Family

I spy Jacob!

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Our grandson, Jacob, loves to poke around my sewing room. I make it a point before he is due to arrive to lock up anything remotely interesting and dangerous to a two-year-old like pins, rotary cutters and scissors. Earlier this year he got a peek at the “I Spy” quilt I made for a charity event. Little did Jacob know I was working on one for him also!

The pattern is again from Missouri Star Quilt Company and so is the novelty layer cake fabric of ten-inch squares. With Jacob’s quilt, I added a couple of his favorite Minion fabric “jars.” I also used a mottled black fabric for the background which I love over the flat-looking black fabric on the charity quilt.

After finally getting the quilt top finished, I asked Jacob to pick a binding fabric. The charity quilt binding was black and totally worked but I wanted to try something different. Jacob’s choices were ladybugs or zebra print. Obviously, ladybugs won! The ladybug fabric is by Charley Harper.

The awesome Kim Norton, at A Busy Bobbin, quilted with an all-over digital pantograph design called Circle Swirls using a multi-colored King Tut thread (921 Cleopatra). I absolutely love collaborating with Kim! The adorable Tracy at Personalize It embroidered the quilt label for the back.

A cancer journey – struggling with the schedule

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Infusion time!

Two weeks ago, Rick had his first of many “maintenance” immunotherapy infusions of Nivolumab for the clinical trial he is on for his clear cell kidney cancer. The hope is the drug will re-train his “T” cells to recognize and destroy any remaining cancer cells.

Fast-forward to yesterday and we were hopeful to get the go-ahead for “maintenance” infusion number 2. We gotta do this every two weeks for about 20 more months … not to mention scans every few months. It is going to be a very long haul … but I believe the worst is behind us. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Rick had a kidney/tumor removed two months ago. Seems a little surreal. Rick has been back at work for the last few weeks and was finally cleared to climb on all that fun metal stuff at the plant.

It is why Rick and I have been huddling with the calendar trying to figure out how to integrate these MDA visits into our lives with work and family. The whole infusion thing reminds me of baking cookies. The infusion recipe has a specific order and involves several ingredients starting with blood work. Actually, Rick and I lovingly call it an old-fashioned bloodletting because they take over a dozen vials of blood. That is done the day before, or at the very least two hours prior to meeting with the clinical trial research peeps. She asks bunches of questions to see how Rick is doing and records the answers on a computer. I don’t think she found a spot to record my answer, “Rick has his sense of humor back!”

Next ingredient … we stir in a meeting with the PA, the lovely Simi, and sometimes Dr. Campbell, the oncologist. If all the blood work looks fine, we head to another floor to bake at 350 degrees or until done. Actually, that is where we go for the actual infusion. Like waiting for bread to rise, that part involves waiting around for a couple of hours for whatever goes on behind the scene and finally the infusion. Why am I telling you all this? Because these infusions days can easily burn a whole workday.

So Rick and I tried an experiment this week with the schedule. Rick drove to MDA from work late in the day on Wednesday for his blood work. On Thursday, Rick and I met with the clinical trial “team” in the early afternoon and was approved for his infusion. We figured it would be way easier to make up a few hours at work then a whole day. Good news … his lipase numbers had dropped again. Rick was now so close to the absolute top of the normal range. Actually, there was a few minutes when it looked like we might be sent home again. Imagine throwing out a perfectly good batch of unbaked cookie batter. It felt like that!

I left MDA at 3:30 pm to head back to meet Mimi and her bus. Rick finally pulled up into the driveway after 7 pm. I could tell by the look on his face this wasn’t going to work and he had a “Plan B” in mind. I have a call into Dr. Campbell’s awesome scheduler, Lauren. Hopefully, she can work some magic for when we head back down to MDA in two weeks for “maintenance” infusion number 3.

A cancer journey – kidney removal surgery

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It has been a week since Rick’s left kidney/tumor was removed. Whoever said it “takes a village to raise a child” musta also been talking about someone having major surgery. Throw our special needs daughter into the mix and the village quickly became a small metropolis. Our son, Ricky, and lovely daughter-in-law, Kate, flew in from Washington, DC. Our daughter, Katie, along with son-in-law, Chad, and even grandson, Jake was also there to help. We thought we had all our ducks in a row with our dream team in place! After all, hubby was only going to be in the hospital two to three days tops.

A day before surgery, my friend, Mary, stopped by with fruit and sandwich trays with a card signed by so many people with special needs connections. There was also homemade brownies from Sandy, and macaroni salad from Jan. I gotta get that recipe! How did they know I hadn’t thought about feeding the dream team?

On the morning of the surgery, Katie surprised her dad in the surgery waiting room with a visit from Jake. It was magical watching Jake run toward Rick yelling “Pop-Pop.” Nothing like your favorite two-year-old crawling in your lap to lessen the tension. We didn’t know it at the time, but surgery day would be twelve long hours until Rick finally made it into his hospital room for the night. We were updated so much along the way from meetings in pre-op, to surgery updates every two hours, and finally visiting in recovery. When we met with Dr. Karam, the kidney surgeon, after surgery we learned the kidney/tumor removed was the size of a cantaloupe. I will never forgot how he held his hands up to represent the size of the tumor/kidney. Everything went as planned!

In a vague peanut shell … the details you don’t want to know … the hospital stay lasted five days and nights with lots of walking the halls trying to get his gut to wake up. Seems thirty percent of patients have this challenge after surgery and we just had to wait. Someone spent each day and night at the hospital. It was a regular relay team. I only had plans in place for people staying three nights. I took one night and Ricky stayed two. When things dragged on through the weekend, I called his brother, Gary. Our Katie also spent a night. The nights were especially challenging. At MDA they wake you up at night for something every couple of hours. I got the feeling sleep isn’t a priority at MD Anderson. Getting well is!

I think it was on day two that Katie, Jake and Chad paid a visit to Rick’s hospital room. Jake was bringing Pop-Pop a stuffed purple “kidney” pillow. The plan was for Jake to enter the room and say, “Pop-Pop I think you dropped something,” and then hand him the kidney pillow. I think he only got the words, “Pop-Pop” out but you get the picture!

Sometime during day four, the nurse said I had to watch an instructional video to learn how to give Heparin injections. Yep … I would be giving Rick injections three times a day for 28 days. Lucky me! After the video the nurse had me practice on Rick. Good thing the needle was small … very small. I can do this … but I will be glad when we are finished!

We are now in recovery mode at the house, getting lots of sleep, and better every day. When Ricky and Kate boarded the plane for home, Rick’s awesome big sister, Bonnie, came to stay for a couple of weeks and we are tag teaming nicely!

Things I have learned … my neighbor, Marie, makes the best soup and decorated “happy face sun” sugar cookies! She always me smile! I learned that when someone sends you an email asking how they can help, you write them back. I asked for help bathing Mimi … and then they also brought Mimi and I holy communion and homemade cookies and muffins. I am so blessed. I also learned that sometimes people know exactly what you need without asking. And I learned the reason I never considered becoming a nurse … giving injections!

Our Adventure Wall

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I saw this post on Facebook the other day about “How to Hang Pictures.” It made me think about our “Adventure Wall” in our family room. I have always meant to write a blog post about it. One photograph gave me the idea for the wall. It was one of our son while he was studying abroad several years ago in Spain. Ricky also had the opportunity to travel all over Europe. Oh, and after college graduation he traveled throughout Peru for three weeks with his sister. They brought back hundreds of amazing photographs. But there was one particular photograph of Ricky curled up in a window opening in Dubrovnik that always made me smile. It caught the essence of this funny guy that I call … my awesome son!

But you know … I’ve gathered lots of photos over the years and finally decided it was time to display them so I could look at them all the time. My daughter, Katie, is also a world travel and inspired us to do some traveling. Yep, we have a few hundred photo memories of our own.

Collaborating with the engineering hubster, we came up with a plan. I picked my absolute favorite sixteen photographs … eight horizontal and eight vertical. I had them enlarged to 11″ by 14″ and purchased mats and frames on sale.

It took us one whole day to hang the photos. Hubby utilized his AutoCAD program so we would get super precise with the layout.

Now when I walk past the wall … I dream of where that next adventure will lead us.

Bacon and eggs for breakfast!

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Bacon and egg cups
I have a guest contributor for this week’s blog post. Aleta is my lovely daughter-in-law’s mother and readily confesses that her “happy place” is the kitchen. I adore her like a sister and not just because she cooks and bakes well! We spent the last week of 2015 happily hanging out with family at a beach house in Galveston playing board games, cooking, fishing and exploring The Strand in Galveston.

This particular recipe is adapted from Tasty, a page on Facebook that does all those clever food videos. It seems to be a recent phenomena like Tip Hero and Cooking Panda. Just “like” their Facebook page and all kinds of easy recipes magically pop into your newsfeed. The heavily edited videos are short and often feature an empty bowl, ingredients being pored into it, stirred around, manipulated further and then the end result. Just share the video and you can view it on your page forevermore and watch it over and over!

Lately many of the videos seem to be featuring canned pizza dough as the main ingredient. I suspect a clever marketing ploy by the Pillsbury people. Consider me hooked! I’ve already made the pretzel pigs in a blanket, and my personal favorite, a ham and swiss rollup recipe with poppy seeds that were crowd pleasers!

So if you want to make the bacon and egg cups, which taste even better than they look, try the following recipe featured on Tasty, and adapted by Aleta, as follows:

12 Bacon Egg Cups

6 slices of bread
6 tablespoons shredded cheese
12 slices of bacon (use pre-cooked … less grease)
12 eggs
salt and pepper

With a jar or cookie cutter, cut 2 circles into each piece of bread. Place in greased muffin tin cups. Wrap a piece of pre-cooked bacon along the edge of each muffin cup. Sprinkle 1/2 tablespoon cheese into each cup and then top with an egg. Season with salt and pepper and bake at 400 degrees F/204 degrees C for 15 minutes (longer for firmer yolk). Top with green onion.

Excited about a Christmas party!

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Our special needs daughter is so excited about the big Christmas party at her day center today! They are having an ugly Christmas sweater contest and exchanging little gifts at The Village Learning Center. Since it will probably hit 80 degrees today, I opted to hang Mimi’s “ugly” sweater off the back of her wheelchair. No sense in her sweating all day.

Mimi’s little elf is a party animal and decided to come along and watch the fun from her little perch. Oh … to be a fly on the wall!

Florida’s white sandy beaches, fishing and Texas Holdem

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Just after Easter, I spent several days relaxing in Navarre, Florida on white sandy beaches. Located in the Florida panhandle, we stayed at The Pearl of Navarre Beach. Google the condo name and you will find several ways to rent one of their condos. Every morning someone puts out all the beach chairs/umbrellas for their guests. The water consists of lots of shades of blue … and the sand it was fluffy and white … a great combination!

We did lots of relaxing, walks on the beach, playing board games and even learned to play Texas Holdem. I’ve seriously gotta learn to bluff! The boys did lots of fishing. With options like pier fishing, surf fishing and charter fishing there are choices to be made! One afternoon hubby and I ventured out for lunch. I highly recommend The Slippery Mermaid for sushi! With items on the menu like Sassy Mermaid and Funky Mermaid how can you go wrong?

I gotta give photo credit to Kate’s awesome mom, Aleta. She took nearly all the photographs.

World’s largest corn maze

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When my son, Ricky, told me about his adventure with his wife, Kate, in the world’s largest corn maze, I thought it would make a great blog post, especially for Halloween. We have corn mazes in Texas, but this one seems to have taken mazes to a whole different level. In honor of Halloween, I’m calling the following … Ricky’s “blob post.”

My wife, Kate, and I have been living out in the modest city of Dixon, California, for the past four years, largely due to its proximity to Travis Air Force Base, where I’m stationed, and where Kate works in Sacramento. The quiet, triangle-shaped city’s main claim-to-fame is the Dixon May Fair, held every year in, you guessed it, the month of May. Boasted as the longest-running fair in all of California, you can find fried anything, midway games, and celebrity acts ranging from Snoop Dog to Larry the Cable Guy–what a variety right? Sadly, even though the May Fair is a 20-minute walk from our door step, Kate and I have never made the trek to the famous fair; it seems we’re always spending time in Napa that time of year!

Aside from the annual May Fair, did you know Dixon hosts the Guinness Book of World Records largest corn maze? Who knew tiny Dixon, also known as “Sheep Town” or “Lamb Town,” had so many quirks? Well it took us three-and-one-half years, but recently we made the five-minute drive over to Cool Patch Pumpkins to conquer the maize maze. After parking, quite appropriately, in a field, we wandered on up to buy our tickets. At $12 per person, we thought the price was steep for a simple corn maze, but we quickly found our jaws dropping in disbelief after looking at the map of the maze!

“Please allow two hours to complete the Corn Maze,” said a posted sign. Probably meant to be a cautionary note, we took it as a challenge and glided to the maze entrance. The labyrinth of corn has you doing loops, following corridors in a large grid, and scratching your head at quadruple forks-in-the-road going in all directions. The map is absolutely necessary to keep you on track, because some of the fake paths are extensive. An alpha-numeric grid helps you match your position on the map with various markers along the maze paths, just in case you’re completely stumped, but watch out for pranksters that have moved the markers around the maze!

As we trekked through the corn rows, our strategies to tackle the maze evolved and refined. We began considering drawing a complete start-to-finish line on our map, then highlighting our position as we went—this proved difficult without writing utensils! Another consideration was using Google Maps on our phone, but, alas, no cell service! About a third of the way through, we started trailing a couple that looked confident in their route, which got us another third of the way through the maze before they took a wrong turn and got us lost as well! Finally, Kate surrendered, gave me the map, and I used my internal compass and sense of direction to calculate our path. Despite these obstacles, we finished in just under one hour! Not the case with everyone where every weekend someone calls 911 hopelessly lost in the corn maze. In case you were wondering, there is no cheese at the end of the maze, but we did take a celebratory photo, high-fived, and headed to nearby Woodland, California for Mexican food and margaritas, which, honestly, should be at the end of every maze.

So while you may not jump to book your next vacation in Dixon, California, remember the world record-setting corn maze at Cool Patch Pumpkins for your next visit out to Northern California. You may just need to walk off some of that wine and cheese from nearby Napa Valley!

A most excellent collection of windmills in Holland

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If you go to Holland, eating Dutch cheese, visiting the Anne Frank House, and checking out a windmill should really be on your bucket list.

Located close to Rotterdam, is a most excellent collection of windmills called the Kinderdijk. Be sure and visit their informative website if you are planning a visit.

In 1997, the area was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has 19 impressive windmills for your viewing enjoyment. Located on both sides of a waterway, the best way to view the windmills is via bike, although we saw quite a few walking the path. Bike rental fees are just 2.50 euros for two hours.

As I hadn’t actually pedaled a bike in many years, I imagined the thick, tall grasses on both sides of the pathway were planted just for me. In case I fell off the bike I wouldn’t fracture any bones … or fall into the water.

One of the windmills, second on the right, is a working museum and charges a small fee. As a visit to Delft and Haarlem were on the list that day we didn’t make it to the museum.

Here is an interesting factoid: 17 of the restored windmills were built between 1738 and 1740 for water drainage.

My grandfather, who was from northern Holland, actually took care of water levels, probably in such a windmill. The visit to the Kinderdijk, made it all the more personal and impressive.

When things go wrong in Amsterdam

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The above photographs show the area of Amsterdam where we were supposed to stay. Pretty nice looking right? When we started planning our trip to Holland it was always with the intent of renting an apartment, as our son and daughter-in-law from California would be hanging out with us. Months before we left, I sat in front of my computer for hours looking for just the right spot on VRBO.com. The one I eventually rented was in the Joordan neighborhood, with 2 bedroom, 2 baths, laundry facilities and kitchen. We envisioned the trendy neighborhood known for specialty shopping, cafes, restaurants and art galleries. It would be perfect!

A week before arriving in Amsterdam there was a flurry of emails back and forth between me and the apartment owner. Final arrangements! Then two days before the dude asked if I wanted to check-in early, for a fee of 50 euros to cover the early housekeeping fee, as his renters would be leaving the night before. After a little hesitation … I knew he was gouging me … but I said yes anyway. The upside was it would give us all an opportunity to perhaps nap and adjust a little to the time change before meeting my cousin and her husband for lunch. My last two emails with the owner before I turned off my computer and left for the airport was … we would meet between 9 and 9:30 am at the apartment to get the key.

Many, many flight hours later, Hubby and I arrived at 9:15 am and knocked on the apartment door. We rang the bell. No answer. We didn’t panic. The dude still had a little time to arrive with the key. Pretty soon it was 9:45 and still no dude … and it was starting to rain. We found a bench two doors down and covered slightly with scaffolding. When 9:15 turned into 10:30 and still no guy with the key, we started to worry. Ricky and Kate showed up and a hug-fest ensued. I guess they could tell by the steam pouring from my ears that I was a teapot about to blow. We had the owner’s phone number but our phones were not cooperating. When a nice lady that lived on the block offered to help call the owner for us, we were hopeful. After several tries and leaving messages, we were finally able to chat with our missing-in-action owner.

“Oh so sorry, but I’m an hour away. I’ll give you the key code and you can let yourself in,” he said.

Hubby pushed some numbers on the key pad and opened a little door that was to hold the key. Only there was no key. Suddenly, from behind the door to our apartment, the blinds lifted. There was a scary-looking lady in the window. After a short conversation, she confided she was locked in by her apartment mates, who had left for a few hours, and besides, they were not set to leave until the next day.

“This has never happened in the three years I’ve owned the apartment,” said the owner when we got him back on the phone.

His offer was for us to stay at one of his properties in another part of Amsterdam … for a night … then move back to the Joordan apartment tomorrow afternoon. Geez, we were already going to lose one day of our vacation because of this guy … why not go for two? Did we take him up on his offer … nope!

My son, our travel logistics expert, found us a couple of hotel rooms on Hotels.com before the taxi pulled up a few minutes later. The Room Mate Hotel was located in the UDock section of Amsterdam. The location was not ideal, the hotel was built on a new artificial island, but it was only a 10 minute walk to the train station and we made it work.

Why am I telling your this story? Because if you are going to rent an apartment, be sure and charge it to a credit card. We were able to dispute the charge. The credit card people do an investigation, and basically, if the apartment dude is deemed an idiot, the “temporary credit” becomes permanent.

The rest of the trip was awesome!