I've got so many pictures, and so much to say.

[altarflame]

Heather/babyslime thrifted this AMAZING outfit and sent it to us awhile back. Elise looooooves it :) These are all in my bedroom, by the way, and I love everything about the room (though it isn't exactly showcased here...)




Aaron "breakdancing".


And my beautiful Ananda.






I'm not quite sure if you can call this a "tasteful" nude. But yeah. Tasteful for him.


So we went down to Key West for a visit. It was a short visit - we got there late Monday afternoon and left Tuesday evening. But we got a lot in and it was so good for me. Driving down -


The view is pretty incredible. Tiny island.


At my Aunt Michelle's awesome old conch house.


Michelle, and Pa. Watching old home movies converted from silent reels to digital film by the illustrious Shaun Wright. They cried when it got to Ma, (his wife and her mom) smiling and waving from a chair.

That movie can be seen here - http://www.vimeo.com/3709176 My Ma is about 14 minutes and 45 seconds in, directly followed by that same Aunt Michelle as a teenager putting on makeup, and I am Elise's tiny twin.

The first day, Aaron was absolutely miserable. The other kids were doing well, but he was SO sad and depressed and I tried and tried and TRIED to get any tidbit of what was bothering him, but it was hopeless...He was actually curled up in a ball at one point refusing to speak while we all ate plates of my Aunt DD's famous spaghetti. We gave him extra affection, we took them to the playground, we put a movie on for them. I dunno.

Then that night as I tucked him in to sleep on his air mattress, he said out of nowhere, "Is he going to die?" and it all made sense.
Me: Well, not right now. But...yes. Sometime soon, he is.
Aaron: I didn't even really get to know him.
Me: I'm glad you're here now, at least. I guess the times we were around him before, you were too little to really remember well.
Aaron: Is he just going to sit on the couch like this, tomorrow too? From now on?
Me: Well, mostly...he's very, very weak. But he's happy, because he's surrounded by family and here eating DD's spaghetti and getting backrubs from his daughter and making jokes about the tv, and not in some hospital surrounded by strangers.

Then I told him a bunch of stories about the Pa I remember, pretending to be the Easter bunny, and letting us ride his lawn mower and waking us up early to come peer out the window and see rabbits or deer. Pa cooking all kinds of awesome stuff for us and arguing with Ma about everything. He fell asleep eventually, and the next morning seemed SO much better.

This is the Pa I see in my mind:

(stolen from my Aunt DD's facebook, and featuring her granddaughter from her husband's side)

When Aaron woke up, I was in the kitchen getting breakfast for people and there was a social worker there helping Michelle with blood pressure logs and blood sugar stuff and aaaaaaall these medications, and he asked who it was. I told him it was a social worker making sure Michelle knows all the right stuff to do, since Pa's here and not at a hospital. And Aaron said, "Yeah, but it's really, really good that he's here, because this way he can be happy and have love...I wouldn't want to be in a hospital if I had to die." And simple as that he was normal Aaron for the rest of the day.

Random. My littlest and Hernandez-ist children.

Jake and Isaac snuggled with Pa a lot. Elise flirted and played from my lap. Until she got on an armrest, straddling it, and Pa said, "Are you riding a horse?" She started bucking around like she was and making horse noises, and he grabbed a bolster and put it between his legs, and got very serious and asked, "Do you want to race?" She went nuts. It was so funny. Michelle said he was really happy. I wish we could spend more time there :/ Grant had to be back to work by Wednesday morning.



So then the second day, my Daddy takes us out on his boat. Ananda and Aaron were all hyped up about getting to drive it.


When the speed kicked up once we were on the open water (my Dad lives in a sort of neighborhood of canal gridwork where everyone has boats behind their houses), the wind was really going and we had a big wake and Jake turned to me and yelled, "I'M VERY HAPPY!!!"




So...ok. My Dad had told us about this little island we could get to in under half an hour that is totally surrounded by sandbars. And we had postponed the boat trip from early that morning, because of storms. But then in "cleared up". Can you see why I am using quotes?

So yeah. It was cool, and we started wading, but within, oh, HALF A MINUTE my Dad was yelling "Get out of the water!" and we were standing on that patch of sand you see, the seven of us, with POUNDING TORRENTIAL RAIN, lots of booming thunder and the wind completely nuts. The boat was anchored like, I don't know, 50 feet from shore, and I couldn't even see it half the time. My Dad really shouldn't have been on it, with the lightning and the electronics, but he was afraid it would get blown out to sea and so he had to be on it to drive it back to us lest we all be stranded.

Anyway, yeah, that is one adventure we hadn't had before ;) Grant kept us all laughing pretty much the entire time, even though he had to do it at a yell to be heard over the weather. By the time it cleared up, we had found stone crabs and a dog grave with a paragraph long memorial. It also went from, "Stay out from under the trees, everyone!!" to "Screw that, everybody under the trees!!" after about 10 minutes of craziness.

After it did clear, it was BEAUTIFUL, and we spent an hour or so wading and snorkeling and things...there was such a huge expanse of knee deep water that we really didn't have to worry about the kids. At one point Grant and I were off with Elise, about a block's distance from my Dad, and he pointed back at where the other four were with my Dad - my Dad is kind of renowed for telling wildly embellished stories, many about fish and sea creatures. So I laughed and laughed when I looked and saw that Grant was pointing at him telling them all something with his hands spread as wide apart as they could get. So awesome. My Dad can tell some stories, let me tell you...

Then we headed back. I call this, "Wistful" :p


I call this, "Geez I look like my Dad".


Sunset as it cleared up. We saw a lot of dolphins, but that is a momentary thing as their backs come up and slide back down that is not easy to catch with a camera.


So I think about time, time, time.

My Aunt Michelle sitting with Pa on the couch where he's laying, and Elise sitting with Grant in a chair, and them going back and forth, Michelle and Elise, each saying "My Daddy!" and pointing at their Daddies, and how one day...well, one day it'll be Elise and Grant on the couch. Hopefully, assuming long life for them both. It was so Michelle and Pa back in the day, toddler and 20something. My Aunts are my kids' GREAT Aunts and they stand around freaked about that - "WE'RE Aunt Delia to them!!" My SISTER is my kids' Aunt. My little sister, having her second baby.

Laura spent the last couple of days in Lakeland with my Mom and OTHER Pa, trying to support them as they try to help Nana get better...Nana is not being the kindest patient, to say the least. She is really laying into my Mom hard, from the bed where she is stuck, it's kind of nuts. Probably we'll switch in a week or two and we'll go North and Laura will head South. Laura and I were catching each other up on the trips over the phone this afternoon, laughing and LAUGHING like we do.

Even when it's hard, there is just nothing better than family.

Comments

"Even when it's hard, there is just nothing better than family."

[evrydayjnglbtch.livejournal.com]

truth.

I love this post so much.

Re: "Even when it's hard, there is just nothing better than family."

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I know you know all about it, lady.

[fkgirl.livejournal.com]

Great Post girl...looked like a ton of fun!

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

It was!

[theneolistickid.livejournal.com]

We are a great team.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

♥

[jerkface02.livejournal.com]

you have such beautiful children. and wow, that last picture!

*hugs*

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

:D

It's just GORGEOUS down there, all the time...the water, I never get tired of it. Or desensitized.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Well, for what it's worth, I think yours is great too, even though you're hitting some rough spots. I love all your old family pics on facebook and have actually looked through all of them like a crazed stalker ;)

[oscariswilde.livejournal.com]

Awesome pictures and it sounds like a great trip.

I love the sunset in the last one and the outfit in the first ones and of course all your kids in them too. You have such a wonderful family!

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Aww, thank you :)

By the way, I FINALLY sent you that email receipt just now - so sorry that every step of the way, for you, has been weeks long with this :/

[heavynleigh.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you had an awesome trip. The rain sounds so fun and what a beautiful sunset! I am glad you were all able to go down there and spend time with your Pa. :-D

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Me too!

[medland.livejournal.com]

That last photo looks like heaven. Literally like heaven.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I was so happy it turned out, because it was really just breathtaking, especially after the solid dark sky we'd been dealing with.

[babyslime.livejournal.com]

Wow.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

O_o Any specific wow? "Wow" can mean so many things! :p

[babyslime.livejournal.com]

Just all of it. The whole experience reminds me of being a kid and taking late, sunlit boatrides to the outer islands with my dad... it just makes me go "wow" in this very reminiscing, jealous sort of way.

[noelove.livejournal.com]

grant is a sexy beast

[lost-almost.livejournal.com]

You are making such awesome memories for your kiddos. I bet I have said it before, but I love seeing the Keys through your stories.

[mommydama.livejournal.com]

What a gorgeous place. I am dying to get back there. I want to have adventures and get "shipwrecked on an island". Heh.

I cannot believe how big Jake looks! He was still a baby (sort of) when I was there! I'm not even going into how big Elise is. She is so beautiful in those pictures. All of your kids are though. You know that, I'm sure. Heh.

I'm actually trying to plan our Disney Trip in September or October. If I could work it out...my dream is to come spend a week with you either before or after the Disney trip. Would that be possible? Brad would probably not come, he'd just fly down for the Disney portion. What do you think? This is not at all set in stone, so don't start expecting it. Just hoping. We are in the hoping phase here...

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

It would definitely be possible!

It would be hard for you to miss being here for a birthday in October - Jake is the 7th, Grant the 11th and me the 24th. I could make you pumpkin bread and things...

I think it sounds great! When do I get to start hopping the kids up about this?

[mommydama.livejournal.com]

After I book the Disney hotel and buy the tickets. Until then, it is very iffy. So don't hop even yourself up yet! I'm trying very, very hard not to hop myself up.

The money for this trip is still sitting safely in our savings account. It has not been touched. But Brad is claiming he can't take enough leave time. I'm warning him I might go without him if that is the case, as we PROMISED the girls this trip. So I don't know. It is still in the very maybe stages.

[breathbox.livejournal.com]

there really is something special about key west...i knew it from the first time i went there, and how i could never quite get it out of my head that i wanted to go back...and then our trip there at the beginning of the year...and how its now become our annual family vacation spot...we'll be there again come january...maybe this time we can all meet up and you can show us the island from a conch's perspective...:)

oh, and of course, your family is lovely...and i totally dig the color of your walls in your room...