vacation continues...

Well, not alot of "new" stuff happens each day, yet, it does.. the temperatures have been great, the water refreshing and wet when you do feel overheated.  Tuesday and Thursday two boat loads of us went to Buckskin up river and they have a sandy beach which is what Bransons is totally missing and it allows us to sit in and play in the water with all the kids and adults.

Ashley and her friend Grecia

 Trevor VM on one ski

 Elisha VM on the knee board

above is Ty VM on the single horseshoe for the little kids to learn the hang of skiing

I'm sitting outside right now where the connection to the internet is oddly quicker and better than in our room directly in front of the connection..

oops, well dinner bell was rung, so time to go.

Pizza for dinner tonight courtesy of Mike and of course.. fruit and chips with dip.. we all gather in the room of the host (or a room borrowed if it's an RV'er) and the host family prays and we dig in as if we haven't eaten in days..

Each family is assigned a day of the week while "they" are at the river. Some come all week, others the weekend and a few til mid week.

I this year requested the first day, Saturday. For mid morning snack we served up donuts and punch at about 9:30am. Lunch was ham/turkey sandwiches with all the trimming options.. Chips and fruit and of course punch at noon.  Mid afternoon snack was trail mix, chocolate candy variety bag and fruit rollup type of snack and punch at 3pm.. Now dinner is served at 5:30-6:00 pm and for mine it is in the crockpot all day slow cooking and becoming tender in the recipe that turns into the gravy over the meat and potatoes.. I put 14 lbs of roast into three crockpots, with a recipe of two of these in each. 1 can cream of celery soup, 1 can of cream of mushroom soup, 1 dried onion soup mix package and less than a qtr can of water, and I mean less than a qtr cup of water... the meat has it's own juices and adds to the gravy.. If you get it just right you don't have do anything to the gravy and it's thick.. If your at HOME and have cornstarch you can mix it in a stovetop pan and thicken the gravy up as well.  We also served green beans, and mash potatoes... along with rolls and bread (hot roast beef sandwiches).. and then before it's dark you serve a dessert... We literally eat every 2 hours and it is a lot of fun as each of us hangs together for the entire week, with breaks into our own AC'd bungalow or RV for some cool air or a nap...

 Brent VM kneeboarding

Annika Johnson waving to the crowd as she passes by on the horseshoe

the way the group travels in the water from the north docks of Bransons to the docks that we call home

Theres many more pictures, but this internet is so slow and I will do it (maybe) when I get home if theres time in the short week before we leave for Alaskan cruise / Train to Denali National Park.

see ya later

It's VACATION time baby~!

The river vacation is always the most relaxing... currently we are chillin' in the AC to get a little bit of relief before dinner from the heat of 106 degrees outside.  Which that temp is good for making the water in the river feel alot less chilly and more refreshing.  We are about 7 miles outside of Parker AZ staying at a resort on the river called Branson's. This family group has been getting together since 1966, staying at various places over the years, but Thunderbird and Bransons are the two that I have come to over the last 32-33 years.  These were the pictures from day one... more later!
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day one daylight, the view from our resort Branson's

 sunset day one, a stormy cloudy sky

Elisha and Christian, sons of cousins

Brent adds to the mix and gives Christian a pull into the water

Uncle Ron and Mike Kuyper cooling off while the boys are in the tied up boat,

love the puffy clouds

time is ticking..

always love the time that leads up to a vacation and Friday is fast approaching. We usually leave for the river on Friday at noon or within a couple of hours of noon. Preparing for work to handle themselves goes a little bit more stressful but oh well, vacation is the purpose for it all. Today I came home from work and the goal is to get the "list" of river things that I finally put down on paper out of the cabinets and together in a pile.  That gathering place is behind the living room couch where it has no traffic. 

Wednesday Ashley is planning to go with me after work to shop for the things we need for our ONE DAY that we have to cook.. it's a great arrangement where every family takes a day to provide the vittles for whoever is on the premises. Different days the family come and go in the changes from the weekend throughout the week.

This year I requested to cook the first day.... see if it's all that I think it's going to be for the ease of bringing food up and cooking it directly from home. Now I just need to be organized and have no days to "think" about what I need extra.

Since I've got my list together, hoping to get all the items needed and Thursday pick up the roast so as to not have to freeze it.

Now I need a nap, as I still have 3 early mornings left before vacation mode starts.

our family together..

Tonight Ashley will fly in at 7pm and Brian flew in a couple days ago.. Shane is dog sitting but will come home tonight to see her and have all of us together for a couple of hours.. wow, it will be great and yet really eye opening for us as to how rare now these moments will be outside of the big holidays, or the family events that draw special gatherings..

So we will enjoy this small amount of time for as long as it lasts, with smiles, hugs and laughter and I love you's.

things ya learn...

There are things you learn the hard way, like... when you take the keys out of the ignition at the Costco gas station.. don't toss them on the seat and step out of the car hitting the lock button, cuz then your locked out feeling like an idiot~! Greg to the rescue with the extra key vs calling AAA.. thankful that it was a slow session at the station at that time and didn't have to watch any disgruntled drivers come up behind me.. have no idea why I hit the door lock other than out of habit. duh.

Shane picked up the mattress this afternoon and it's presently blocking one of the downstairs hallways by the stairs til Greg gets home and they can move it upstairs. For me it was heavy just getting it from his truck into the house, that was far enough for me. The guy at the mattress factory where we get our mattresses, told me that day that he wishes he was my guest as his guest would have gotten a far lesser mattress.  Shane wishes he was our guest too as he needs a new mattress that doesn't sag to the middle where he tends to wear a slope into it. Perhaps that can be arranged later in the year..

We have had a very mild summer so far, but today is cloudy and muggy humid.. It would seem that our summers really don't start til end of August anymore.  Later this afternoon the wind started to blow a moderately cooler temp than it felt, so windows open for some air flow.. Greg said it was cool today, but I think that he spends alot of his day in the overly air conditioned car and warms up getting out of the car!

Gregs family has all of the cruise ship excursions figured out with one each day set up. The one I'm looking forward to the most is the helicopter out to the glacier, it was our desire to do it and convinced the rest of them to consider it, so now we're all going. I will probably end of with a zillion pictures of the Alaskan trip but so looking forward to it.

Time for figuring out dinner as Shane just left for an early dinner with his girlfriend Lexie. So who knows what we will work out..

TGIFriday tomorrow

Sunday this N that

After a beautiful morning of SLEEPING in until 8:30am (so nice) and then up to walk the treadmill. Now Saturday Greg and I walked a route that we've taken for short walks, and I've found that lately the uneven streets are killer to my aching back. But walking the treadmill doesn't bother it at all. So for now I'm sticking to the daily treadmill but will continue to work more on getting some outdoor work..

We went to church at our usual 10:30 time, and during communion the Olsons sang "here at the altar" which was beautiful song for which I wish I had the words to share... a song about reconciling with our friend in Jesus. 

Saturday when he and Lexie came by the house to start a run, he informed us that after church we owed him lunch for cleaning our upstairs guest room carpets and he did the stair carpets.... but then after church on Sunday he changed that to the "girlfriend" told him they were going to lunch with her family... so off he went and we went to Super Mex for our lunch..

We then headed home and I ordered a gift online that surprisingly Target or Walmart don't carry in there stores except for the pricey stuff and I need the gift by end of the week.  I'm not against ordering things online ever if it's specifically from an online store. But when there is a physical store, I'm used to having an option of picking it up physically when your under the gun.. Since I'm a UPS'er and Walmart is shipping it via FedEx I will be expecting that anything is possible for when I will get it..

Greg and I then watched a little of Ice Road Truckers, and worked on the guest room in setting it up. We put the wood bed frame all together and it's now ready for the mattress, putting the mirror on the dresser, washed the mirror and getting it put in place against the wall.  I washed both of the closet door mirrors which had been against the windows being open and needed to be cleaned up.  So other than the bedding put onto the mattress which isn't there yet, the room is done!  Brian flies in Friday night for the weekend and will leave Monday, I'm not sure Brian will need to use it as his girlfriend will occupy his time.  Ashley would arrive Sunday night and be here for three weeks, going to the river with us the middle week and relaxing with a few friend visits here and there....  looking forward to seeing our family together again.

We talked to Ashley, but only for a few minutes as she had been called in on her day off and was napping.. oops..

Greg than talked at length with his brother about the Alaska cruise coming up. 2nd time they've gone over what is available and what each of us has kicked in as our choices. And then they conference called in each of the siblings and his dad one at a time to discuss.  So tonight Gale gets to get the consensus and then tomorrow make group reservations wth the travel agent.  We leave for Alaska Aug.4 and after a 7 day cruise and a 3 day train ride are home on the 10th.

But first we have a river trip July 21-27th ... two weeks from now..

Well, that's how we spent the Lords day

Happy it's Friday night

For a four day work week.. wow, it seemed like an eternity..There was a Monday & Tuesday, a day off Wednesday to enjoy friends for a bbq and some fun together in the afternoon. We were home at 6:30, and then just when the fireworks was getting started it was time for me to go to bed in order to be up at the normal time on Thursday of 3:30am in the morning.. So I'm not feeling like it was a holiday since it was cut short by the normal schedule. Thursday I don't even know how many times we were all feeling as if it was Monday all over again and in the mode of "doing" Monday things and then we catch ourselves or the other that "nope, it's actually Thursday".  Today was Friday and at dinner tonight with Shane at Islands, even Greg thought it was Saturday night (cuz he works from home most days) as he loses track of what day it is.  Enough said about that..


On another subject, I'd like a few words with the Red BMW driver who from the 710 fwy south towards the home on the 91 who shadowed me (going 75mph)... I know the speed limit is 65 but that's another subject altogether. But he rode my tail in the fast lane while I had people in front of me, and that is a pet peeve of mine that knucklehead drivers don't give enough space between cars for the speed we travel. So he's riding so close to my bike rack, I don't see his BMW emblem most of the time and I certainly couldn't hit my brakes or he'd have attached to the rack.. Now that wouldn't have worried me as it would have done his front end in with the metal rack inbedded.. but when I changed lanes to keep moving forward he did as well, if I changed lanes left or right he stuck to me like glue.. I couldn't shake the bastard. We make the transition to the 91 fwy and that is when he cuts around me, finally I thought, and then we hit a little traffic and he's now to the left of me and my lane opens up and he quickly is on my tail again shifting for a slight advantage of a few car lengths from where he was... holy cow dude, just chill out and ride along with the lane your in.  Traffic kind of breaks up and there is now a gap and he races off going pretty close to 90mph is my guess. Thankfully I lose sight of him and just mosey along in the the 3rd lane, and then as I reach my off ramp, I see him about 10 cars ahead of me as he had to progress over to the slow lane to exit at the SAME ramp of Bellflower blvd...  All that dangerous driving and speeds and he ends up at the same place at the same time I did... what an idiot..  So what did I do, I honked as I passed by him to turn right at Bellflower as he waited to make a left turn...  Baahaa, dufus..


Tonight, we went to dinner with Shane to Islands.  Had a nice time with him together. He and Greg have a Thursday night dinner tradition with the two of them, and so tonight we all went.  This afternoon following work, I started the lawn work by edging, but have given up on the lawnmowing myself as I've kind of developed a back pain that doesn't do well with stressing it over the last few months.  So Shane finished the lawnwork after he got home from his job and said I no longer need to do it (I kind of enjoy doing it)  but he realized he had let it go awhile.  As I've been scanning pictures lately, I came across my backyard when I had taken care of it by watering it everyday and it was green and lush.. since the boys started driving, Greg and rotation of cars in our long driveway was to use the grass as a turnaround.. hence the yard care took a less than important role in maintaining..  So now I'm on a mission to water it more often and bring it back to life now that Brians truck is no longer pounding over the grass.   My driveway flowerpots are doing well, and are thriving as they get watered once to twice a day and we've had a mild summer up till now, next week that is to change.


We're currently watching the documentary channel story about "murder by proxy: how america turned violent" and it's a start up about the postal service high volume of murders from the abusive management and then other business related murders where people "go postal" which is a term that was coined in the '70's' when the postal massacres started.  It is about 2 hours of instances of what daily abuse that was endured by employees will cause them to do in order for it to stop.. Some crazy workplace environments that are out there that people have to deal with that is more than just personality conflicts.


well, good night.. Here's to a relaxing and new beginnings days of rest or just re-invigorating..

REVISED: 1st of many ski trips

I'm REVISING this post and adding pictures that I came across today to add to this Ski trip: some were out of sequence...
So as I've been sorting pictures into piles, I know I saw more of these trip pictures, and will run across them somewhere down the line.. But this is my blog post of a fun memory where we went to Brianhead Ski Resort in UT in Feb. 1991 with my parents and some of their friends.  Brianhead is at a high elevation and while Greg and Brian did pretty well the first day or so, it totally kicked there rear for the rest of the trip. Brian skied one day, loved it and than just preferred to nap, so did the day care, and the rest of the days he just slept in the daycare from altitude sickness, as we hydrated him and Greg who also did alot of sleeping.

But this was our first trip skiing and we did it nearly every springtime with the kids until they were in High School and sports calendars ruled the day.. We skied Brianhead, June Lake, Mammoth Mtn., Mt Baldy, Big Bear..  great times as a family.

The four of us to prove where we were at Lorinda, Ashley, Brian being held by Greg

Before we head out Day 1

Brian in our red Dodge '90 extended cab pickup truck we drove up

chillin' during lunch

FIRST day EVER of skiing..

 End of Day 1 - someone is pooped.. (it's Ashley)

us following Lloyd n Sharon white van up to resort

our view on the drive up

 grandpa Lloyd, Ashley, grandma Sharon

 I love these two~!

 posing under the sign again.....

 in one of the rental condo's, Phyllis Kreun, Sharon, Phil Bloot, Brian w/ Greg

May 1991 and the summer was tough...

If pictures speak a thousand words... well, than these three kids have photos for us that would be stuff a thousand words wouldn't quite tell the story... I'll try to keep it as brief as is possible, that won't be likely.. first let me unfold the pictures and the story as it occurred.

May approximately Friday May 3rd, 1991 (I looked it up) I was to have helped my friend Lynn DeJong serve her catered dinner for the Bethel Church Mother Daughter Banquet in the evening. In the morning not long after Ashley had arrived at school for kindergarten, I got a call from the nurse that Ashley was in her office and in an extreme amount of pain and she was going to need to go home, "well what happened seemed like a normal question" and her response was that Ashley had bumped her upper leg on the corner of the desk and fell to the ground in pain and was unable to walk.. Now from Thomas Jefferson Elementary we lived 6 housing lots and a walk is how we normally got there, but now it seemed the car was necessary.. Not to mention I had to hustle two little boys into their car seats for this short trip.. are you with me here, I was rushing cuz Ashley was hurt and the boys weren't being overly in the 'be rushed' mood..

By the time I got the boys into the school nurses office, and saw Ashley laying there crying, I was too.. Well it was true that she couldn't walk, and I had to carry her to the car, thankfully the nurse helped by carrying Shane and holding Brian's hand to have them follow me. We drove back in the driveway and I told everyone to stay put and "Please DON'T GET OUT OF THE CAR", I'm going to call grandma, as I needed someone to watch the boys and then called the pediatrician Dr. Janet McCormick whom we were nearly on a 1st name basis with, we saw her so often for the next 5 years. Let them know that I was on my way in and would need a wheelchair to get Ashley up to the office. Why I didn't just go to ER, seemed that this was the faster route of getting her seen ASAP than the ER..  Threw that diaper bag together and bottle supplies, changes of clothes and off we headed..

Did I mention that this was waaaay before cell phones and so calling Greg hadn't occurred to me yet and he was somewhere out in the field as a hydraulic service mechanic unreachable if cell phones had been created.  I just hoped he wasn't in the middle of the ocean which was likely...

A whirlwind to get to the Pediatricians 2nd floor office, then a walk to the hospital from pediatricians with Ashley in wheelchair for xrays, waiting for results, phonecalls between dr offices, then calling me back at the hospital from a waiting room that she was going to need a bone scan as the xray showed a fracture in the upper right femur but it seemed more involved... the bone scan would give us those details.

Now I had to find her dad by phone through his office.. and call my mom to watch the boys longer.  We only yet begun.

The bone scan came back early afternoon that she had an egg sized cyst in the upper right femur and when she hit the desk it fractured what was left of it.. So from one phone call from the pediatrician to wait for the radiologist to meet with us, wait, phone call explanation of where to go next.  Yep, it looked like a perfectly shaped egg with only a fraction of a sliver of bone left on the sides, with a stripe going right across the middle like a crack..  Next stop, upstairs in the hospital to see Dr. Thornton who was on call, to have this full body cast for a broken femur put on for Ashley.

This was taken a month into it but it's the only decent "naked" picture that doesn't expose more than her cute tooshie..  sorry squirt should have put a black sensor over the toosh before scanning or a little red bow..

After she was encased in this casting material and we waited a little bit for it to be shaped and dry.. I then pushed her wheelchair back over to the pediatrician Dr. McCormicks office to return the wheelchair, and get the prescription for one of our own to pick up on the way home. Now you might be saying, "wow, that is quite a contraption" and you wouldn't know the HALF of it..

In this photo her brother Brian and Breanna DeJong are giving her some lovin' on the patio of our backyard.  Please take note of the plywood ramp in the right side of background... it will play a role in the later part of this saga.. We bought her larger skirts, shorts and jeans than her size and we cut the seams and installed velcro along those seams in order to get her in and out of clothes.. worked pretty slick and she still was a girl..  That bar across to keep the legs spaced a certain distance came in handy for lifting her and the weight of the cast from chair to bed or into the car.. She was no longer feather weight, she had moved up in the fighting division..

Nope that cast doesn't keep a VanEssen-Symens kid down.. she was rocking that swingset enjoying the circumstances anyway.. Notice her 'thumbs up' on the left hand.. that's my girl~!

Now the rest of the story should could go faster..

So Greg got a piece of sturdy lengthy plywood to get her wheelchair into the house and out of it while her leg was in the early stages of healing.  We also had to work UP to the point of being strong enough to carry her going up and down the steps yet..

But imagine the excitement on the 3 1/2 year old little boys mind that there is now a RAMP of any kind in his backyard.. and she doesn't need it all the time. So with his big wheel he made great fun and my heart stop as he would scream up onto it and spin around and come back down.. No amount of my asking, pleading, cajoling, begging him got him to stop.. and than it happened............

I was at work and my mom had come over to babysit at our house. Brian and Shane were in the backyard, Shane had walked up onto the wheelchair ramp (big wheel ramp if you asked Brian) and then Brian came whizzing up behind him, bumped him as there was really enough room for both of them, and head over keester Shane went down the side of the ramp.. Only Shane caught the nose flap that holds your nose to your face and well, basically slit it wide open.. I'm sitting down as I write this because had I been there.. I'd have fainted. All agree I couldn't have taken the sight of it or the amount of blood.  I got the call from Greg at the hospital, that my mom was watching the kids and that he had taken Shane to the hospital, he had stitches and NO, I shouldn't come, that he'd be home shortly..  At that time I was working the 4pm-9pm shift at UPS.. ugh, I swallowed hard, and just went home.. So this picture belongs to Shane for summer of 1991. Always a smile on his cute little face~!

So you might be asking by now, could anything else possibly fill our lives, and you'd think the answer would be No.. but I'm here to tell you that the story isn't quite over yet and we were an active family who would meet friends for lunch and sometimes it was at a park or at the local Burger King where they had an aparatus with a ball area at the bottom of it.. The kids loved it. 

I met Lynn and Breanna there one afternoon and all was well in Bellflower, great weather, being outdoors and enough fries to satisfy the 4 kids.  And then came the hollering from a familiar voice of Brian as he worked his way limping out of the balls to tell me his foot hurt.. it was obvious that he wasn't walking very well on it, even after the hugs, kisses, "you'll be okay" "rub some dirt on it" kind of speech figuring it would just work itself out as he got back to playing.  But that didn't seem to clear up the later it got.  I do believe that I took it seriously just not to the point of thinking a Dr needed to be called in on this yet. So I picked up the sitter, headed to the office and explained the dilema to Greg that night when he called. Of course Brian had already given him the blow by blow description to dad when he came home.  He was still limping on it.

The next morning, I call the pediatrician.. do you remember we know her by Janet in this month of never ending stuff.. holy cow.. nothing has changed with the above mentioned story. Still have one in a body cast, one with his nose stitched up, how I dare I go out in public with them is a question we asked ourselves quite often and without witnesses other than myself or the kids CPS mght have been brought in.  

After the at home schooling tutor had left for Ashley to finish school year at home,  it was time for a morning trip to the pediatrician to look at the right foot of Brian.



Yep, this is where it ended up, a green stick fracture of his middle two toes.  Basically in someone his size the bone didn't break just bent from the pressure of what appears to be a jump into the ball pit at Burger King (short on balls to support a child against the cross support bars).  4 weeks or so in this brightly colored cast of his choosing the color was the prognosis..

Now I think we will just stay at home and color in coloring books, so as to not make a scene with the staring we drew the attention of..

Okay, whew.. thanks for reading.. glad they eventually did grow out of this stage, but there are plenty of blog material left in those pictures..

I'm gonna need kleenex for this...

My new office was intentionally setup to start a long term project of scanning photos that are in ABUNDANCE in too many containers to keep remembering the # of them... probably why I don't print pictures to often in the last 10 years as I just store them on a disc or flash drive..  So I/We decided to put them into use by giving them to the kids onto something like a 500GB storage drive.. then they have them, print what they might ever want..

I love taking pictures, especially now that my memory sucks at what year things took place.. and I am finding that I was HORRIBLE at writing on the pictures or even the paper envelope they came in what and when they were taking.. So they are going to get at best my guessing what AGE the youngest looked in the photo..  Sorry kids, best I can do.

So bought this Epson Perfection V300 Photo scanner for a great price of $99 at a Samy's camera in Costa Mesa.. got it all installed, setup, tested a couple of photos and did a couple of test scans to see if I knew what the heck I was doing.  Nice setup..

Then, I did one of Ashley June 9, 1985 of her with my grandpa, her great grandpa Howard Cook, and the tears start falling.. He was a fun loving, easy going guy, and all Ashley will have of a memory will come from a few pictures that she will have as I pass them on. He died 14 months after she was born after having a stroke and emphysema complications... The tears are still falling as I write this, I've missed him.

I'm going to need to add a box of kleenex to my desk, this might be harder than I thought..