Fall Spirit Lifters

 We need an extra shot of happy this weekend, and I'm going to work on that as soon as I can.

It's a little early for wassail to add some holiday cheer to the apartment.  I'll definitely be stockpiling apple cider, cranberry juice cocktail, oranges and all the spices, but I think I'll wait until closer to Thanksgiving.  Who knows?  Life is rushing by at such a fast pace I might just have wassail whenever I want to.  

In the meantime, I'll make the house smell good with some potpourri made from some orange peel I've saved and a couple of apples.  I need to trim my rosemary, so that will be a good addition.  I'll just keep adding things until the mixture pleases me.  

We're going to Tanner's Landing Sunday afternoon to spread out our blankets and chairs and remember Mike and cry and laugh and watch the girls go crazy with the dog.  I know this won't happen, but I would like to take Gus with us.  I have a little cat playpen now, and he might enjoy that outing.  He would love to climb Mike's Tree, but he would also like to run wild in all those open spaces.  We saw an eagle last year, and that's too scary to think about, although Gus has gotten to be a really big boy and might not appeal to birds of prey.  It seems like after this annual trip, we can perk up a little and get on with all the Halloween and Thanksgiving activities.

I have my pumpkin pillows in the chairs on the front porch and worked on my wreath today.  I don't have the bow on it yet, and it needs some more filler, but I hung it anyway.  

I hope I get myself organized enough to make pumpkin bread and cranberry bread to give as gifts.  I'm going to experiment on one that's so simple it can't be good!  It's a box of spice cake mix and a can of pumpkin puree. That's it.  I bought a couple of boxes and cans to try and might try cupcakes for the girls for Sunday without pecans and some with for the rest of us.  

So now I have a plan - several plans.  I'll see how much of this I get done tomorrow.  I feel like it will take at least one trip to the grocery store and maybe one to Mount Si Nursery.  I would like to have a decorative cabbage for one of my pots but don't really love mums.  I think the porch is okay without having to worry about killing things or bringing them in for the winter.  

It's already Saturday morning, and I'm not sleepy.  I think the family has something planned with some other families and soccer games out of town that afternoon.  I've missed seeing the girls this week and can't wait to hear all their school news.  

I was going to find some pictures of past years' visits to Mike's tree, but I typed in the wrong year and got lost in these memories.  

We were visiting for a couple of weeks in September of 2014 and having quite a good time.  Graysen and her funny friend Pop-Pop.  I think he had already started his chemo at that point and was staying in WA a lot, so GG was very familiar with him and his antics.

This precious baby with her auburn hair wearing one of the many, many monogrammed things she was forced to wear!  What a sweet age and how thankful we were to have her in our lives.

It was my birthday week, so we went out for Indian food where Graysen tried some mango drink with a catchy name.  It was the first time I had seen her since the summer, and it was just the best time ever.  I got to walk her around outside up and down the sidewalks with her holding my hand, and I thought life couldn't get any better.

But it did.  We babysat one night so Ryan and Emily could go out and have a night away from pets, baby duty, and parents.  The next morning, they came in with a bouquet of birthday flowers for me.  I almost missed what was attached to the stems.  A pregnancy test announcing a new baby in May.  One of the best birthdays ever.

And there was a lot of this..... Jack loved having Emily all to himself for lots of long naps, and we were glad to keep Graysen entertained.

We went for lots of walks around town through the falling leaves.  We walked by these apartments a lot, and we never thought that one day we would be living there - right on this street.

Lots of walks with Griffin and the whole family.

Some of these pictures make me sad, but this one is a good one.  Mike made the most of his doctor's visits.  We were at the Starbucks next to the Cancer Center in Seattle.  I'm not sure if he had already started chemo or not or if we were there for blood tests, but once he got his coffee and newspaper and settled in to entertain the nurses, he made it a fun day.  I think he was getting lab work for a port before the lung surgery, if my memory is correct, so it would have been a good day.  

It's good to have these memories, but it's hard too.  The things we didn't get to do and the Pop-Pop the girls didn't get to grow up with.  

So we'll just remember what we can and feel lucky we had all those years.  At this point, we had been married 47 years.  Still not enough.