Snow day with the senior class

The Senior Class (well 12 of us) took a day trip to Shaver Lake for a snow day. We got soaking wet, but we thoroughly enjoyed it.

*girly squeals* ahhhhhh!!!

optical illusion

imminent doom

knee recovery

the honorable Georgie

CRASH!

My Auntie Robynn :-)

Mrs. Reilly is a dear friend of mine. If I HAD to guess, I'd say you all already know her, but in case you don't...

I have known her and her fun family for a long while now and I am so glad that they are a part of my church family. Mrs. Reilly, (I'm gonna call her Auntie Robynn, I like that better) has been teaching the Jr. High/High School Sunday school classes for the past couple semesters and we all LOVE her. She keeps us goin' and we all, I'm sure, look forward to 9:45 on Sunday mornings when her bright face enters the room.

The first time I met Auntie Robynn was at a girls' camp at Sugar Pine when I was (oh let's see.....) 10 years old (?). I fell in love with the fun lady that made us laugh, immediately. She had wanted to give girls an oportunity to spend a weekend together learning and having fun. And so Camp Sugar Pine became a yearly fall activity that any girl in her right mind looked ahead towards with great anticipation. I remember those days: eating candy til we dropped, staying up to all hours of the night, laughing til we couldn't breathe, talent shows, racing on paddle boats, getting stuck in the middle of the pond in paddle boats, farmer jeans (no really, honestly, those jeans were higher than.....thannnnnnn......nnnormal jeans usually are :-p), crafts (I probably still have most of those -- the braclet, the picture album, the memories box....), trying to play a prank on Auntie Christina only to turn around to have bottled water poured on our heads, oh the list could go on FOREVER! Those were some wonderful times. And even amidst all the fun and laughter, we grew. We even got to the point where some of us girls got the oportunity to give the morning talks.

All this is to say, I have a great respect and love for my Auntie Robynn. She has been through a lot, and somehow, through God's grace, she is able find humor and use her gifts to encourage others.

Soooo, why am I doing this post? I hadn't mentioned til now that Mrs. Reilly is a brilliant writer and has a way with words that connects with people -- or more specifically with their abs. She's hilarious. Mrs. Reilly's posts = my workout for the day. The equation is a favorite of mine. Having said this, she is holding a contest over at http://robynnsravings.blogspot.com/ and I'm encouraging everyone to go check out her posts (even sign up to be a follower!) and leave her a comment telling her that I'm the one who sent you there. She would love it, and I prescribe it. Its better even than the famed Vitameatavegimin. This is not only good for your health, it encourages the soul.

I love you Auntie Robynn. <3 (The picture of her was taken on the day that my darling nephew Graham Edward Max Parish was born. I was so thrilled that she got to be there to hold him so soon after he entered the world.)

~Kaylee

Mental illness - and skiing ??

Giving a face to mental illness....

We seem to come across it again and again and wonder if it’s just really prevalent. Or if God intentionally bring mentally ill people into our lives fairly regularly for our growth. Probably both.

I don’t know that I have a lot to say about it right now. I don’t have thoughts entirely formulated. I’m just pondering… and thought I’d do it aloud (well, in writing).

I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t share names or too many particular details, but the most recent and long-standing relationship is with a young woman (I’ll just call her “M”) who, in crisis at the Psychiatric Health Facility (PHF unit – pronounced “Puff”) 2 ½ years ago, opened the yellow pages to “churches” and randomly (providentially) pointed, her finger landing on our phone number. She didn’t know that she’d landed on a church just 2 miles from where she was locked down, and that God had just then opened up the door to a probably life-long friendship. We didn’t know that either. But we’ve come to realize that that’s what God has arranged.

And so very regularly, we get to ponder mental illness (she’s bipolar, mentally retarded to some degree, we think, and beyond that we don’t know). And we experience the mental health system with it’s crisis lock-down units, and transitional homes, and boarding facilities, and staff (many friendly and caring, some of whom also end up slamming patients against the wall when they “go off,” as our friend’s fellow-patient described to us last week, explaining M’s bruised eye, cut nose and scraped knee).

Today we again visited her – in the fifth place that she’s been housed since we’ve known her (plus the hospital a few times). She already knows several of the women, tho she’s just been there about a week. People in this system get moved from place to place and end up connecting over the years. The staff seems to go from place to place, too. And some have been around for a long time. Every once in a while, M says, “Oh, he’s known me since I was 14.” That’s when she first started into this complex system which became her only home and family til we came along. We met when she was 26 – and she calls us “mom” and “dad,” introducing us as her adopted parents, or foster parents, or just as her parents (her birth parents, at whose hands she suffered much abuse, have been out of her life since she was 18). We try to correct the terminology so that she truly understands our relationship. “We’re your friends – for the long run” or some other explanation. Doesn’t seem to matter what we say; she still goes rushing into her friends’ rooms dragging us by the arm, shaking them to wake them up, announcing, “Wake up! I want you to meet my mom and dad.” And, of course, Kaylee and Connor become brother and sister to her in her eyes – she’s got photos of all of us. Jenny and Max and Graham, too. It can be uncomfortable, and especially so when she’s clingy and needy and a bit overly-snuggly, or when the kids come along for a visit and Kaylee ends up on the phone with her later in the week only to find that M put a guy on the phone to talk to her – “cuz he thinks Kaylee’s hot.” Oh dear.

So there are situations to be dealt with in wisdom. And oh so much compassion to learn. When the phone rings (many times each week) and we hear her name and know that it’s time to hang up and call her back (she calls collect, and we learned early on that if we accept the call and say “hi” and “we’ll call you right back” – it’ll cost us a fortune. So we hang up, without accepting the call, then call her back) – at those times, compassion needs to kick in. And, I’m ashamed to say, we don’t always exercise it. But we assume that God’s working on growing it in us.

When I wander the halls with her and observe the extent of the disorders – the vacant eyes, the stares, the man in mismatched women’s clothing with shiny gold purse and earrings, the woman with little-girl pigtails and bright bizarre clothes, the big man looking a little too confrontational for my liking – I’m served up a slice of humanity that makes me… wonder. Wonder at God’s gentle dealing with me – I don’t live with this kind of brokenness under my own roof. We have our share of hurts and disappointments and aches and questions and sickness… but nothing like in M’s world. And I wonder about M and the other patients (called “consumers” by the system) – just what hope is there for them? What is God doing concerning them? How does He view them? How do we “reach” them? (Licia had some good thoughts on that the other night as we talked. Thanks for your encouraging words. Now if I could just think how she put it!) And I honestly have to deal with my own fears – what if this happened to ME?! (Like that fear of Alzheimers that I think we all face. Don’t we? Don’t you? Well, I do.) How would I survive in such a place?! Oh, God, may it never be. And so then, if those places call up such horror in me, should we leave M there? … and THAT calls up far bigger questions than I can even process right now.

So, for now, I go about my business, with M’s phone number beside both phones in the house. I’m not particularly preoccupied with thoughts about her. Our lives have so many facets – and that’s just one little piece of it all. But when the calls come, and the visits, with the prospect of bringing her to our home and church again soon (now that she’s back in the area), we’re brought face to face with it again for a period of time. And so I imagine we’ll continue to ponder and ask God “what are we to do?” and then ask for the grace to move ahead with whatever His answer is.

Isn’t it interesting how far removed this all seems from skiing with the kids yesterday? Except that from M’s place, there’s a beautiful view of the mountains. We told her we were up there with the kids yesterday. And Tim pointed out to her his favorite spot in the range – the highest and snowiest. I wonder if she’s ever heard the crunch of snow. I wonder if we’ll take her up there some day. I wonder if she’ll someday meet our friends and sense the warmth of enveloping safeness. I wonder if God will reach out to her and make her safe forever. I wonder…

(The view yesterday morning as the mountains called to us.)

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

(This is no longer "Giving a face to mental illness." In fact it could be, "Helping to maintain mental health." And really, since God is Lord over all, uniting every aspect of our lives in him, with no sacred/secular division between the "now I'm serving the oppressed" and "now I'm skiing with my family" and "now I'm serving God," these two sections of the post can happily co-exist as one.)

How am I supposed to read all this fine print without my glasses? :-)Finally heading up the moutain.





I thoroughly enjoyed my day in the lodge, catching up on schoolwork - again.

(The kids and I do logic together, and we all, with dad, have been reading and discussing two books on The Reformation.)Rice Krispy treats make any day a sweet day.And on the way home, while the kids slept and I drove, Tim, relegated to a back seat cuz he doesn't get sick, entertained himself. (Who knew -- til we loaded the photos on the computer!)And then it just went downhill from there. Connor was ready to disown us at McDonald's.I love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stonghold. (Psalm 18:1,2)

The mile long post

This post covers a lot of random things. They aren't in any particular order. But I thought that it had been entirely too long since I had last posted photos. So here's to a "ketchup" post.

taking Molly to the vet for her shots

Molly Moo - my sweet puppy

Peach pies

I was woken up Saturday morning to, "KAYLEE! KAYLEE! We're gonna go skiing!"

What mom did all day :-)

It was fun to bump into Ariel and her friend Steven

Practicing on the rail at the bottom of the hill

Before the crash :-p

Connor wanted to wash the car in the rain so that he wouldn't have to rinse it :-) Too bad it got muddy the next day driving to Sierra Summit :-)

Training the Hippo and the Cow

Oh, Moo....I love youuuuuu.

One week earlier we went skiing/boarding with the Parishes. It snowed like crazy -- quite the adventure!

chains on, chains off....chains on, chains off

random shelter cat....the face of evil

Studying with the Moozer

Time with Grandpa

"ahhhhhhh boo!"

feeling a little replaced, Cuddles?? :-)

singing barbershop

Maldo disguise -- Uncle Ned from Boise

Sally took my Senior photos (Thank You, Sally!!)...I'm choosing between these.