To Blog or Not to Blog - That is the Question

I am giving serious consideration to ending the blog. This is very sad for me, because I am so far away from my family and friends and with 3 kids, a job and school, it is virtually impossible for me to stay in touch with my loved ones. I recently reconnected with an old high school friend and it's taken me more than a month to answer her last email. It's just so hectic most of the time - babies crying, homework, work, Thomas's school and activities...there is never enough time in the day.

This blog has never been complete in it's documentation. So many things - important things! - have happened that I have never had time to properly document. I feel sad that I've missed some big events - We went on an excellent family vacation to Pinecrest Lake this year - our big family vacation of the year - and I never had a chance to write a word about it. I have also never written a word about getting all 3 children baptized, although this was, for us, a VERY big family event. I was flat on my back at the end of my pregnancy (bed rest, ugh!) and never got to write about the wonderful shower that Emmett's stepmother and his sister threw for me - I had such a wonderful time, (such a wonderful forbidden treat - I wasn't supposed to be there due to said bed rest). I never got to blog about all my feelings about the impending birth of the twins because these blog entries take so long to write (I'm an incredibly slow writer) and without a laptop, I'd have used up all my upright minutes typing and wouldn't have been able to eat a meal with Emmett and T or take a shower (1.5 -2 hours per day is an amazingly short period of time, as it turns out).

Other times I thought I'd write and something else would come up in the meantime that would eclipse the earlier thing. For example, in October Lillie got her first tooth and Thomas lost his first tooth - all within 24 hours of each other. Also, I must say I outdid myself this year with the Halloween costumes. However, all of this got eclipsed with the excitement over the election - I did eventually write a bit about each of these, but it took a long time to do so. In 2007, we had some wonderful family times, including an especially memorable trip to the Russian River - but all of that got eclipsed by the horror and grief that was Blake's death. I couldn't bring myself to write about happy family times when my heart was so completely broken (still is, though it's been more than a year - a day doesn't go by that I don't think about Bro, God I miss him so much).

Lastly, there are things that I've blogged about that, due to time restrictions or family needs or whatever, I had to write very little about, when they actually represented huge life events. Our wedding, for example, got 3 paragraphs.

All of which is to make my point that this blog has never been a complete document. I knew from the beginning that I've never been very good at maintaining interest and that I would probably get bored with it pretty quickly - so I'm actually kind of proud that it's lasted as long as it has. For as many things as it's missing, there are many incredibly memorable things that *are* documented. Snapshots of our lives and the things we're doing, the way we felt, etc. etc. This is all valuable.

I have gotten enough positive feedback over the years that I know that my family and friends enjoy reading (this always makes me so incredibly happy) about our lives and what's happening with us, at least the stuff that I HAVE had time to write about.

But for all the positive feedback, there have also been a few negatives. When I first started I made some folks mad because I violated their privacy by using their names in this very public forum. Later I got in trouble for NOT using names and making people feel that by mentioning them by relationship or title that I was diminishing their importance in our lives. Twice I have gotten into trouble for not writing about something - as though that something was somehow not important enough to be written about - and offended family members. If I haven't said it already in this post, I don't write about things based on their importance - I'm not that good of a journalist (journaler?) - I write when I have time to write about whatever is happening at that moment. I've never been good a recapping way after the fact, and my feeling has been that life and time stop for no one - so write about what's happening now and hope that someday some of this will make sense. It is by no means a complete documentation of our lives - countless countless countless things are missing and they are not omitted because of their lack of importance.

But I have to admit the negative stuff really gets me down. Maybe it shouldn't - maybe I should just soldier on and hope for the best. I don't know at this point. I have tried very hard to always be diplomatic and not air my dirty laundry (or anyone else's for that matter) but it seems like no matter what I do, I'm bound to offend someone. That's not the spirit this was written in - it was supposed to be a document (however incomplete) of our lives - something to share with family and friends we don't get to see very often anymore. I have NEVER denegrated anyone in this forum and would never write anything that would purposefully hurt someone. And so to think that I have hurt someone with my blog - especially someone I care very much for - makes me want to quit writing publicly and keep my journals private. It just doesn't seem worth it.

And then I think of the friends and family who like to keep up with us, and how without it we would fall even further apart than life (and geography) have already taken us and I don't know what to do.

So...I guess I'll just take a few weeks and decide...To Blog or Not to Blog....

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas - this was the babies first Christmas and it was very nice to get to celebrate this wonderful holiday with them for the first time. The decision was also made that we would go to Florida next year for Christmas (yipee!!!!!!) as I haven't been with my family on Christmas since Thomas was born and it will be the last Christmas before the babies will require their own plane tickets (5 tickets to travel anywhere - yikes!!!).

Have a safe, happy, and healthy New Year.

With Love,
Melissa

P.S. I'll probably still post some photos...

Relaxed, reconnected Parents

Wow, did we ever need it. My Mom arrived on Thursday and we had one day to hang out together and catch up before it was time for Emmett and I to leave on Saturday. Unfortunately, Thomas had been really sick all day on Wednesday night, all day Thursday, well enough to go to school on Friday but then relapsed and spent all day in bed on Saturday. I felt so bad leaving him, but also knew that my Mom is an RN and would know what to do if things didn't get better soon. She was basically pushing us out the door.

Because of Thomas's illness and my school, we didn't get on the road until 5pm on Saturday, which was about 1.5 hours later than we were planning. We got up to Fort Bragg about 8:30 and went to this FANTASTIC restaurant called the Mendo Bistro for dinner. Afterwards we continued on to Howard Creek Ranch Inn up in Westport. About 30 minutes later we arrived. The Ranch is in a very remote section of Highway 1 right before it veers away from the coast (and there begins the fabled Lost Coast). It consists of a farmhouse, an enormous Carriage House and several cabins - all on a 60 acre farm with sheep, llamas, horses, etc. It's such a cool place - I had obsessively poured over reviews of the place and it seemed that people either loved it or hated it. It was definitely not your picture-perfect Victorian bed and breakfast with fluffy bathrobes and chocolates on the pillow, so if that's what people were expecting, it is not surprising that they were disappointed.

No, this place is magical for a different reason. Parts of it are pretty dilapitated, even run down, but the interiors all had the most amazing woodwork, beautiful antiques, and just a uniquenss and character that you don't get at the standard B and B's. It's a place that reflects the character of the owners - Sunny, who seems like he has about 100 half finished projects going at any given time, and Sally, who loves to serve up the breakfasts and lots of wonderful local tales along with it - she had everyone laughing out loud with her wonderful storytelling talent and dry humor.

Anyway, it was great, I highly recommend the place. The crashing waves of the ocean can be heard and seen pretty much everyone on the property and there is a great hike into a redwood forest that is just enough of a walk to make you feel like you did a bit more than lay around, eat and sleep all the time. :-)

We got up there about 10pm, parked and got the directions (complete with flashlight!) to get to our little cabin - the "Beach House". We got back in the car and started to pull out when Sunny - this guy who looks to be in his early 60's with a huge bush of gray hair and dressed in all black appeared out of nowhere and scared the daylights out of us. We were both like - what is this the Bates Motel? Yikes! He came along the side of the car and Emmett was staring at him through the window until I mentioned that he might want to roll down the window. I guess you had to be there, but it was hilarious, we were almost crying we were laughing so hard (okay, okay, I WAS crying I was laughing so hard).

We found our little cottage and you could hear the waves crashing from inside, it was wonderful. The wood burning stove was filled with wood and kindling and all ready to go, so Emmett stoked it up while I ran the water in the outdoor bathtub-style jacuzzi tub for two.

We hung out in the jacuzzi, read our books and just let all the stresses fall off of us. No phone, no cell phone coverage, and, although there was wireless internet, we vowed not to even fire up the computer.

The next day we breakfasted, read, took a little hike, explored the property (and other rooms for potential future visits), took a walk at sunset on the beach and then headed to Fort Bragg, back to our beloved Mendo Bistro for yummy dinner. We stayed up late again lounging in the jacuzzi.

It was all just so relaxing. Incredible. Sea air, waves crashing, remote, quiet, I can't even do it justice and it's effect on us was wonderful.

We took a long drive down the coast yesterday and ate lunch in Mendocino where we saw the other bed and breakfast that I had been contemplating and I was SO SO SO glad we chose the Howard Creek Ranch.

Ahhh, back home now and Thomas is much better and Mom is on her flight back to Florida. Missed getting to visit much with her, but it was absolutely wonderful to get away.

Sigh.

Halloween 2009 (continued)

More Halloween photos:










We decided to do a theme: for each of our children's first Halloween, when we have all control and can do what we want for our own amusement (hehe), each child will be dressed as some famous, often imitated singer. After the first year, we are not so crazy. As a reminder, here's Thomas on his first Halloween:

Halloween 2008

It seems like things are always way too busy to post, I've got about 5 blog entries in my mind that have never made it on (virtual) paper. Oh well...this is life with twins.

Halloween this year was wonderful...we have such a great neighborhood for it. I guess I'm old fashioned because I don't get the whole going to the mall, commercial Halloween thing - for me this is a neighborhood holiday, for the children and the neighborhood families...I feel very lucky that we have a good neighborhood for it where a lot of families pass out candy and we always run out of time before we run out of houses. This year was even nicer because our neighbors, Chris and Cris and their 1 year old son, Noah, came with us. We walked one block over to Miramar and just went up one side of Miramar and then down the other side and then all of us just walked over to the local pizza joint for dinner. It was fantastic, just a wonderful Halloween.

Here are the photos: