Very Merry Cold White Christmas

December 21-28, 2010

We spent Christmas in Utah with our families again this year. It is always so much fun to see everyone and get our kids together with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. 

Tanner (and Kaden) had a great time working in the shop with Grandpa Chamberlain. My dad made Tanner the cutest little set of wooden animals.

We were so happy to have our wonderful Dad with us this year. And this is our crazy tribute pictures for the EMT/firefighter team who saved his life just weeks before Christmas.

We've only gotten a Christmas tree once for our place here in Cali, so it's always fun to go to Utah and have the grandparents deck out their homes with Christmas trees and decorations and presents.

Tanner loved all his cool presents. Especially this one. What is it, you ask?  

Check out his joy as he aims his little nerf gun at his dad. Ha. He is such a little boy. 

He also got some great original art from his grandpa

 

A mini golf set from Santa 

And the best Christmas present ever!!! - A Dirt Devil!! 

Tanner is such a sweetheart and always wants to help me with my vacuuming, but I can never get a good vacuum session in because Tanner is tripping all over me and the machine to get his hands on it and "help mommy."  I had chatted with my mom about Tanner's obsession with helping me vacuum and the Dirt Devil was her brilliant solution. Seriously, the world's greatest present. It not only saves my sanity for when I vacuum, but also for when Tanner makes his messes with food, play dough, dirt from our plants, etc. etc. All 2 year olds should have their very own Dirt Devil.

Now, if only the Dirt Devil could get out permanent Marker . . . Tanner wreaked a little havoc with these lovely little Sharpies while we were in Utah.

Luckily he chose to decorate the back of my parent's office door instead of any of the other important office paperwork, computers, etc.

He was a bit hesitant to show us the full range of his artwork, but after some coaxing . . .

 

we got to see the belly art. 

And what head-to-toe Sharpie artwork would be complete without, well, the toes??  

We had a lot of fun playing in the snow. This is an attempt at building a snowman. Tanner is obsessed with snowmen because of this snowman-building game he plays online. So, he had a blast.

Here are Kaden and I, watching the fun. I think Kaden was mad that I wouldn't let him crawl around in the snow. Either that, or he has inherited his father's joy in making faces for the camera.

We of course spent a lot of time with Matt's family, but for some reason, I have no pictures of our time with them. We love you Vandermydes!!

I love getting together with my girlfriends whenever I go to Utah. I neglected to get a pic with one group of my lady friends, but here is pic from another get-together, our Girls Christmas Party--2010.

It's always crazy trying to fit in seeing everyone while we're in town, so we were very excited to get in some time with our beloved Scherbel Family. This family took us into their home for four months while we lived in Honduras back in 2006. They were there working for the State Department, and without ever having met us, they agreed to let us live with them. We had so much fun living with Paul and Sarah and their beautiful girls. They recently settled down in Utah and it was great to see them and meet their newest additions--and introduce them to our little kiddos. We love you Scherbel Family!!

We were sad to leave our families, but happy to get back to our warm California weather. 

Here is T-man saying his farewells. 

I Believe in Miracles

December 26, 2010

This is my dad. 

He is an artist, an inventor, a creator, an adventurer, a lover of life, a peacemaker, a spiritual giant, a loyal friend, and a loving husband, father and grandfather . . . and on December 12, 2010, we almost lost him.

*          *          *

On December 12, my dad was up late - until about 2am- changing his art/pottery studio into a wood-working shop so he could begin creating his newest project: hand-crafted cedar adirondack chairs. 
As he often does when he gets wrapped up in a project, he had forgotten to eat that day, so when he laid down in bed, he wasn't feeling very well.  He rustled around for about an hour before my mom woke up. 


My dad told her he thought he was having a heart attack. 


Things progressed rather quickly from there and by the time my mom was on the phone with the 911 operator, my dad was in pretty bad shape. Thankfully, my brother, Max, was home and was able to comfort my dad while they waited for the ambulance to arrive. Max gave my dad a priesthood blessing, a blessing that offered strength and comfort, and a peace in knowing that no matter what happened, God was there and was in control. 

The ambulance arrived in 9 minutes. Amidst the chaos of the EMT team entering and my now nearly unconscious father being rushed out of the house and going into full cardiac arrest before even getting to the ambulance, my mom and brother both felt calm and peaceful. 


It took the ambulance 6 minutes to arrive at the nearest hospital. During that time, my dad was brought back to life after receiving manual chest pumps and getting his heart shocked by the defibrillator, and then was coherent enough to ask the EMT team what had happened and thank them for saving him. 

He was still not out of the clear, however, and was rushed to the Emergency Room where doctors discovered a 100% blockage of the major "widowmaker" artery, and had to perform surgery to implant a stint into the artery to try to clear the blockage. 


It was during this time that my brother texted me to let me know what was going on. It was 3:30 am in California and I happened to still be awake, working on a personal history book I was writing about Matt's grandparents. I immediately called my brother and he sounded so calm about the whole situation that I felt reassured that there wasn't a need to worry - so much so that in the morning, I talked to Matt for a few minutes about other things before even remembering my dad had had a heart attack. 


The following Sunday, my little sister and her husband flew out to LA to help me drive back to Utah with the kids. Matt flew out to join us on December 23. On Christmas eve, we all visited the fire station to thank the EMTs who saved our dad.


They shared their own perspectives of what happened that morning and all expressed their amazement at my dad's recovery and the fact that he even made it through such an ordeal. One EMT said that in the 22 years in his job, he could count on one hand how many people had survived what my dad had. 


These are the men who saved my father's life: Erik Van Duren, Jason Coble, and Daniel Ramos.

*          *          *

Tanner and Kaden were at the fire station with us and, much to Matt's delight, gave us an excuse to get a tour.

We got to go inside the fire truck

And even went for a ride around the neighborhood.

We left with thankful hearts and a handful of little firefighter hats.

I am so grateful for the men who responded to my mom's 911 call. They were my father's guardian angels in those early morning hours. I know that God was watching over my dad and is the reason he is still here with us today. 

I believe in miracles.

Tanner's First Movie

December 4, 2010

Matt took Tanner to his first movie at the theatres on December 4th 2010. 

Tanner was 2 years and 3 months old. 

They saw Megamind. Tanner had a great time and sat through the whole movie. Aftwards, when they were leaving, Tanner saw some blue mannequins in a store and said, "Look Dad! Megamind!" 

Over the next few days, Tanner seemed to spot "Megamind" everywhere. For some reason, there were banners up everywhere with blue figures and Tanner kept pointing them out to me. It took me a while to figure out that he was calling the blue figures "Megamind."