I love it when a plan comes together

It's all coming together.

The 3Day is just weeks away.  And after discussing this fact with some 3Dayers this weekend I realized I needed to get my act together to get our costumes, including Sparky's, together.

I've had a vision of our costumes this year. I wanted to be superheros for the cause.  And so it all started with capes.

I asked ChickenLady to sew some capes for me and she did a fine job.  She even had models.

Once the capes were in hand I knew what else I wanted.  Or I thought I did anyhow. 

All superheros have masks right. So I had to go find masks. Check!

I also wanted us to have some head gear. I can't, in good conscience, participate in the 3Day as a Walker Stalker Extraordinaire without head bobbers. I decided to use the head bobbers I already have.

So mask, cape, head bobbers, what else?

Oh yes. Shoes.

Princess Lori showed me these fancy sequins shoes and fancy shoelaces she has for this year. I knew I had to have them.

Nice, no?

The shoes and shoe laces are on order, bu the capes, masks and head bobbers are all ready to be put together.

Oh, one last thing. T-shirts.  Thankfully BigBro has a connection and so we'll be getting matching T-shirts to wear under our capes. They'll be simple and just say "Pink Warrior" or "Pink Warriors" - I can't remember which.

Anyhow, at the end of the day, here's what the top half will look like. And yes, those are pig tails.

Sparky's outfit is slowly coming together too. I need to do a dry run this weekend to make sure what I'm planning will work.  I'll keep you posted.

Lastly, this past weekend was our team garage sale.  While sitting around BigBro and I decided to add up how much Team Wraspir has raised for the 3Day. Turns out in the last 6 years of our participation we've raised $80,000!  Go Team Wraspir.

In other none 3 Day related news, Sparky's Doppleganger was parked next to her this morning.

I have no idea why the doppleganger doesn't have their top down!  The only difference between the two Stangs is the doppleganger is a GT.  Sparky can only dream of being a GT.  Maybe some of the GT-ness will rub off while they're parked next to each other.

A Big Sigh of Relief

Phew. The Celebration of Life went off without a hitch. 

Despite all the stress, it was one party dad would have loved to attend.  The large section of the Wraspir Hedge was present and accounted for.  Dad loved his family, and having them all there to celebrate his life was truly a way to remember him.

The Gene Wraspir family
I wasn't sure all of them were going to make it over and yet they all did.  Only little Austin is missing from this Wraspir Clan.

Uncle Gene was Dad's brother and passed away several years ago.  Both he and dad would have loved to see his family altogether under one roof.

Left to Right: Denice, Danika, Scott, Jim, Penny, Alex, Gloria, Sherrie, Larry, Claudia, Alyssa, Todd and Vicki.

Claudia, Denice, Penny, Sherrie and Scott are the nieces and nephews of dad. Todd would be a great nephew to dad. Alyssa (Todd's Daughter) would be a GREAT GREAT niece to dad. Vicki (married to Todd), Jim (married to Penny) and Larry (married to Claudia) would be nephews by marriage to dad.  And last, Danika and Alex would be Great niece and nephew to dad.

Phew. I'm tired.

And then there is Aunt Joyce's family.  Joyce is Dad's sister.

Left to right\back row: Baby Haven, Michelle, Jeremy, Cashton, Jon, Rebecca (I think), Baby and significant of Amanda, and then Amanda. Front row: Dawnelle, Joyce, Michelle and Peyton

Now the Joyce Wraspir's (Haase) clan is a bit more complicated for me. I'm not familiar with all the names, but here we go.  Dawnelle and Michelle (the twins) are dad's nieces.  Jeremy is dad's GREAT nephew. Jon is nephew by marriage. Rebecca and Amanda are GREAT nieces to dad. Peyton, Cashton and Haven are Great GREAT nieces and nephews.  Michelle is niece by marriage.

Big deep breath, we're almost done.

Now the cousins. This is gonna be fun. Actually this one is easy. We're all first cousins with our aunts.


Left to Right: Marilyn, Claudia, Penny, Sherrie, Scott, Gloria, Ric, Michelle, Michael, Joyce, Dawnelle, Denice, Jerry, Mom and me.

Mom's side of the family snuck into the mix too.  This is Aunt Jean with mom.  We didn't recognize her when she got out of the car. Oops!

This is the other half of my family.  In this photo with me and mom is my sister Melanie and her family.  Husband Ron, daughter Lori and son Victor. 

 

Then there are the big brothers.  Jerry, Ric and Michael.  Since I call Ric BigBro, I guess that makes Jerry Bigger Bro and Michael BiggestBro. I'm sure he would not appreciate that. I was thrilled they both made it.  Michael belongs to St. Louis SIL and was able to fly out from St. Louis. Jerry is just in Eastern Washington, but we weren't sure he'd make it over. Surprise! He did.

And this would be all the kids (minus William Eugene the adopted, sorta, daughter).

 

And this is Gary and Jeannette Wraspir.  Gary was dad's little side kick growing up. In fact, the joke is Gary didn't get to grow much because he was always in Dad's big shadow.  Mom and Jeannette are best friends, and Gary was one of dad's best friends.  Jeannette read a letter written by a cousin of ours as a tribute to dad.  Tear jerker...ugh. 

I think I got all the family photos in.

The celebration was super fun, the reason we were all together was sad, but seeing everyone talk and laugh over stories about dad was a nice bit of closure.  We had a moment when we let people get up and tell stories of dad. I tried to. I got like three words out and then lost it.  Mortified! But I figured if ever you're going to lose it in front of a group of people, might as well be at your Dad's Celebration of Life...I'm sure they understood.

Now we pick up and try to live our lives without dad.  So much of my every day life he lives in and I'm okay with that.  In fact, proud that he does. I'm sure he's out there somewhere in the great tomato garden in the sky, kicking back, watching us. 

If you don't mind, I'm going to leave you with a few more of my favorite photos of dad.

Here we go...

I keep finding myself asking, "Are we there yet?" And I'm not really "going" anywhere.

Tomorrow is Dad's Celebration of Life.  **chokes back tears**

I'm been a big ball of bitchiness leading up to this event.  But I have my reasons.

Work has me stressed, the Celebration planning has me stressed, I'm trying to grieve, but have to put my feelings away so I can deal with work and getting the Celebration planned. All that together makes me cranky...as the MomUnit pointed out today.

I'm not going to apologize for being bitchy. We all get like that sometimes and its just the way it's going to be until I kick this Celebration off tomorrow. There's a lot of emotion just bubbling under the surface, and it's about to break out.

People keep saying that grief is very personal, and that each person grieves uniquely.  I get that. Boy do I get that. But what they don't tell you is people grieving around you often don't get or forget that its different for each of us. Or they get so caught up in the grief themselves that they just don't see it.

I need to really spend some time thinking about this in the next couple of weeks.  While I feel I've grieved the loss of the DadUnit, I think tomorrow is going to push me over the edge. Besides the fact that all of the people who loved dad will be there telling stories about him (I hope), I'm going to be letting go of the stress related to throwing this Celebration of Life. I just might be one hot mess by tomorrow night.

In other exciting news, its hot here in the great Northwest. I LOVE it. Sparky loves it.  A lot of my friends love it.  And then there are the true Seattlelites who aren't too excited about the heat.  I figured we should enjoy it while we can since it won't be here much longer.

Danger: Exhausting Weekend Ahead

Many of you who know me or who read my blog know that I like my weekends to be not so full. I like lounging around the house doing whatever I want whenever I want.  I’m a planner for most things, but when it comes to down time, I like my weekends to be just that.

When I do have an overly booked weekend I get stressed. And stress leads, inevitably, to eating.

This weekend was overly booked – at least for me.

The MomUnit came in Friday evening and it feels like we didn’t stop for a moment all weekend – yet looking back we did.

The MomUnit and I met Blueberry for dinner at Matt’s Oyster Bar. The MomUnit has been, apparently, craving fried oysters. I’m not sure why, cuz they’re gross.  Matt’s is usually has really good food and really good service.  While my halibut was off the charts delicious, Blueberry wasn’t as lucky. Her steak had issues – rubbery and tough, not to mention almost raw – which she’s not a fan of.  Despite that, we had a good time getting caught up with the MomUnit.

Saturday morning the MomUnit and I hopped in Sparky and went to breakfast. We had a list of things we needed to do on Saturday and breakfast was the first one on the list.

The rest of the day we spent walking down memory lane.  Seattle holds a lot of memories for the MomUnit with the DadUnit. This being the first time she’s been back up here since dad passed, made the memories all the more difficult. 

Saturday evening Seattle SIL was hosting a Wine Tasting for the Cure type of fundraiser.  She had three red wines (all donated) and three white wines (also all donated) as well as some viddles for us guests.  The MomUnit and I swung on by and we, with P-Dot, tasted the available wines.  Of the reds, I liked two of the three opting to not be interested in the Merlot.

I'd love to pretend I don't know him...but alas he's BigBro.

P-Dot enjoying the tasting.

P-Dot's favorite of the reds

Sunday the sun was high in the sky again. It was Sunday dinner night and so I had a bunch of things I needed to get done for that.  The MomUnit and I swung by to visit and aunt, ate lunch at the Ranch Drive in, and then got down to getting things ready for a full Sunday dinner.

July Sunday dinner was skipped, so August needed to be extra special.  I made Parma Rosa which is a simple pasta dish Blueberry and I came up with a thousand years ago.  To go along with that, Pioneer Woman’s Olive Cheese bread (OMG…so good and sooo bad for you), a spinach salad (Thanks Seattle SIL for bringing this.) and Scotch-A-Roos (Thanks Queen PopUp for bringing dessert).  We had a couple of Sunday dinner virgins and after a vote of the veterans I think we decided they were invited back.

Seattle SIL, BigBro, ChickenLady, Queen PopUp, the Pantry Goat, Virgin #1 (aka the MomUnit), Virgin #2, Blueberry, Virgin #3, Princess Lori and Chef Jenn

Seattle SIL, BigBro, ChickenLady, Queen PopUp, Virgin #1 (aka the MomUnit), the Pantry Goat, Virgin #2, Blueberry, Virgin #3, Princess Lori and Chef Jenn

That bowl of pasta was mounding over when we started...and there were two plates of bread and a full bowl of salad.

Friday...*insert deep sigh*

The MomUnit comes in today for a two week visit full of fun visits with friends, and what is likely to be a very emotional Celebration of Life for the DadUnit. (God I miss that man.)

I've been a bit stressed of late trying to get the next two weeks and all the extra curricular activities sorted out. My role in them, what I need to bring, what I need to clean, what I need to cook, what I need to buy, etc. It got a bit overwhelming yesterday and I almost told everyone to stuff it and that they could find my hiding under my covers in bed for the next 2 weeks.

Then the PM in me came out - well the PM, a pen and a notebook.  I started making lists, upon lists, upon schedules, upon more lists.  I felt better but not completely unstressed.

Then it dawned on me.  That I may, perhaps, have to accept that stress will be a part of the next 2 weeks.  Accept it and move on. 

Once I accepted it I found peace, oddly enough.  I realized that most of my daily life has no stress in it that when stress does appear it throws me into a tail-spin of angst. I should get bonus points for just recognizing that.

The other stresser for the next 2 weeks is my current life style change.  I've done well and feel good about where I am and the mistakes I've made along the way. With the MomUnit in town and all the social activities lined up, making good choices is going to be a challenge for me. I find I still fall victim to the "just this one time" plague. I think knowing that this will be a challenge, and facing each decision should help me not gain any weight in the next two weeks.  Working out is going to be more my BFF than normal I think.

I had a sick thought this week of, "What if I worked out twice a day? Morning and afternoon." I got tired just after thinking that. It's an interesting concept and I may challenge myself soon to trying it for a week. 

As you can tell by the gadget on the side of the blog I am 26 lbs down.  Slow and steady.  Frustrating, slow and steady, but slow and steady all the same. 

There are days I just feel so defeated that I want to quit this life style and go back to the easy way of life. Eating whatever I want.  Then I remember how difficult life was then. Its the small things really that you don't realize until you feel better. Things like, carrying a 20lb cat litter bag up two flights of stairs and not being winded at the top. Or the simplicity of getting up off the floor, or bending over to pick something up on the floor. Or - this will sound odd to you skinny folk out there - rolling over in bed without grunting.

At the end of the day, when I feel defeated, I have plenty of reasons to keep going. And I know by the time I find my ending point my life will be different and so will I.  A friend said to me the other night,  about my weight loss journey, "Your journey isn't about what you are at the end, but about whom you become along the way." and I have to completely agree.

Oh and my BMI is down 2 points! I am a rock star!

Sunshine on my shoulders…makes me burnt

Ah sunshine. It’s not very common here in the Pacific Northwest, and when it does shine we north westerners celebrate. 

I celebrate by going on a road trip. It’s in the convertible user’s guide that whenever possible, and sunny, one must go on a road trip that is at least an hour’s drive away, and the top must be down at all times. 

I went to Bainbridge Island the weekend before last with the Pantry Goat. This weekend, the weather was going to be in the 90’s so I opted for an Alpine route. Sparky, P-Dot, Blueberry and I set off to Leavenworth figuring the mountains would surely be cooler than Seattle.

A couple of problems with our theory:

1. The mountains were not any cooler
2. Leavenworth is not at the top of the pass, but on the other side and thus considered Eastern Washington which is ALWAYS hot in the summer.

Regardless, we had a blast. And it was hot.

The drive to Leavenworth is a beautiful one. It takes you through the mountains and reminds me why I love Washington so much. The greenery!  Highway 2 follows the Wenatchee River for most of the trip which adds another layer of beauty to me.

Sparky reached a major milestone this trip too, she turned over to 10,000 miles. Woot! She's officially broken in.

This trip I decided to do something new and different, and alright, not recommended. I had my little instant camera on my lap and I would hold it up every now and then and snap a photo as I was driving. Got some great shots.

 And got some not so great, but amusing shots.

On our way up I pulled over to stretch a little and to go check out the water.  P-Dot, Blueberry and I went to the water’s edge to check it out.  P-Dot thought maybe, just maybe she could swim.  I highly doubted it and so we talked her into just viewing the water from the rock. She demanded she get a better view, so Blueberry went to set her on a large boulder.  Watching Blueberry trying to maneuver through the rocks on sandals was amusing and at one point she couldn’t figure out which foot to step down with since they both appeared to have bad options for placement.

Alas, back on the road. 

Leavenworth is a small Bavarian town on the other side of Steven’s Pass. The MomUnit, Seattle SIL, Queen PopUp and I headed there a couple of years ago via the train.  Summer in Leavenworth is an entirely different experience. It…was…packed….JAMMED pack of people, kids and dogs.  Sparky got Rock Star parking of course.  It goes without saying that she should.

We had lunch at King Ludwig’s which was where we ate at the last time. Their Snitzel is to die for. 

After lunch we wandered through the town stopping here and there to look through the little stores.  Too many of the stores are full of stuff you don’t possibly need, and are a bit overwhelming for me. Blueberry, on the other hand, is a shopper. She loves to wander in and out of these stores. I let her do her thing and I’d find a bench outside and people watch.

P-Dot made a few new friends while we were there.  She’s getting the hang of this modeling gig Puck left her.

Even Blueberry and I met a new friend.

Our last stop was at the taffy store.  Previous visits to this store resulted in a crazy hat purchase, but this year we only bought taffy.  Why is taffy so darn good?

Some other photos of Leavenworth. It truly is a beautiful little town if you're ever in the NW and feel the need for a quick trip. All the photos can be seen here.

And last, I saw this in a little store and it made me smile.