Jere's Passing

December 13, 2007 Dearly loved friends, We are sad to announce that our beloved husband and father, Jere McKinney, passed away in his home last night at 10:30 pm. We are so very grateful to all of you for your heartfelt prayers, and loving support during the past few months. They were so strongly felt and carried us all through this difficult period in the last stages of Jere's illness. He left this world and was literally greeted with embraces from those awaiting him in the next. I had the privilege of witnessing this profound passing of a truly remarkable, unique and well-loved person. His funeral will be held this afternoon at our home with close friends and family and his burial will take place in the late afternoon in the Villa Colon cemetery. We plan to hold a memorial for him at a later date. Thank you again for all of your loving support and prayers. With deep gratitude and love Julie, Colin, Jaleh, Ali, Lisa, David and Aria

2nd Snowfall, 1st Snowday

The boys have had several short weeks. Thanksgiving week was short. The next week after that they had curriculum day on Friday, classes cancelled. Then this Monday we got our second good snow storm this season with ice and freezing rain… no school this past Monday… Tis the season I guess for shorter school weeks.

Another one of these days (and thank you yes don’t ask!) (oh wait I remember it was Tuesday) the boys and I went sledding behind their school. A fun little jaunt that ended with me really hurting my knee. It was so depressing (not to mention cold) being out there hobbling up and down the hill with the boys in pain thinking “Oh no! this is it. Here it is … I am getting old, my body is deteriorating, falling to pieces. I will never recover fully from this one. How stupid can you get? It’s not like you got tossed off of some epic 20 foot wave or slid off a cliff on your mt bike. You fell on a little rinkiy dink hill doing a little nothing and now your knee is messed up.” And on and on went the conversation in my head and I was truly depressed. I went to the emergency room the next morning and the xrays confirmed… no biggie.. no tears, no breaks just a little strain I will be over in a few weeks…. I was being silly. Funny how the brain can do tricks like that on us and we make mountains out of mole hills…

The boys are really growing up. There latest game is checkers which they have been playing a lot.. On the snow day, Mason and Aman never really got out of their PJs and played for hours with some game they came up with. All three boys are sooooo good with Anika. They talk to her in a little baby voice while picking her up or trying to make her chase them.

Anyway, we stayed up late last night watching Reign Over Me… (Don Cheadles and Adam Sandler) what a fantastic movie!!… but I am tired now and want to be fresh for a last day of work before the weekend. So I am going to go up, brush my teeth and climb into bed with Les Miserables... all the characters are at the barricade now and the situation is tense... what will Jean Valjean do?....

That Insanely Cool Brandon Family

The Brandons came over on Saturday. It was frigid but we decided to scale Mt Sugarloaf. No sugar located but it was freezing. It is a short very steep hike and we ran as much as possible to keep warm, climbed to the top of the tower but couldn’t stay long because of the wind.

Aman had a bit of a melt down in the beginning and later we found out that I had accidentally fed him large quantities of preservatives in the morning’s bacon which is a substance along with dyes that we think he might be allergic to at least enough so to make him uncomfortable and hyper.

Other than that episode, the Brandon visit was a total success as usual… any of you who have ever had dealings with the Brandons will be nodding your heads in approval when I say that this is a special family that gives out really good energy. Thanks guys for making the trip.

Read-a-thon

One of these days, and my 41 year old brain can’t remember which, we did some ice skating. Aman did incredibly well and we were exhausted after the jaunt. Isaiah is becoming a natural on the ice and it was fun to zoom around the rink with them. One night (another brain burp is asking you not to ask which) the boys were excited to have a readathon. This involved building a fire, getting sleeping bags and all lay around reading together! Wow!