Author Archives: Carolyn

Doug and I feel profoundly lucky to have been able to experience the joy of another grandchild.  Grandparents out there – you know.  You know the joy and excitement; the wonder of a new life that is connected to you; the sharing of more love; watching your children grow and expand to handle their new responsibility.  You know.  But you also know the worry that creeps in.  The fear.  This tiny life is so fragile. And the world has so many pitfalls and dangers.

So, we opened our hearts and tightly tucked in the love of our new Beckham Daniel Tucker.  He was born at 10:15 pm on Friday, September 11, 2020.  Julie’s water broke before 6 am that morning.  Her previous births were fast so we moved quickly after we  got the call, jumped out of bed, threw on our clothes, grabbed our already packed bags and drove carefully but as fast as possible the 40 minutes to her house.  Julie and Jake were calmly waiting.   No contractions – but they left for the hospital anyway.  With fires everywhere, we were all concerned about detours and strange traffic patterns. 

Paisley and Griffin got up about an hour later and greeted us with smiles and no worries that their parents were gone.  Jake and Julie had prepared them well.  We went through their usual routine:  a few hours of pre-school, playtime, meals, a nice nap and then bedtime – a little too much playing and talking before they finally fell asleep but no tears, so it was good.

Beckham was taking a long time to arrive, but all seemed well.  Finally, he was born.  It took another hour or more for photos.  Skin time with Mommy and Baby was much more important.  And then the photo of the sweetest butt we have ever seen.

A few more hours and we heard that Julie and Beckham had had their final test, and both had good blood sugars.  Julie could eat normally again; and Beckham was a very healthy 8 pounds 1 ounce and about 21 inches long.  They settled in for hours of much interrupted hospital “non-sleep” and convinced the nursing staff to let them go home as soon as possible. They left the hospital a little before 10 pm on Saturday night. 

Beckham has round chubby cheeks; a little bit of dark hair; a perfect baby face and body.  Oh, he is adorable and very chill.  But, you know, they are always chill in the hospital.  They are chill for a day or two when they come home and then they get all charged up and start to really be the babies they are going to be for months to come.  We don’t know yet the personality, the quirks of this baby.  We just know how cute and cuddly he is.

Paisley and Griffin greeted him the next morning.  They were both a little shy at first but warmed up after a few hours.  Rosie, their neurotic dog, who had been wandering around the house for two days looking for Julie, saw them come in with another baby!  Oh no, she thought, more trouble!  Paisley is sweet with Rosie.  Griffin loves her – a little too hard.  And now another little guy.  Poor Rosie.

So here we are with our seventh grandchild.  Our fifth grandson.  Our lucky number seven.

This child needs to be lucky.  He needs to get all the blessings we can pile on him.  He is blessed to be welcomed into a loving home with two wonderful parents, a sweet older sister, an active fun older brother.  Grandparents, Great-Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Friends – a whole bunch of very loving people surrounding him. But this child, all children born now, need more than the usual amount of blessings.

A LOVE LETTER TO BECKHAM FROM HIS NANA:

This child was born on September 11^th.  A day of remembrance, of sadness, of the memories of fear.  He comes on this day, but he represents the world after 9/11.  For him, please, let the horror of that day be some foggy knowledge that is the underpinnings of the spirit of America that lived in the days that followed – patriotism and pride and hope.

This child was born during the worst pandemic this world has seen.  Even his hospital experience was unique.  He won’t be meeting most of his family for a long time.  Photos taken during the days before and after his birth will feature masked people.  Headlines on the day he was born speak of death by COVID.  For him, please, let his life be about health.

This child was born while we gather and protest so that Black Lives Matter.  And WHEN Black Lives Matter, we will make sure all lives matter.  For him, please, let this unrest bring the equality our country has always professed to have.  For him, let it be.

This child was born during the most divisive period in our nation’s history.  Our nation is suffering under the worst leadership crisis it has ever had. We are seeing the evil side of humanity on the news every day. Beckham will only be about 7 weeks old on Election Day.  For him, get out and vote for love, not hate.  Vote for all those little children who will have to live with the consequences of OUR actions.  VOTE!

This child was born during an economic downfall.  Life ahead of him will be affected every day because of this mess.  For him, let’s do what we can to bring strength back into our economy.

This child was born while our Home, Our Planet, Our Earth, is suffering from neglect and apathy.  For him, and all his playmates and all the children of the world, let’s get off our asses, and work hard to fix the problems we have caused.  For him, climate change will not be a future problem.  For him, it’s now. 

This child was born while the whole west coast was in flames.  Wildfires are all over his home state of Oregon.  We read that the air quality in the Portland, Oregon area is THE WORSE IT HAS EVER BEEN.  This child cannot go outside.  His new lungs are not allowed to breathe the ash-infused atmosphere.  He won’t see or feel the sun or a breath of fresh air for a while.  Nana can’t push him around the block in his stroller!  He is lucky he lives in a comfortable, beautiful home with plenty of love and attention, but this tiny guy is missing out on the world!  For him, please, let the rains come; let the fires die out; let the forests heal; let the air clear.  For him, let him breathe.

Beckham is a blessing to all of us.  To him, and all the little lives entering the world now:  Hang in there! You are not alone.  We love you.  We will be your champions, your superheroes.  We, your loving grandparents, and the whole collection of relatives and friends will be there for you.  We have screwed things up but it’s not over yet and we are not done yet. 

Your life is going to be wonderful. Your birth year of 2020 is already being denigrated as the worst year ever. Let it be your worst year. Get the worst over with right away.

Beckham, your tiny body is the promise to all of us that Love will keep us together and Love will overcome hate and Love is all there is.

For you, Beckham, all our love, our prayers and our hope. For you, little darling, Nana’s heart is overflowing with love!

Time has just flown by – Paisley and Griffin keep us hopping.  They greet us every morning with incredible enthusiasm; jumping up and down and lots of noise – even though we usually were there the night before.  Julie has started her home pre-school.  Right now, it has just Paisley and Griffin for students, but after the baby comes, her friend’s children will be joining.  I serve as Teacher Aide Nana while Doug does double duty as Grandpa Lunch Lady and Janitor.  The children have already adjusted to their new routine.  Learning and activities meld with some playtime.  We all enjoy school!

Jake thought the baby was coming on September 8^th; I think maybe today September 10^th.  Doug says maybe tomorrow – Friday.  Of course, the baby will come when he wants to.  Julie has had a tough pregnancy primarily complicated by COVID and now the wildfires have made the air quality so bad the kids can’t play outside.  Everything seems harder.  So, in some manner she wants Beckham to come but there is still an underlying worry that she is bringing a newborn into a pandemic.  How scary is that?  But she and the baby are doing well, and we are confident that soon we will be cuddling another sweet one.

We are keeping as safe as possible – doing grocery pick-up instead of going in the store.  Wow, I am horrible at this.  Apparently, I am a visual shopper.  I need to see the items and touch them – I try but every trip I miss something.  And because we are at Julie’s most days, I find that even with the greatest effort on my part whatever I’m trying to make for a meal is lacking an important ingredient that is at the RV or vice versa.  My confidence in being able to produce meals for my family is waning. 

We did manage to have a small socially distant, mask-wearing family gathering in Julie’s backyard.  To keep everyone safe, I made everything in individual portions in cups.  We gave everyone an aluminum tray and they went around the table and picked up their food – little tacos, tiny pizzas, deli wraps, cream cheese swirls, and s’mores, brownies, pineapple cake and strawberry short cakes.  It was great to see everyone and the food turned out to be a bit hit.  Jake and Julie have decided not to have their usual welcoming party for the new baby so this will be the last family interaction for a while.

Julie’s friends hosted a “Sprinkle” for her – a small, intimate “baby shower” with six attendees.  I felt lucky to be with her and meeting her friends was wonderful.  What amazing young women, coping with raising children during this difficult time.  Their struggles are hard, but they manage to come up with creative solutions to give their children a good life even in a weird time.

We had a small 98th birthday party for Doug’s dad. We stopped by in the afternoon and Doug’s sister stopped by later. We spent some precious time with him. We also celebrated our 33rd anniversary COVID style with a car picnic!

We have been getting out on some adventures about once a week – walks in the woods, a morning at the river beach, picnic lunches at Champoeg State Park and a few other places. Lots of neighborhood walks and scootering. Jake works from home most of the time with occasional meetings at school so we can mostly all be together. We are all enjoying this time and know that we are lucky to be able to do this.

Griffin eats a lot of goldfish crackers and Paisley loves unicorns and tutus.  We play with kinetic sand and magnatiles.  We paint, color and create with play-doh.  It’s a beautiful life!

Our next post will announce the birth of the baby!

We are in a 14-day quarantine to make sure we are not carrying coronavirus to our daughter Julie’s family.  We were careful traveling here, but we expect to be integrating with them until after her baby is born in September, so we are taking no chances.

This is going to be a short blog.  Our daily routines are boring.  We sleep as long as we want, we eventually get up, shower and dress.  I usually make breakfast but sometimes Doug comes up with something special.  Lunch is a sandwich of some kind.  I try to devise good dinners but more often than not, it’s just something I pull out of the freezer and heat up.  Our newest innovation is that when I cook dinner, Doug has to pick out something for dessert.  We buy a lot of pudding cups and other things that are portioned-controlled so Doug just has to make a decision between a couple of pre-packaged choices.  There are usually moments of snacking and we reach for something simple – sweet or salty does the trick. 

I wash clothes by hand about every other day in order to keep up – the loads are tiny.  We both clean up the RV when we see a mess.  This is such a clean site that we don’t track in much dirt or grass so our floor is pretty clean. 

Doug fixes things.  As I am writing this, Doug is once again blasting out a clog in our kitchen sink.  No matter how careful we are with washing dishes, we seem to get clogs on a regular basis.  Doug also fixes things like my OverDrive Account, his old phone, the lift over the RV engine, and all the things that happen in our everyday life.

I have lots of crafts projects to keep me busy.  I just finished a christening outfit for Beckham and I am working on matching vests for the other two grandchildren.  I have starting crafting textile blocks for the Violet Project – an art project designed to show bipartisanship.  Look it up – it’s really cool.

We are both working on projects for Kartchner Caverns.  We are collaborating on an information/newsletter for staff and volunteers and are just waiting for final approval.  Doug has some computer projects and I am helping with the Adopt-A-Bat program.

There is still plenty of empty time which we fill with tv, naps, and checking our phones.  One day we watched a sappy Christmas-in-July Hallmark movie, The Birds, and some shark attack videos because it’s Shark Month.

It’s a quiet time for us.  We are trying to embrace the serenity of this simple life.  We know that once our two weeks are over, we jump right into the chaos of busy family life.  Paisley and Griffin are already planning things for us to do and adventures for us to go on.  Julie and Jake have a few house projects for us.  By September, we will be exhausted.  But we can’t wait to hug them all and see our new grandchild!

The drive from Zion River RV Resort to Las Vegas, with a quick interlude in Arizona, was spectacularly scenic but a little scary.  Driving through the gorge, along the mountain road, with lots of construction, was tense.  Doug did fine; I white-knuckled it for a while.

Once we got into Nevada and near Las Vegas, we reminisced about our first drive here three years ago.  That trip was Doug’s first time driving our RV.  We took possession of our new home at Whiskey Pete’s Casino and suddenly it was ours and Doug had to figure out how to drive it.  We took a few turns around the huge parking lot and Doug took a deep breath and went out on to the streets.  Doug had carefully planned this first trip – with minimal turns and a well-thought-out route that avoided potential problems.  But as we got into traffic, our GPS decided on another route – one that went through the airport, down busy rush-hour traffic streets with lots of lights and many more turns than he had anticipated. It was too crazy to fool around with the GPS unit to reset it, so we just went along with it.  It is all a blur to me – but somehow Doug had the courage to keep going until we arrived at the Las Vegas RV Campground.

And here we are again!  It’s a very nice park with a mix of transients like us and permanent residents.  We are close to only two off-the-beaten-track casinos so it’s quiet around here.  The facilities in this park are nice and a good place to get some laundry done and relax a bit.

LAS VEGAS STRIP

But we didn’t relax our first day!  My phone pedometer shows over 7.5 miles walking.   And that was all done on the famous Las Vegas Strip.  We took advantage of the free parking at Circus Circus and walked down the Strip.  It was very hot and very sunny, but we persevered.  To cool off a little, we went in and out of a few of the big casinos:  Circus Circus, Treasure Island, The Mirage, The Bellagio, The Venetian.  We spent the whole long afternoon on the Strip and never bothered to gamble at all.  This time we didn’t even sign up for a Players Card.  We like to see the different themes in each of the casinos but the shops inside them are the same.  And as far as restaurants go – like “Alice’s Restaurant” – “you can get anything you want”. 

We keep remembering the time we were here with Amy and Julie.  Poor Julie had just broken her arm and it was in a cast.  We were in Las Vegas in July, camping in our pop-up trailer without air conditioning.  Our campsite was in the asphalt parking lot of Circus Circus.  It would have been nice to go in the casino pool, but with Julie’s cast keeping her out, the rest of us passed on the pool too.  My memories of that trip were of long, hot days walking, walking along the Strip.

I did a little “gambling” on that trip.  Before my father was too sick to travel, my brother Mike and his wife Theresa took Dad and Mom to MGM Grand in Las Vegas.  My father was a gambler who knew “when to hold them and when to fold them”.  He was always getting great comps in Atlantic City.  I don’t remember how well the gambling went at MGM Grand, but I do remember how much he loved that trip.  So, when Doug and Amy and Julie and I were in Vegas (my first time), we solemnly visited MGM Grand where I took a twenty-dollar bill, cashed it into quarters and sat at slot machine.  I spoke to my Dad and asked him not to yell at me for playing the slots, which he had taught me have the worst odds.  I told him I was too intimidated to play blackjack.  Besides, I saw the whole adventure as donating the $20 to MGM Grand in his memory.  I lost those quarters quickly, but it was a nice time feeling my Dad nearby.

FREMONT STREET EXPERIENCE

After a day off to hang out, do laundry and work on my sewing project, we went to the Fremont Street Experience.  This is a whole different part of Las Vegas.  Fremont Street is closed to cars and has an enormous arched ceiling over it – the world’s largest video screen.  We started our evening with dinner at an all-you-can-eat buffet in the Main Street Casino.  We ate and ate and then walked over to Fremont Street to see the light show on the arched ceiling and gawk at the other show – the people hanging out doing their thing – “nuns” swinging their breasts, body builders dancing, a guy playing drums on plastic buckets, a saxophonist, dancing girls in feathers and not much else, a “Red Cross Worker” with small red crosses on her breasts, plenty of people claiming to be veterans, or disabled firefighters, or homeless – who try to sell you sweet grass flowers – you get the picture.  Anything goes on this street.  We watched the light show complete with blaring music and folks ziplining the length of the ceiling.  We stopped at Container Park and watched and listened to the Giant Mantis who blasts fire from her antennas.  After we walked off some of our dinner, saw enough blinking lights and heard enough loud music, we walked back to our car and went home to crash.  Las Vegas is fun but we like it in small doses.

We left the excitement of Las Vegas and drove across a desolate landscape of sage and sand to get to our next destination – Needles, California.  We only spent two nights at a very quiet KOA.  The air is so still there you rarely see the oleander leaves move even a tiny bit. 

Then we drove to Blackrock, Arizona.  Back in the desert and smelling the clear air of a desert night makes us feel right at home.  We were in Blackrock for two nights.  Then it was off to our favorite state park in the country:  Picacho Peak!

Olde Stone Village in McMinnville is a beautiful RV community with a neighborhood of pretty manufactured homes surrounding the large transient rigs.  We had stayed in this park two years ago and it proved to be a good base for us to visit our family in the Portland area.  It still was a 45-minute drive to any and all of them but there are few campgrounds near Portland so this one works for us.

On our first night in Olde Stone Village, we were thrilled to have our daughter Julie and her husband Jake, and our two grandchildren, Paisley and Griffin come for dinner.  Our little ones love our “bus” and get very comfortable, very quickly in our small home. 

We spent lots of time with Julie and her family doing all kinds of special things – buying Griffin an Elephant at Build-A-Bear and Paisley a Unicorn Dress at Washington Square Mall; a morning of excitement at Oaks Park Amusement Park, a babysitting/sleepover, lots of visits to our RV and it’s toddler-friendly playground; lots of time at other playgrounds, a wet and sandy day at Road’s End Beach; a great time visiting the animals at the Portland Zoo, especially Samuda the Elephant in the pool; a trip to the library where we loaded up on more books to read – mostly with elephants or unicorns in them.  In between we hung out at Julie’s playing with toys and trying to cuddle these active little ones.

We loved spending time with Doug’s Dad.  We hosted a family birthday party for his 97^th birthday party – lots of good food from Olive Garden and cakes from Nothing Bundt Cakes and best of all, plenty of loving family around to celebrate with. 

We got to see almost all the family in a very busy three weeks.  It is always nice for us to have folks visit our home, especially since I love cooking for them.  Our nice site in Olde Stone Village made it easy to entertain more family members:  Jenn, Trekker, Odyssey, Bev, Barry, Grace, Sammy, and Bekkah.  There were lots of good meals in local restaurants too.

We even fit in a 2-night stay in Eugene where we had our damaged windshield replaced on our RV.  Somewhere in Georgia we started to notice a tiny crack on the passenger side that grew to almost 12 inches over a few days.  Doug tried to have it fixed in a few places along our route but their schedule and ours didn’t work out and we weren’t too happy about the repair techniques. 

After much research, we went to RV Glass Solutions to replace our cracked windshield.  There we received excellent customer service and most importantly the technical expertise we were looking for.  Their service techs took great care of our rig and we stayed in a very convenient lounge during the day where we had a kitchen, comfy couches, TV, tables, patio, restrooms and friendly staff.  The first night we slept in our motorhome outside the service bay – no slides out.  That means it’s a little tight inside, but in our rig, we can still use everything – bathroom, galley, couch, dining table and bed – just in much smaller quarters.  On the second night, we were in an electric site on the side of their parking lot – slides out this time.  It turned out to be a pleasant interlude and we were glad to have a shiny new crack-free windshield.

It’s always great to be in this area to see these wonderful people and that makes it even harder to leave.  But our journey continues.  We left Olde Stone Village on September 1^st for a long but scenic ride to Umatilla Marina and RV Park.  We will never tire of the Columbia River Gorge – and the spectacular views along the way.  We got a little extra time with Julie and family as they stopped at our RV on their way back from their family reunion camping trip.  One more lunch together and last kisses.

Time to move on.  Missing them all already but looking forward to new and interesting travels.