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"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

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"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

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"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

These Days

Blake has always enjoyed being outside, but recently his love of the great outdoors has reached new heights. He always wants to be outside. He marches to the front door & points at it emphatically with whiney little grunts. Once outside, the best toys are leaves & branches & rocks. He finds a good stick & walks around poking everything. Yesterday he worked on displacing an entire gravel walkway. Blake collects leaves with Grandma & brings them inside to display on the shelves. A neighbor brought over a little broom just Blake's size, so he can help push leaves around. Our porch is decorated with a variety of sticks & leaves, casualties of the inevitable battle to return home. 

So, we get outside, even when the weather is crummy. We are very thankful for gifted & thrifted warm coats & hats, dry rain suits & shoes.

I found an 18 month snowsuit at the Goodwill last week & am now on the hunt for toddler size 6 rain boots.

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"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Halloween

Costumed PEPS party, Ballard trick-or-treating, family & neighbor visits, glow sticks, kitties & flashlights -- a great Halloween.

G'ma

Thinking of my G'ma, who left us last night, one month before her 93rd birthday. I think of her poise & feistiness, sharp wit & perfect pork chops, handwritten postcards & garden flowers, full laughter & impromptu dancing. She lit up our lives with so much beauty & celebration.

I wrote the above on October 3rd, the day after G'ma passed away, but have been unable to finish any kind of post, writing things & then erasing them, never really finishing. I don't know how to describe my feelings of loss. A loss which is multiplied by the feeling that with it comes the end of an era -- the end of the G'people era (G'pa left us in 2007).

The G'people era was truly golden & includes some of my very best memories. Garden parties & playhouses, brunches & happy hours, croquet & badmitton, & always delicious food & lots of laughter. Growing up vacationing on their multi-acre estate in Lake Oswego was a childhood dream come true. There were trees to climb (& get stuck in, just ask my sister), a garden to escape in, a big grass field to play with cousins, fresh berries & peas to eat, & a hidden playhouse with our own mailbox. The adventures & memories are too many to name.

Even after reaching adulthood & saying goodbye to their home in Oregon, we continued the golden days & evenings at their beautiful little home in West Seattle. When G'pa died, many things changed but I realized how much of the golden hues were due to G'ma, with her quick wit & infectious laughter, things that remained even as her memory faded.

One of my favorite photos of G'ma -- dancing her way outside as the sun sets at our wedding.

G'ma & G'pa on their 65th wedding anniversary.

And this, just the best photo of them.

I am so happy to have a few memories of G'ma with Blakey. She thought he was great fun.

I'm going to sign off now before I start crying.
Leaving with a photo from the golden days -- G'pa & G'ma with the four grandchildren on the front walk of their Egan Way estate.

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"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

October

October is a favorite month of mine, as fall comes to the northwest with brilliant colors & sunshine-filled days. Warm drinks & pumpkins, cozy boots with skirts & tights, chilly mornings with chimney smoke, mums & cabbages & bright leaves in every hue. I love it all. Right now, as I write this, the wind has picked up & is swirling leaves across the ground, tossing them up to a stone grey sky. Since taking my job with Heifer, this season is also one of the busiest as we participate in the Combined Federal Campaign & gear up for holiday giving & events. This October was even busier than most with multiple events surrounding the visit of Heifer's West Africa Regional Director, as well as trips to California & Little Rock. During all this Levi was also attempting to give reviews to 25 employees.
On October 2nd, exactly one month before her 93rd birthday, my Grandma Mary passed away. Within a week, the Winston/Whetstone family flew in from Anchorage, DC, Santa Fe & Oregon to celebrate & remember G'ma. I will share more about this in a separate post.

For now, some photos of October events.

California -- a lovely time at Hidden Villa, making plans, carving pumpkins, hosting volunteers, hiking in the hills & remembering that I have amazing colleagues (even if I only get to see them twice a year).

Then I got sick of my hair & chopped it all off. Fortunately a friend on Facebook posted about donating hers to Pantene's PonyUp program & gave me the idea to donate 8" of my hair to help provide wigs for women fighting cancer. Win-win.

  Mid-October included a week of hosting Rashid Sesay, Heifer's West Africa Regional Director, in Seattle. Five presentations, including a dinner & a much coveted invitation to the Microsoft campus. Rashid is currently very busy working on a multi-million program proposal for the drought & famine stricken Sahel region of West Africa. It's an amazing project that will reach across four countries and provide new techniques for land & animal management to slow down the desertification that affects the region.

Our nephew Myles' first birthday!

PEPS (Program for Early Parent Support) babies' birthday party.

A whirlwind 48 hour trip to Little Rock -- a dear friend's wedding, a couple meetings at good 'ol HQ, & much needed silliness & snuggles with Catherine.

Pumpkin Patch outing with PEPS friends!

More to come soon about October...

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"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."