School and Kinley

So long farewell, to you and you and you, adeu adeu adeu......!!!!! I say this because yet another semester of school has started and I may not see or hear from anyone until May when it ends because I will be so BUSY! Christmas break did not last long enough! I am taking FIVE classes this semester while working full time at my job, it could get scary but I just want to push through it! Next semester will be my final and last and should be a breeze compared to this semester, so there IS light at the end of the tunnel..... finally. August 6th can not come quick enough! I am going to throw myself the biggeest grandest party on August 7th, to celebrate the death of school, will anyone come?! I love learning and I really really love my major, but when I come home from work at night and Wren wants to hang out and go do something fun, but I can't cause of homework, I just feel guilty, I don't know I guess for me spending time with him seems so much more improtant than writing endless amounts of papers on subjects that I really don't care about that much. Mark my words though, when I am done, I can promise everyone I am staying up till 1:00 am every night watching TV and eating ice cream, screw this 10:00 pm betime. Now that I have complained your EARS off........Last week Wren's brother McKinley got home from his mission. It was so good to see him! He got home on New Year's day, so we waited to do the family tradition that we normally do with Wren's family on Christmas Eve to be able to do it on New Year's night so he could be there. It was so much fun! Holly always puts together the cutest things! Look how cute the stockings were that she got us! The theme this year was "peace" so she filled them with cute peace jammies and chocolates. It's good to have Kinley home!

TWINS! Our perfect little Skyman!

Our Sweet Henry

Hi Everyone,
I just wanted to post this picture of the nicest man you will ever meet. He moved into our complex in July of 2008. I remember the first day he came to see the apt., he was 88 years old, had a Lithuanian accent and full of joy. I showed him where the town home was that he was interested in, but could not show him inside since someone was living there, so he brought the pleasure on himself of walking up to the door and knocking on it to ask if he could see it. I remember laughing so hard about it. Ever since he moved in he has become a second grandfather to everyone that works here. He visited us almost every day here in the office bringing smiles to our faces. He always liked to make sure that the maintenance guys were taking good care of Kim and I. He worked for NASA as an engineer. He helped design the first spaceship that went to the moon. We loved hearing all of his stories of world war II, he saw the concentration camps and had to flee his town when it was overtaken by the Russians. He was such a smart man, always coming up with tricks to save on energy. He would go buy broken things all the time and fix them. At 90 years old he still skied. He drove a 10 seater huge green minivan that was the brand Savana, which he liked to joke with me about. He was in the Olympics for ski racing in 2003. He was completely capable and always kept busy, I know this is why he has lived such a long life. The sad thing is, his whole family was killed in World War II, so he has no one. He was never married and has no kids, so we became his family. On Christmas Wren and I went to say hi to him and take him a little gift, he was all dressed up in a suit, and had just gone to dinner by himself, it was heartbreaking, yet he was always SO happy. He had been going through chemotherapy because over labor day last year they found out that he had stomach cancer. He was so positive throughout all of it, saying how the chemo didn't even affect him. Our maintenance guy Victor walked over to his apt. to say hi today, and found him on the ground unconscious and barely breathing. We called the paramedics and they came and took him. It wasn't an hour later from when he got there that he passed away. He died at 2:20 today. He had walked into our office last night to say hi, but of course I was on the phone and didn't get off which is one of my biggest regrets. I would do anything just to be able to talk to him one more time and tell him how much he meant to me and all of us here. I am so so sad, words cannot even explain how much I have cried, it's hard so sit in this office knowing I will never see his smiling face again. He does not have any family and we do not really know what to do, we want to be able to give him a nice funeral service but don't think we will be allowed to since we are not his beneficiaries, the more research we have done, we do not think that he even has a living will. I just keep having this thought of who is going to remember him? He doesn't have kids, he doesn’t have grandkids, how will his memory live on? He had such an incredible life, so many adventures and stories and who will continue to tell them? But then I just have to remember that he had us, and for him I think that was enough. That is why I am sharing part of his life with you. We would like to put together something in memory of him because he so deserves it, once we can plan it I would love for every one of you to come so he can have people there to hear about what a wonderful person and friend he was to us. I learned from him that no matter who you are or what situation you are placed in, that we can always stay positive, and that even as you get old, stay doing what you love. And to share what you have, he donated so much to charities. I also learned that when you have a feeling, go with it, I had feelings yesterday to just stop by and see him and I didn't. I also learned to visit the people we love most often, we get so busy doing things that don't even matter, and push seeing grandparents and family to "next week". Thank you for listening to me, and I will keep you posted. Feel free to pass this along to anyone and everyone; I want people to hear about what an amazing man he was! We love you and will always remember you Henry!

A ski race that he won in 1999 when he was almost 80 years old, look how happy he was! Can you believe he is 80 years old in this picture? He was so proud of his sking accomplishments and you can see it in this picture. He loved to tell us about it and we loved to hear it.

A little "in memory of Henry Kristaponis" that I set up for him in our office. I'm really hoping we will be able to have a funeral for him!

Christmas FUN!

So we had a great Christmas this year! We did tons of stuff with lot's of different people. I had a super fun xmas party with all of my girlfriends on Wednesday night. We ate and opened presents from each other, and of course talked and talked and talked about all the things that our husbands are lame about, ha ha, like talking about Oprah and being pregnant to name a few :) Dana made the freakin best cafe rio burritos that I've ever had, even better than Cafe Rio! But I had a blast that night. On Tuesday night, we got together with Wren side of the family and ate yummy food and played a fun gift exchange game. It was good to see all of his cousins. Hollie did a really cute red mitten theme and gave us all red mittens, she is so sweet! Christmas eve, we went sleigh riding with my family and cousins. It was tons of fun! That night we went a visited with Wren's parents in their cozy Christmas house and had chili. After we went to my aunt Heidi's and ate and had a big talent show. My aunt Heidi and Mom did a really funny talent, it was bizzare to say the least. Christmas morning we got up and went to both of our parents houses and opened presents. It was so much fun! Our parents are way too too nice, they put a lot of thought into our gifts. We had a couple more parties that day, and then came home to recoop. Saturday, we had our annual white elephant christmas party with my great aunt Jana, and I got a YELLOW ELEPHANT that I fought strong and hard for AT the white ELEPHANT PARTY! Ironic? I think so! I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas as much as we did!




Sbob and I

Kaddy

Hayley

Breanne

Dana

Hailers

Chanty

Harry Carrie

Sbob

Kristine

Court

Hailers, Kaddy and I

Kaddy and I

Chanty likes to get carazy!!!!

Chanty, Carrie and I

Our perfect little nephew Skyler, so cute!

Wren and I after sledding

My brother Ty, my mom and my dad!




Me and my Daddy on xmas eve

Wren opening his presents, this pic is really bad

Cute Willow and Skyler

Baby Skyman opening his presents

Kate opening her presents

My dad opening our presents


My cute grandparents

Wren, my grandpa, my dad, and cousin Tyler

It was a long day......

Christmas week begins.......

Look how cute these ladies are below, they are all of the girls from our four propertys, we had our big work xmas party a couple of weeks ago, but we like to get together with just us girls too. Carmen made fantastic soup, and we brought food and gifts. I love talking with all of them, yay for girls! This week is going to be the week of a million and one christmas partays. Last night was the one I just spoke so highly of, tonight is Wren's side of the family's xmas party, tomorrow is our big girlfriend xmas party, did I mention YAY for girls? Thursday which is xmas eve, we have about three parties, Friday (xmas) we have two, and Saturday is my dad's EXTENDED side of the family, it will definitely be a chaotic week to say the least, but it will be a blast! Wren and I are so blessed to have the families that we have, and friends that we do! Also, my mom and aunt Heidi have planned a big xmas eve party this year, they are having a big talent show at it (they themselves have apparantly planned a grand number) and are forcing us all to do the same. Any funny talent ideas that Wren and I could do?..... Well I hope that everyone has a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and I will be posting at the end of this week all of the holiday madness fun pictures! Love everyone!


Me and Sbob watching Wren and Nick play their guitars.

Wren and Nick playing guitars at this fun coffee shop. They sounded so good!