Father's Day

On the Saturday before Father's Day Richard, mom, and I went to Ruidoso to see Tim. We went to the cemetary, watered the plants that Eric and Ness had planted, and spread some more seeds.

Right now he just has a metal marker, but Gary has picked a marble, flat headstone for him. I think it will mention his military service, and hopefully something about his surveying and family.

One of the bigger plants is blooming, I am not sure if it is a Texas Yucca or a Red Hot Poker, but I imagine that it is a Red Hot Poker since Tim loved those.

There are flowers everywhere, and elk and deer scat. Tim would like to know that he is with the wildlife in the mountains. It is beautiful there.

After the cemetary we went to the house for a while, then came back down the mountain for dinner and hot tubbing at Dianna and Richard's house. That was just awesome. I am so glad that my Richard has family so close!

Working, racing, missing Tim

Wednesday after work I took a nap then Richard and I did yardwork most of the afternoon. Most people I think don't like my wild front flower areas, but I like them, and that is what counts! I know it drove Tim crazy, he liked things neat and orderly.




Then Richard and I went to the Lake with Richard and Dianna Thursday. We had a good day, it is always nice being with them. We helped put new fabric on their awning, wish I had pictures of that!


After the awning we cleaned up mom's property a little, well, more than a little! We ended up with 6 trash bags full of sad dry bamboo. I would have brought it home to our compost pile but we also had trash mixed in.

Richard asked his Uncle Richard if duct tape solved all problems, since we are often teasing about that, this was Uncle's response:

We checked out the plants growing on mom's property, most native, some planted by mom and Tim, some just popped up. There was a tiny plant with the coolest seed pods, the seed pods were huge compared to the size of the plant.



My Richard had been up late working on a Lego project Wednesday night, and we got up pretty early to go to the lake. He worked hard at the lake, he enjoys physical work, but he was beat at the end of the day. Including the time he slept on the way home he slept almost 15 hours that night!


Friday night we went out to the races. We took mom, it was the first time that she had been in the pits since Tim passed away. She did okay until we saw Tim's old red race car that he had sold. It was the first time that it was out racing since Tim sold it. A couple bought it for their son to get started racing in, their son's name was............Richard! Crazy! They didn't paint it or anything, just took silver paint and changed the silver 77 to a 79. It was kind of emotional seeing it out there.

Richard hung out with Tommy over in the tech inspection area. Tommy and Richard's Uncle Richard are good friends, they went to high school together and work together. Richard is learning tons about race car set-up, track rules, as well as different ways to relate to people. Some of the drivers can come in kind of hot-tempered. Tommy is blunt but calm and cool.

You can't see much in this picture, that is the tech garage, and Richard is in there with Tommy and Cory, who is Tommy's son and has been a friend of Richard's for years.

I am glad that Richard is so out-going. He has been out to the track without me a few times this year with his engine-builder friend Bobby, so he has met quite a few of the drivers and crew. He was perfectly comfortable taking off on his own to talk to everyone in the pits. It is good networking for him, as he will be racing before too long!

Weather, remembering, growing up...

It is beautiful outside today. The sky is crystal clear and it is hot, but not too hot, even in my house with the swamp cooler still not hooked up (I can't find the water tubing from last year! I may have to break down and buy new supplies.) Right now I am in my mom's house (no internet at mine), before big Richard's back surgery (which went well, by the way) he got her swamp cooler running. It is nice and cool and the mountains are beautiful out the front window. I would have stepped outside to take this picture so it would be clearer, but I didn't want the man washing his El Camino up the street to think I was taking a picture of him!!!


It stormed yesterday, we even had hail. This pic is of our front courtyard. Hopefully you can see the hail in the grass. The storm was short but furious.


Here is some hand-held hail.


One of Tim's racing friends, Dennis McMasters, made this decal and has it on his street stock. This picture was taken in the pits where it was kind of dark, but you should be able to see it ok. We miss him.



Speaking (or writing) of Tim, the day before Richard's surgery he took Richard the younger up to Ruidoso to get Tim's (Richard's) race car. Here it is in Ruidoso, all loaded up and ready to come home. It is sitting safe and sound in our driveway now. Richard (the younger) can't wait to start racing. We will have to start him in a lower class, Tim's car is a street stock.


He is off right now learning about working on race cars. He has a new engine-builder friend, my friend's husband, who is letting him tag along while he works on cars. He has been in the pits with him a couple of times at the races, and tonight they are off working on someone's car. Actually that someone let Richard ride in his race car last week! They finished 2nd in all of the races. Richard was so excited.

Dishwasher

My dishwasher hasn't worked right in, well, ever! Since I moved in. It always left rust on the dishes, no matter how I tried to patch all of the rust spots. And it smelled like mildew inside! Who wants to eat off of something that came out of a mildew machine?! So anyway, now I have a new one! Yay!
A few years back I got my mom a dishwasher, hers worked ok (so I thought) but was horribly noisy, you couldn't hear the TV over it in the next room! So I got her a new one, and found out that the old one didn't work as well as I thought. So partly as a birthday present, partly as a thank you for spending my days off helping with Tim's stuff, and partly as a payback, she bought me a new dishwasher. Yay! Thanks mom.

Jenga

Richard and I got a new version of Jenga, Jenga Extreme!



The blocks are cut at an angle, so the whole tower leans.


Our tower was pretty scary! The bottom rows only had one brick.




Richard is really good at it. I was the one who knocked it down each time.

Re-evaluation, Racing, Tim

Today was re-evaluation day. Every 6 months Richard has to re-evaluate at TKD. He is a trainee instructor, and he has to prove that he still knows his stuff . He does all of his past forms, from white belt up to his current one, 2nd degree level 2 black belt. He also has to demonstrate the one- and three- steps for each belt and escape skills.


Here he is doing one of the forms, Fire form (red belt), I think. You can't really see it, but his picture is on the wall behind him with the rest of the certified and trainee instructors. Lauren's picture is there too, she is a certified instructor.


Here he is sparring with another black belt that was testing for rank. He wasn't testing, he was part of the dog-pound, black belts that fill in during the sparring part of rank testing. The girl that he is sparring with is younger and smaller than he is, but she is one rank higher than he is.


Now he is relaxing at his favorite activity, racing! I don't thing it really matters to him if it is 64 scale race cars (like he is playing with here), watching racing on TV, playing Nascar on the xbox360, designing race cars and tracks, or just talking racing, he loves it all, and it all relaxes him.
Tomorrow we are taking mom up to Ruidoso to sprinkle wildflowers on Tim's grave. He is in a beautiful spot in Hondo Valley where deer and elk graze, and there is a little stream that goes right by his plot. His plot number by the way, is 77, which was his race car number. His son Eric surveyed the plot, and left brass surveyors markers. I am sure that he would approve.

Easter Gift...

On Easter mom and I were in the back yard, hanging out and talking about all of the things that Tim had wanted to do. I saw a bird feeder hanging underneath the patio, empty, and with the tags still on it. I asked mom why it was under the patio, and she said that she hadn't seen it before. She thought that I had bought it. We figured that it must have been from Tim. He did that, purchased things and then waited to see how long before someone noticed them. We checked with Richard and Dianna, and Alison, to be sure that they had not purchased it, but as we suspected they had not. I filled it with birdseed, and we hung it out where the birds can actually get at it. Mom was having kind of a hard day, so it was nice to have an Easter gift from Tim.

Happy Birthday Tim!

Happy Birthday Tim. We miss you very much.

Gay Lynn Maupin

We will miss you.

Multitasking

We have been hanging out at mom's house a lot. Richard is a lot like me, I cannot just sit and watch TV, I have to be doing something else too. Richard is making pit stalls on his race track and watching one of his favorite movies, Ghostrider.

He loves those braided rugs for race tracks, we have all different sizes and colors.

He uses the braided rugs for oval tracks, using the masking tape to mark off the pits, grandstands, etc. He uses a sharpie to make signs on the track and number the pit stalls. He will also use masking tape to make different configurations of tracks on the wood floor or on a square rug that my mom has in the front room. He LOVES racing!

Mom's Wedding

It has been a month since Tim died, and I realized that I have never posted any pictures of mom and his wedding. They got married on February 11, the day before Tim's surgery. They were married for 4 days. They were together for *years* before that though.

They were married in Tim's room by one of the doctors at the University of Utah Medical Center, he is also a minister. Mom said that they were going to go down to the chapel, but everyone there on the floor wanted to be a part of it! How sweet! She said that the room was full, as was the hallway outside, of both patients and employees. I should have gone. I feel bad, but we really thought everything was going to work out and I should save my sick leave to go help during his recovery.

The bouquet was a flower arrangement that someone had sent to Tim! They look good. Mom and Tim, not the flowers, though they are pretty too.

The man standing in the background behind mom is Tim's son Eric. The red-headed woman is T'Ann, she was a coordinator for the surgery and would have been involved throughout Tim's recovery. She was wonderful with mom. The doctor in the foreground is Tim's surgeon, Dr. Singhal.

This is the doctor that married them.
Tim had always told mom that he would marry her on a leap year, and guess what? It is a leap year! He is the one who insisted that they marry before the surgery. I think lots of people assume that it was for monetary reasons, so that she would be taken care of if something went wrong, but he had a will, and mom was already named in it, so that wasn't even an issue. He just wanted to do it. I think he wished that they had not put it off for so long.
We miss you Tim.

Spring

The peach tree is blooming! Yay!

Coccooning, Ice Cream, and Movies

Richard has been cocooning lately. It has been a hard few months, and I think his body and mind are resting. He has grown a lot lately, almost 5'7" at last measurement, his grandpa died a month ago, and yesterday a good family friend passed away. A lot to deal with for an adult, let alone a 12 year old.

It is almost 3pm, and he is still asleep. He has always been a late sleeper, we are a family of night owls, but he is definetely sleeping more lately. I will have to wake him soon, I hate doing that, but today is his "assist day" at TaeKwonDo. He is a trainee instructor and assists with 2 or 3 classes a week.


Last night we wanted comfort food, so we made ice cream. Richard has an ice cream ball, so we filled it with cream and vanilla and sugar and rolled it back and forth while watching the Simpsons.





It took almost a whole Simpsons episode of rolling the ice cream ball back and forth for the ice cream to be a good consistancy.



When it was ready, we watched South Park and ate yummy homemade icecream. Then we put in The Prestige, which I bought recently off of the $5 movie rack. It wasn't what I thought it was, I was thinking of the movie The Illusionist, which I loved. I liked The Prestige though, what I saw of it. I fell asleep. Richard watched the whole thing, and said it was good. Maybe I will try again tonight.

Happy Birthday Lauren!

Lauren is 16 today. Hard to believe! Happy Birthday Lauren, we love you!

Stanley

Richard is dog sitting this weekend. His name is Stanley, and he looks a little like an Ewok! He has been at my house for the whole weekend, but now I am going to work, so Stanley came to my mom's house with Richard. He has been doing pretty good with Black Dog and her cats so far.

At our house the only cat we locked up was Ren, she is a little aggressive. The rest of the tribe has been doing pretty well with him. I have been trying to get some good pictures of Stanley all weekend, but he just moves too fast! Even when Richard holds him, he wiggles constantly!

Richard has been having a good time with him.

Morning Visitor

I put out lots of bird food, so there are always a lot of birds for my cats to drool over. I had a special visitor when I arrived home this morning though. I first saw him when I was walking in front of the house (in front of the window that is in the background). He was on the ground, I almost stepped on him. I thought he was hurt, but then he flew over to the finch sock. I was surprised at how close he let me get!

That is Stimpy in the window, bird-watching. Usually there are 3 or 4 kitties drooling over the birds, but this morning it was just Stimpy. The rest of the tribe must have been sleeping in.

Monsters

I was reading Zenmomma's blog, and saw her monster name and Richard and I just had to get our own! We made monster names for everyone here, and had a good time cheering up the family.

Get Your Monster Name

Get Your Monster Name

Sad...

Well, we lost Tim. He underwent surgery to implant the LVAS, and all looked well except he didn't wake after the anesthesia wore off. They did an EEG, and there was no activity. Many different neurological

tests later, they decided that he must have had a stroke either during surgery or immediately after. We got the news on Valentine's Day, and he died on February 15. The funeral is Thursday. My mom's birthday is Friday, she is going to hate her birthday and Valentine's Day from now on, I think. It still doesn't feel real, he was just here putzing around the house!