1 Month...

Today is 1 month since Rachel passed away. We have been through quite a lot, and due to media attention, we made our blog private for a while, and haven't been posting since we've been back.

For those who may not know, on February 6, 2010, Rebecca passed away at Davis Hospital. Three days later, on February 9, 2010, Rachel also passed away at Primary Children's Medical Center. The next few days were a blur for us - there were many good things that happened, and the longest week of our lives culminated in me needing to do a press conference leading up to the day of the funeral.

Throughout all of these experiences, we have been absolutely amazed at the help and outpouring of love and support from friends, family, and total strangers. We are grateful to everyone for your love and prayers, and we have definitely been feeling it as we have begun this healing process.

I, personally, have found it therapeutic to post some pictures and memories of our two girls on Facebook. However, not all our family and friends have access to those photos, so I thought I would cross-post them on our family blog. Since we are still a bit concerned about media attention, we do not have comments enabled on our blog at this time, but if you would like to leave a comment for us, feel free to do it on the Facebook photo album. I'm sorry to those of you who have already seen these pictures - but I will keep posting new ones each day for the next little while.

Again, thank you all for your support, love, and prayers! We love you all! And we LOVE our girls!

Rebecca's Obituary
Rachel's Obituary

Pendleton Roundup

We went on a nostalgia trip with my parents to the Pendleton RoundUp rodeo in my dad's childhood hometown. We had a great time. It's a small town, and the whole place shuts down for the rodeo - school's out for the week, there are stages and shops and food carts all up and down the middle of the town's main street, and the place is jumping with rodeo fever!

We spent our first hour in Pendleton looking for a pair of real cowboy boots and a cowgirl shirt for me. We found them at D&B Supply...in the children's section. I bought a pair of kids' size 3 boots, and I'm not ashamed, because they were $30 cheaper than the ones for the grownups.

Next we continued over to the rodeo grounds, where we saw this stuff:

I ate the biggest and sugariest candy apple I have ever seen...for lunch. Hey, it was vacation.

Thursday was "Tough Enough to Wear Pink" day at the rodeo, and most people around town and most of the cowboys wore pink shirts. See how tough my dad is in his pink shirt?

Walking around the town, we found two different churches that also love the rodeo.

On this trip I saw my first-ever Wild Cow Milking Contest, Indian Relay Horse Race, and real Indians living in real teepees in the Indian Village behind the rodeo grounds. I ate my first funnel cake and tried pad thai for the first time too. I saw my first Mounted Band (the entire band rides horses in the parade) and I saw 10 real oxen pulling a real Conestoga wagon. All in all, a pretty awesome weekend!

How old am I?

One of Cassidy's piano songs for the week is "Theme from The Addams Family." I have found myself singing along in my head, which is understandable, since it is a very catchy tune. What has surprised me, is that I, who happen to be thirty, mind you, sing the third grade words to myself every time.

The Addams Family started When Uncle Fester farted and that's why they're retarded...

Real mature, Brenda.

Washington DC Days 3-7

My sister Katie says I am a lazy blogger since it has been over a month since I last posted. She's right. I was all gung ho to document our trip, and then I lost steam. In my defense, in the four weeks following our return we went to Idaho for a family reunion and camping in Bryce Canyon, so that had a lot to do with said Steam Loss. So here's the rest, in down and dirty, much less detailed fashion, for those of you who may care...

Lincoln Memorial, of course. Since this photo was taken by a stranger, he didn't know my specific instructions to show no feet. My first day walking all over I got blisters, and I was afraid to switch to my sandals lest I get blisters in a new place. Hence, the brown shoes with the shorts. But it was so hot I wasn't going to wear jeans, and I decided I could just look like a dorky tourist if it meant I would enjoy my trip.

World War II Memorial

I thought this mounted policeman was cool, so I took a picture. Just moments later I found out he wasn't just there for eye candy when he began shouting and yelling and herding everyone off the plaza in response to this....

"Unattended Bag." Doesn't it look sinister? We never heard anything about it in the news, so we assumed they took it to a bunker somewhere and blew up someone's forgotten diaper bag.

Washington Cathedral. This place was awesome. So beautiful and interesting.

We took a congressional staff-led tour of the Capitol building, and even sat in the gallery and watched while our representatives voted on (and passed) a fairly important budget bill in the House.

Me, at the end of our tour, at Rep. Jim Matheson's office. It was the hottest day of the trip, end of the day, and by this point my makeup had all melted off. Sooooo pretty.

One question: Have YOU ever adjusted a wedgie in the Library of Congress? Ummm, neither has Nathan...

Nathan would have to turn in his membership card to the Geek Club if he had neglected to get a picture with the Cray Supercomputer at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

At Mount Vernon, George Washington's estate home. We saw his real dentures in the museum there. They were made of both human and imported hippopotamus teeth. Yeah, you're jealous. It was way awesome too.

Saturday we visited Gettysburg. This was one of my favorite valley views.

A very useful garage door in Gettysburg proper.

There were re-enacters all over Gettysburg, all in period costume. They camped, rode horses, and even did a cannon demonstration while we watched!

I mostly just like this picture.

Sunday after church we visited the grounds of the Washington DC LDS Temple. Which is located in Kensington, Maryland. Go figure.

Whew. Done. I took pictures of our other trips this summer, but I don't know if I'll post them. I bet you're relieved!

Washington DC, Day 2

We started off the day early. Left the house in Virginia, braved an hour's worth of traffic, and got to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing ticket line by 7:45. We saw millions of dollars beings printed, but they don't let you take pictures, so you'll have to take my word for it.

That morning we also walked around the Tidal Basin [where the cherry trees are] and saw the FDR memorial and the Jefferson Memorial.

Nathan, with the Jefferson Memorial in the background

Me, with the Potomac, a duck, and the Jefferson Memorial

View of the Lincoln Memorial from the base of the Washington Monument

That's the White House back there... by this time my feet hurt and I had blisters on my toes, so we didn't get any closer than this. They wouldn't let us in anyhow.

We rounded out the day with a thorough visit to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. We saw the actual Star Spangled Banner (awesome, and way bigger than I thought it was. It would cover the floor of my kitchen and living rooms combined), the First Ladies' inauguration dresses, a historical house that was dismantled and rebuilt inside the museum, the original Ruby Slippers from the Wizard of Oz, and Seinfeld's puffy shirt. And of course, the original C3PO from Star Wars.

At the end of the day we met Uncle Dick & Aunt Hazie for dinner in Rosslyn and then headed to the Iwo Jima memorial for the Marine Corps Sunset Parade. The coolest thing about it was that the bayonet corps doesn't have anyone counting off or leading them, they just start their routine and are in sync right off the bat!

Washington DC, Day 1

Nathan and I celebrated our 10th anniversary with a trip to DC. We were able to stay with his Uncle Dick and Aunt Hazie, who were the Best Hosts Ever! We had curbside 'taxi' service into downtown DC, free accomodations, plus they made us what Rebeccca calls 'big fancy breakfast' every morning.

We left in the early evening on Father's Day. The kids all stayed with Nathan's mom for the week, and when we dropped them off Rebecca informed Grandma Toone that she was not staying at her house for a week, but rather, was "having 7 sleepovers at Grandma's." They had so much fun playing with aunts and uncles and going on picnics to the park that the only child who would admit to missing us when we returned was Cassidy. That's the way I'd rather though, because I'm not the kind of mom who dies a little inside every time I leave them. I love them and it's good to be with them, but every so often it's good to be without them too.

Monday we started our Week of Fun at Arlington National Cemetary. We saw the Kennedy grave site and eternal flame, and visited the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns.

This is the view of the Washington Monument from Arlington.

Next we visited the National Gallery of Art. We did the "if you only have an hour here" tour of the highlights, because the two of us are just casual lovers of art. Even so, it was so awesome to see the works of some of the greats. We saw Monet, Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Whistler, among others. No photography, because that's what uncultured swine would do. We took a walk around the sculpture garden outside after lunch.

Next was a stop at the National Archives, where we viewed the actual Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and Constitution. I tried to get a photo of John Hancock's signature, but the ink on the Declaration was extremely faded and they request that you turn your flash off to protect the documents from unnecessary light exposure.

My heart skipped a beat when we viewed the documents in the Archives. It was one of the coolest things ever to be so close to the works of the Founding Fathers.

We ended the day with a cursory visit to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, but we were so beat by then that we walked around the main floor just wishing we could sit down and have someone bring the museum to us. We even watched a dumb 5 minute kid-oriented movie about evolution and a character named Harry or Honey or something because we could sit down while we did it. We made it up to the second floor to take a look at the Hope Diamond (and, from the looks of the photo, our best friend Some Kid), and then Nathan's uncle called and said he was done with work and ready to come pick us up.

Nerd + 1 = Braden to the nth power

So last week I was sitting on Braden's bed and talking to him in his room. I realized that his quilt was a couple years old and I had been the one to pick it out. I asked him, "Do you still like your sports bedspread, or if we bought you another one would you rather have something else?" Nathan, who was sitting on the floor chimed in, "There are lots of choices. You could pick space, or dinosaurs, or even a plain color if you are too old for pictures on your bedspread." Braden thought for a brief moment, and then said, "I know what I would really like, but I don't know if they make it. I wish I could have a bedspread that has all different sorts of Math Equations on it."

Oh, goodness. Not that it's of prime concern to a 6 year old, but that's not a way to get the ladies...

I told him that indeed, I do not think they make that kind. And no, I am not going to try and make one. He'll have to make do with the bedding that normal boys have!