life's twists and turns...

Wow, so much has changed, a lot of time has passed since I've been on here blogging away...

Kyle has graduated from high school
Ashley turned 17 and started her Sr year in  high school
Amelia has turned 2
Cassidy turned 7 and has a had a successful 1st grade year
Aidan turned 5 and had a great year in preschool

fast forward to now....

Kyle has been going to college at Las Positas and working at HomeTown buffet
Ashley has a serious boyfriend named Kyle. He's also a Sr. and a great kid! Treats her like a princess, his princess.
We bought a home and have been busy painting all 4,051 sq. ft of this 5 bedroom, 3 bath house...
Kyle's best friend Anthony moved into our house
Amelia is talking up a storm and going into have her second set of tubes put in her ears on June 2nd....
Cassidy is getting ready to move onto 2nd grade and is so very excited
Aidan is graduating from preschool and going  into kindergarten in August....
AND..........ASHLEY IS GRADUATING FROM HIGH SCHOOL ON MAY 29TH @ 10:30 a.m. So hard to believe this day has come.

And in between a lot more has happened, a lot of good and a lot of sad....

In Feb. I got a call that my uncle was in the hospital with a collapsed lung, and they thought he may have lung cancer. So I spent the next 16 days driving up and down I-5 between Tracy and Sacramento to the V.A. Hospital at Mather taking care of my uncle, being there for his surgeries and talking to his Dr's since he was unable to remember on conversation to another and could not remember what the Dr's were saying.  Luckily he recovered and no lung cancer was found.

March 10, 2010 my dad went into the hospital for bypass surgery. On March 19, 2010 at 3:05 p.m. my dad passed away. Quick synopsis: Essentially what happened is he went in for bypass, took a fall on the 16th, injured himself and instead of them taking him back into surgery to find out the damage they continued to watch him. On Friday the 19th in the morning they found he had contracted a staph infection...I got to the hospital to see him in the early afternoon, was into his room by 1:45, instantly I knew something was wrong! I started asking all kinds of questions, the nurses always had an answer, but not any that made any sense to me, no answers that satisfied me, so I kept asking questions and more questions...like why was bright red blood coming out of his chest tube when 3 days earlier, before the fall it was draining clear!, why was he ice cold!, why was his blood pressure so damn low!, why was there hardly any urine in his cath bag!, why the hell was he so swollen he looked pregnant!...Next thing I know they are telling me I needed to leave his room and they would come get me when I could come back in...well they never came to get me till the Dr came out at 2:55 telling me they were taking him back into surgery...by 3:05 my dad had bled out on the operating table and was dead. When the Dr came into the room they took Roni and I into, I asked him what happened...he gave me some explanation that he thinks the staph infection attacked the weakest point of his body and destroyed his new bypasses causing him to bleed out. Of course had they taken him to surgery on Wed, maybe they would have seen this...and why was the staph infection not found until the morning of March 19th! A staph infection does not attack and kill someone in 4 hours! He had to have had this infection for at least a week to have reached the point it did to have killed him.

Not a day goes by I don't miss my dad. I still find myself picking up the phone to call my dad... something will happen or I need advice on something and I will find myself reaching for the phone to call my dad, I always turned to my dad for advice. I have to remind myself he's gone, he's never coming back, I will never get his advice again. I have called his cell phone just to hear his voice. God I miss my dad, every day, every minute. I feel so jipped and robbed...my kids have been robbed of their Papa...my husband has been robbed of his best friend. I can't even type this without crying. I just want to turn the hands of time back. It's been 2 months and 6 days since my dad died and the waves of emotion are the damnedest thing, how they come out of nowhere...I'm trudging along doing my thing and all of a sudden I am paralyzed in grief, crying, just out of the blue. Strange how grief hits you at the strangest of times. I just want more time, I just want my dad back...I want to tell him all the things I had been holding off on telling him, thinking I would tell him when his heart was strong again, things I would have told him in Sat. at Ashley's graduation. I just NEED my dad. So now here I am, I have lost all my grandparents, my mom, my dad, my brother Darren is gone....It's a strange feeling being a 41 year old orphan. And for the rest of his life my sweet Aidan will know his Papa died on his 5th birthday...my heart breaks.

We have also lost my mother in law. 3 weeks 1 day after my dad died on April 10. 2010 Marion passed away of complications from Emphysema, congestive hear failure and COPD...the care my mother in law received at Providence Medical Center in Everet WA was amazing, they even let all the grandchildren and great grandchildren come in to see her....when the decision was made to switch her from maintenance care to comfort care, they had promised us she would feel no pain, no panic, just peace and comfort was true. She slipped into a coma around midnight on the 9th of April and passed very peacefully on the 10th. We had gone to Washington to see John's family for Spring break, it went from a 5 day trip to a 10 day family gathering and vigil of love for a very strong and loving woman. The night she was put on comfort care John had gotten very, very sick with strep throat and had gone home to his parents home on Whidbey Island. I remained at the hospital with my father in law and sister in law Debbie. Through the night Debbie and I checked on her and my father in law Orville who had fallen asleep around midnight. We came into her room at 7:30, stayed by her side, a little before 10 my father in law said he could really use a cup of coffee, so Debbie and I went to the cafeteria and were back in her room by 10:19 a.m.. In the meantime my brother in law Jim had arrived and was sitting at the foot of her bed staring, he looked at me and said I think she's passed away, but I can't go look. So I went over and checked for a pulse....sure enough she was gone. I went and got the nurse, she confirmed what we already knew and they called it at 10:20 a.m. April 10, 2010. The time we got with Marion was precious and a moment I will never forget. I got to tell her how much I loved her, what a wonderful woman she was and what an amazingly loving man she had raised. She and I had some wonderful conversations in those last days. I wish I had that time with my dad...She was an amazing woman, my mother in law for 19 years, 1 month and 19 days...I will miss her terribly.

The last few months have been hard, I have to remind myself everyday when I get up that my dad is gone, and today will be a better day than the previous one. My dad won't be here to see Ashley graduate from high school, any of my kids get married, live to be a great grandfather. I will never be able to tell him how much I love him ever again. I just want to feel his strong arms giving me a hug, hear his laugh one more time...hear one of his off color goofy jokes...I want to tell him to watch his Marine Corps mouth around my kids just one more time. So much more I just want, want to say, want to do, want to talk about and will never get the opportunity again.

I think I could ramble on and on, so I think I will stop now....so much prep still to do for the graduation this weekend. The house will be full of friends and family starting on Friday night. I think this is a good distraction for me...just what I need, good food, good friends, cocktails and lots of laughter.

So here I am again, sitting at the computer while my chatter box children eat their lunch, :~) Mommy made their favorite lunch today, simple really but a child pleaser... mini bagels, pizza sauce topped with mozzarella cheese, cooked in the oven till toasty brown and cheese all melted. Yep, bagel pizzas, this mom's saving grace when my kids are being picky eaters, which luckily they are not very often.

We have an accepted offer on the house!! YAY. It has been a long 5 almost 6 week wait, waiting for the bank to decide if our offer was a fair one in this real estate market. So if all goes well, we should be closing escrow in 30-45 days...of course we have to get through inspections and such, fingers crossed!!

Amelia has yet another ear infection, grrrr. My sweet baby girl is such a trooper, she takes it all in stride, she truly is amazing. I just got a call from the hospital, she is scheduled for her tubes next Tuesday morning. We are so lucky to have pediatricians who are pro-active and listen to us. Gosh, if I had been able to get tubes put in Kyle and Ashley's ears this early. So knock on wood, our ear problems will be over in a matter of days!

UPDATE: Well, now another house we had put an offer in on that we really liked but never heard from the bank on has come back on the market...so now we are contemplating which house...?hmmmm?

Prom

April 24, 2009 was Kyle's Sr. Prom and Ashley's Jr. Prom.

Both kids had a fantastic, great time, and neither one of them wanted the night to end. Kyle's date was a good friend of his named Brittany and Ashley's date was one of her best friends, a guy on the track team named Adrianne. As you can see both kids and their dates looked AWESOME!!!

Spring Break was awesome!! We rented a cabin and headed with all 5 kids to Tahoe. We were there from April 10-15th, and got to have Easter and my birthday in Tahoe. This is probably our last Spring Break as an entire family...Kyle graduates from high school in just a few weeks and will be a college freshman. Watching the kids hunt for eggs in Tahoe was quite a hoot I must say! John and I even drove over to South Lake Tahoe one night and did a little gambling at Harrah's. I won $140.00! The first 2 days we were there it was sunny and warm. Then a storm moved in, we were even sitting in the hot tub one night as snow was coming down, now that's what I call great. Oh how we miss the snow. Sometimes I wish we had never left New Hampshire, I miss the snow, the White Mountains, the Atlantic Ocean at Rye Beach...Anyway back to Spring Break, it was truly a great time, spent with our kids walking on the beach, playing in the snow, sight seeing, relaxing, watching movies. Time is moving so fast, my kids are changing by the moment. If I have learned anything since Kyle was born, is cherish each and every moment, time slips by so fast.

It's been quite a while since I updated the blog, so I figured I had better get my booty in gear and do an update! A lot has happened in the Hunter house and our little town of Tracy.

I guess I will start with the case of Sandra Cantu. Unless you live with your head in the sand, you have heard of Sandra Cantu. Sandra was a beautiful, sweet, intelligent 8 year old little girl who was taken from this life way to soon. An arrest has been made in the case, a woman named Melissa Huckaby. As a mother, I cannot fathom a mother hurting a child in such a way. When Sandra came up missing, everyone assumed it was an opportunist who knew the area, maybe visiting someone in the park (you have to know the area to find that mobile home park...it's not visible from the road or the highway), then hopped on the highway and was gone. To find out it was a neighbor, the mother of one of Sandra's friends.....how? why? just sickening. Now to find out the autopsy results have been sealed to prevent community outrage. John, Kyle, Ashley, Cassidy, Aidan, Amelia and I spent many hours at the vigils praying for her safe return, taping up fliers. I think we knew what the outcome would be, but the reality was crushing.

18 years and still going strong...

18 years ago John and I became Mr and Mrs John Hunter... Feb. 23, 1991 1:00 pm, Kelseyville Presbyterian Church...
5 kids later...
2 cross country moves...
3 company changes and back to the old company...

I fell head over heals in love with John the day I met him, I knew I was going to marry this man. Funny thing is, I met him because my dad had an angina attack and John was my dad's supervisor that day, the one who brought my dad to the Dr. to be checked out. From the moment my dad had me go out to the waiting room to find his supervisor our eyes met, that was it...A few days later John came to my apartment for a haircut, pizza in hand and a 6 pack of beer. After our dinner of pizza and his haircut John went to leave. Sneaky little devil left his wallet at my house so he had to come back and see me again. The rest is history.

The last 18 years have been a very exciting time, full of changes and twists. I can't wait to see what the next 18 years brings.

I just had to take quick moment to let out a shout for a friend of mine, Amber. She makes the cutest, sweetest and just plain ingenious baby leg warmers instead of dumb old awkward tights for your little girl. Please, if you know someone who just had a baby girl, have a little girl learning to crawl...live in frigid neck of the woods, have a gymnast who needs arm warmers? Check out the blog at the bottom of my page called 'knotty baby wear'...you will not be disappointed! Amelia has 8 different pairs, in all different colors and she LOVES, them. Not to mention all the compliments I get.......THANKS AMBER!