Our 4th of July

The girls decided that they wanted to bake sweets for our own small 4th of July picnic. So we did. Sarah made a white cake from scratch with very minimal help from me. Besides reading the directions and helping to separate yolk from egg white she did it all on her own. When she was finished she felt proud of herself and that is very important to me. Elizabeth made these amazing sugar cookies - just like Nana does. She also made them from scratch by herself with minimal interference from me. She is very creative as you will see. The girls also made chocolate covered pretzels and 4th of July strawberries. All in all they spent a couple of hours in the kitchen with me yesterday morning preparing food for their dessert.

Bob and Andy spent the morning and early afternoon playing Axis & Allies. Josh found a cool app on the iPad that allows him to create his own beat and was messing around with that showing us his latest and newest creations as each one was made. Meanwhile, I spent the most of the morning and all of the early afternoon in the kitchen helping the girls and then making salads for the picnic. (I made a new quinoa salad recipe I found, macaroni salad, and a garden salad if you are interested in knowing.) When I was done I was a bit tuckered out and had hit a wall. Bob could see this and took the kids out of the house for a bit so that I could take a nap. I found them all at the grassy field in our complex playing a game of soccer. (Minus Elizabeth who claimed she was too hot - it was NOT hot here yesterday - and was sneaking game time on her kindle. Busted!)

After dinner we rode the train into downtown Portland to catch a Blues Festival and then watch fireworks. The train system is awesome. I cannot wait to use it again when there aren't a gagillion people trying to use it to get downtown and then back home.

Before I show you my pictures I wanted to share an experience that I had with you yesterday that I will carry with me for a long time. When our family got on the train we were separated because there were not enough seats for us to sit together. Bob and Andy went in one direction and I took the remaining kids in another. When I sat down I noticed that I passed a Muslim woman who was sitting alone with seats next to her. She quietly sat there with her hands folded in her lap and alternated between looking out of the window and at the people in the train car with us. There was something about her that was so beautiful and elegant. I cannot put into words what it was about her that made me feel this way, but she almost had this magnetizing effect that drew me to her. I didn't want to stare at her because that is rude and I am sure she gets stared at a lot, but I also didn't want to ignore her because that is equally as rude. It took me a while of stolen glances to notice that the head scarf that she was wearing was that of an American flag. The sight took my breath away. The scarf was wrapped so delicately around her head and shoulders and she kept checking to make sure it was still in place. And I thought to myself that THIS why I love this country and THIS is why I am willing to move around and experience different things in each place I visit. If I wasn't willing to get out there and visit new cities and take in new sights I am not sure that I would get exposed (and more importantly my kids would not get exposed) to so many different people and places. Here is a woman who is probably harassed because of her beliefs and because of our fears that she is somehow a terrorist (because aren't all Muslims terrorists? Note sarcasm.) and yet here she is showing her patriotism towards this country while simultaneously displaying her faith. I wanted to tell her that she looked beautiful. I wanted to thank her for showing me that she is an individual. A human. Just like me. And that even though we believe different things in terms of our faith we are much more the same than we are different. But I wasn't able to do that because the train filled up and then she got off before I could say anything. I regret not making more of an effort to do so. The next time I am inspired like that I am just going to act and not wait for the right moment. Because my words of her beauty could have changed her day. I could have touched her heart the way she did mine with that simple gesture of telling her how beautiful she looked, but I couldn't because I was waiting for the opportune moment instead making one happen. Anyway, I just wanted to share that story with you...

The fireworks were dubbed the best in Portland, but I would be lying to you if I said I wasn't a bit disappointed with them. Our family has seen better. The whole time we were watching the 20 minute display Bob and I would alternate describing what the fireworks looked like to Sarah. As I watched the fireworks I could not help alternating between a plea and a prayer to God. My plea was that he would  please give her her sight back. I told Him that I would give up as many years of my life as I needed to if there needed to be a trade off, but please, please, let her one day soon see again. It makes me sad that she cannot experience our family's adventures fully and completely. And then I said a prayer of thanksgiving for the fact that she had full sight for 8.5 years and that she had partial sight for 1.5 years after that. I thanked God for allowing Sarah to have at one time been able to see fireworks so that she can recall a memory in her mind when we are describing them to her of what the firework looks like. As well as our family is adjusting to the disease that resides in Sarah's body it still breaks my heart that this is her life. This is not the life that I want for my child. I would take her place in a heartbeat, so that she did not have to live life without vision. I have seen life. I have enough memories built in to my mind to recall things for the rest of my living days. Does she? Will she always be able to recall what a firework looks like? What the sunset looks like? She can no longer remember what she looks like. How many more memories will fade from her mind until it gets to the point where it will have seemed as if she never had vision at all?  But yet, I also know that this life is what is meant for her, for all of us. This is our path that we must journey on and we can either dwell in its sorrow or rejoice in the small miracles this life brings. I mostly choose the latter, but sometimes the former sweeps in and grabs hold of me. It breaks my heart still, and no matter how much time or distance we travel away from the onset of this whole thing, it still hurts in more ways than I can ever describe.


Here is what our day looked like:

Sarah made these. 

Elizabeth's creation.

Sarah eating a spoonful of the white chocolate we melted.

Decorating their baked goods.

Final product. She did the whole thing all on her own.

Listening to music at the Blues Festival

There was a section of flooring that you could dance on. Bob asked us all if we wanted to dance and Elizabeth was the only one brave enough to say yes.