all about me

A little blog love...

Lots of craziness in our life...the family blog once again has been put by the wayside!

Sorry, family! ;-)

Let's see...what's new in the last couple months?

Conner's doing great in school and is getting SO big. He's talking up a storm, has totally turned into his mother with her motor mouth. He's turned into Mr. Independent...wants to do everything for himself. Likes to dress himself, wants no help whatsoever. Loves to play games on the computer and is really into books. Theree are several books he can read himself! (although I know he's just memorized them but he's so proud of himself nonetheless!) Once again, taking after mom and turning into a little bookworm!

My little brother is about halfway done with boot camp at Fort Benning. I'm super excited to be going to see him later this month for a family visitation weekend. I miss him like crazy. I've been kept very busy with my photography business...lots of sessions and i've been second-shooting some weddings too. That's a lot of fun!

I got together a couple weeks ago with another photographer for a photo swap. He shot our family and I'll be shooting his engagement pictures later this year. Working on editing those and I'll slap a few of those up once they're done. I'm trying to make it a point to do family pictures at least once a year so I can get in a few of them!

I'm going on 1 1/2 months straight of going back to the gym. I'm determined to lose these final 10 lbs so I can be back to pre-Conner weight. It feels really good to be going back to the gym again, just totally wipes me out. I've started doing a zumba class so that's a lot of fun and mixes up the weights and ellipticals routine.

Had a big photographer get-together in Alexandria, VA last week. Here's a video that Noah posted from that gathering. 50 photographers from all over VA, MD, DC, DE, PA, and NC got together for some networking and gabbing. FUN FUN FUN!

I love my little dude...

My grandfather

It has been an emotionally draining last couple of weeks. I got the call last Wednesday, Apr. 22, from my mother that my grandfather was in the hospital. My uncle, his brother, had found him on the floor of his bedroom that morning and called 9-1-1. Even with as horrible as that sounds for an 86-year-old, we all still figured he would bounce back as he has from ever other ailment he's been confronted with. I got another call from my mother Thursday evening that we needed to go see him; he was not doing well at all. So I booked tickets late that night for myself and my little brother and we took a 7am flight out to Detroit the next morning.

When we saw my grandfather that morning, neither of us could believe the state he was in. He was super thin and totally delusional. He did not who we were, where he was, or even who he was. It broke both our hearts.

He has always been THE grandpa. He had the warmest heart and would give anything of his to someone who needed it. I used to spend weekends over at his house growing up, going garage saling with him, or running trips to the junkyard. That was incidentally a very cool thing to do as a child. He made me this uber-cool turquoise blue wagon as a kid with parts he got from here and there. He taught all the grandkids to play euchre and just loved playing cards and gambling. I missed him terribly when we moved to Virginia. But we would still see him a couple times a year--either going back to Michigan to visit or flying him here for the holidays.

We called up our folks from the hospital that day and told them they had to get here right away. Grandpa was going downhill fast and they needed to say their goodbyes. So they flew out the next morning, on Saturday. That day, grandpa was still pretty delusional, but he had his moments when he was actually here with us. You could see the clarity in his eyes during those times. But then he would go off in his own world and we'd lose him once again.

Sunday he was even more delusional, seeing people that weren't in the room, seeing imaginary objects in front of him, etc. But his vital signs were stable and the hospital moved him out of the ICU and into a regular room. We all planned on having him put in a nursing home for a couple weeks till he built up his strength and could be transported to Virginia to be close and watched by all of us.

My brother and I were scheduled to fly back to Virginia later Monday morning. We stopped by the hospital that morning, around 8:30 to say our goodbyes to grandpa. As we were walking down the hall toward his room, a "Code Blue" belted over the intercom and all the nurses ran into his room. He had a DNR order and died within five minutes.

It breaks my heart to know that my grandfather won't be around for Thanksgivings and Christmases...that he won't be around to see his only great-grandchild, Conner, grow up. I'm thankful for the wonderful memories I have with him and I'm thankful that he was able to spend as much time with Conner as he did. I just wasn't ready to let him go yet.

So we had to bump up our tickets and stay through Thursday. Funeral was Wednesday. And what a beautiful funeral it was. So many people showed up to pay their respects to this man. We never knew how many lives he had really touched till we saw the turnout. The six grandkids were the pallbearers.

We all agree that my grandfather was such a kind and loving individual and that he felt it was the perfect time to go. He had his daughter and all his grandchildren by his side. He passed without pain and surrounded by love. He didn't want to go to a nursing home and found a way out of that one. I had booked a Caribbean vacation over a year ago for my family. We were set to leave for that on Friday, May 1. My little brother was set to leave and just left today for Army Boot Camp for 17 weeks. So we can all see that through my grandfather's eyes, this WAS the perfect time to leave us.

I felt bad leaving for vacation right after the funeral but everyone said relaxation and time away with my family would help the healing process.

Miss you grandpa. 

 

 

 

 

photos taken by Tisha McCuiston during Conner's baptism.

Tisha, these photos mean the world to me right now! :-) 

Happy Easter!

Conner reading

Check him out reading!

NKOTB

Yep, I did it. I went to see them!!!!!

And man, it was an awesome concert!

Here's a couple videos I snagged with my camera...

And the slideshow of pics: www.stephanietu.com/slideshows/NKOTB/

Happy St. Patty's Day!

Snow!

We got dumped on!!!

We have been pretty much snowed in since Sunday evening. I think we got about 10 inches, which is totally unheard of in Richmond. I think the last time we got any snow at all was in 2005. And it's been a good 9 years since we got THIS amount of snow!

This amount of snow would be considered nothing up north. But since VA never gets it, nobody knows what to do when we actually do. So it's been nice to be able to spend some time with the little guy and work from home!

Conner has loved playing in the snow with us!

Reptile show

Conner's school had a reptile show for the kids this week. His teachers took some pictures and emailed them to me. :-)  Looks like Conner had a great time and touched everything!

OBX - May '09

Click here to view this photo book.