was just 16 years old and came from Oslo, Norway to live with the Foelker's and go to school as a junior at Rex Putnam High School. It was at that time that she I became good friends and over the years we have managed to keep in touch, share Christmas greetings and somewhat keep up on our lives. This visit for Anne Brita was about reconnecting with her 'second family' and her old high school friends. She was able to spend 5 days at the beach and see friends; she and I had a lot of time to do some deep soul revealing sharing; some time shopping for her grand-daughter and eating out! The two weeks went really fast, but now we can look forward to the next time that perhaps Scott and I will go to her in Norway. And for sure the next time she comes here to Oregon our new house will be done and we will be living in it!

Kittens anyone?

Last week Ellie called and asked if I would take her to the PAWS store in Willamette so that she could volunteer! She needs an adult to be with her when she goes into the cat store. So let me back up here and tell you what Ellie and Lily decided to do when they planned their birthday parties on June 26 and July 1. They sent out invitations to their friends and asked for NO gifts for themselves, but to bring either cat food, kitty litter, or cash to donate to the PAWS store! They received and donated a total of $115 along with food and kitty litter! Isn't that fantastic and so selfless of them? They have been wanting a kitty for so long. We have been going to "Coops" a local restaurant for breakfast on Sundays with Papa Bill and Great grandma Elsa once a month for probably 7 years and every Sunday, we have to walk by the cat store front and look at the cats! What Dina and Jamie have been telling them for the last 2 years is when they move into our house (that means we have moved into our new house!!) they can get a cat and a dog (puppy!).

But Ellie decided she wanted to volunteer and pet the cats and kittens, groom them, feed them etc. So I took them this Sunday afternoon and we spent about an hour holding the kittens and brushing them. Lily fell in love with an older cat that just took right to her. And a little kitten just couldn't get enough of Ellie scratching her ears!

They will "foster" out the kittens, teach you how to bottle feed them and care for them, even give you food for them. Then when they are older you bring them back to the shop for adoption! They are just waiting for some cute little girls to take them to their "forever home"!!
And of course, they recommend taking two home so that the kittens will always have a play mate when the girls are in school!

Second time around

What a heart-warming surprise to stop at Lacey's house this afternoon and have Addie come running out to me saying, "Grandma, grandma!" And the surprise was that she was wearing a little knit dress that I had made for Ellie and Lily! Oh she looked so cute in it! Take a look - isn't that adorable?