Quilty things and a bonus baby photo

You may remember that last July when I went to Long Beach with my friend Lynda for a quilting "getaway" I worked on 4 baby quilt tops. I finally got them back from the longarm quilter and last Saturday I got them labeled and bound. These are baby gifts (some LONG overdue), including one for my sweet Sadie. I got them out in the mail to the various recipients on Monday and heard today that Sadie already received hers! Here are the photos - I made two of each colorway but I only photographed one example of each. And I'm posting a picture of Sadie because she is so stinkin cute and because I love the photo.

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N!!

So our long awaited, much needed break finally came! Martin and I took off on Saturday the 16th at about 2 in the morning from LAX and flew first to San Salvador, El Salvador. From there we got on a plane headed for Roatán, Honduras. Roatán is one of several Bay Islands located on the second largest reef in the world (second only to The Great Barrier Reef.) As we approached the island, the pilot informed us that the airport on Roatán was closed due to weather and so we were diverted to La Cieba on the Honduras mainland. We were there only about 45 minutes before we were back in the air for the last 15 minute leg of our travels. That diversion turned out to be a foreshadowing of the rest of our trip.




We were met at the airport by Juan Carlos, who turned out to be a friendly and knowledgeable tour guide. He took us to West Bay Lodge, where we were warmly greeted by our hosts Celeste and Milos who quickly showed us to the bungalow that we would call home for a week. West Bay Lodge has a great palapa where they served us a delicious breakfast every morning, and where we even had gourmet baleadas and lobster fajitas for a few of our other meals! The 7 parrots who live at West Bay Lodge were always more than willing to help us eat our breakfasts!


West Bay Lodge, our bungalow upper right!

Malibu the parrot helped herself to my juice!

Saturday was mostly spent catching up on lost sleep, getting acclimated and staying dry! Sunday morning we were met by Juan Carlos for a day of island touring! Roatán has a fairly complex history. It is about 37 miles long and about 5 miles wide. Like most of the Caribbean islands, it was discovered by Christopher Columbus.




Originally the island was populated by an indigenous tribe related to the Mayans. None of the indigenous people have survived due to slave raids and disease. The usual European powers (British, French and Spanish) were involved in its history over the years, and the island has a fairly rich history as a safe harbor for pirates and buccaneers. In 1797 the English deported Black Caribs (aka Garifuna) to Roatán from other Caribbean Islands. A portion of that population has remained on Roatán at Punta Gorda.



This young boy was captain of his refrigerator.

Punta Gorda

Much of the rest of the population came from the Caymans, and of course in more recent years, from mainland Honduras of which it has been a part since the 1860s. Because of this history English is as much its native language as Spanish is. Over the years, a fairly large expatriate population has grown up there and will likely continue to grow.



Coxen Hole, capital of Roatan



Juan Carlos took us all over the island, showing us the sights including shipwrecks we could see from the land, colorful houses, people congregating with their neighbors and families, walking to church (a very substantial Seventh Day Adventist population), the ubiquitous island dogs, spectacular views, "iron beaches" (basically coral that has become part of the land),



Iron Beaches.


and a special water taxi ride through the mangroves
Emeril, captain of this fine water taxi
the mangroves!

and for a special BBQ lunch at a place called The Hole In The Wall. The Hole in the Wall is owned by an expat named Bob Lee. Bob has lived on the island for 20 years and built his "restaurant" (and I use that term loosely) over the site of his sunken catamaran. He serves only lunch, all you can eat sirloin from locally grown beef, and lobster tails. If you like cigars, he has a big bowl of them you are welcome to smoke for free. He has a big scarlet macaw named Abogado (lawyer). You can only get to his place by water taxi, but it's worth it. The food is delicious and how can you beat the ambiance of a place that is pretty much just a lean-to shack on an open deck on the water! According to Bob, all of his customers are tourists and expats. He asked us where we were from and when we said "Calabasas" he pointed to one of his walls where a family from Calabasas had signed their names just last month!

Martin and the proprietor of The Hole in the Wall


Very weirdly small world. Our tour ended around 4:30 and then Martin and I enjoyed a great visit to the Serenity Spa at West Bay Lodge - salt scrubs and aromatherapy massages. Yummy!







Over our week on the island we learned how to navigate the weather. When the wind starts to pick up, you've got about 30 minutes to find shelter before the rain starts coming down. And it pours. What you can't always know is how long it will rain. It may be for only a few minutes, or it may be for hours. We learned to really "make hay while the sunshines" and took every opportunity to get out of the bungalow and go play every time the weather lifted. We had a lot of opportunities to sleep, read, and lay around. We got a chance to snorkel a number of times - not as much as we would have liked. One of our snorkeling days was PERFECT! The water was calm, visibility was great, and we could not believe how absolutely beautiful the reef is. Truly the prettiest/healthiest reef we've ever seen with beautiful sponges, corals and sea fans. The fish life is abundant. We saw so many kinds of fish, even squid. On our last day on the island we went out and were so fortunate to see and swim with a hawksbill sea turtle.






One day we walked up the beach to Gumbalimba Park where we took a zip line canopy tour. The canopy tour was quite an experience, over 13 lines through the canopy. We saw black iguanas up in the trees and some pretty spectacular views. After the tour, we got a chance to visit the monkeys of Gumbalimba. Monkeys are not native to the island, but they are native to Honduras, including the capuchins. Gumbalimba keeps a troop of about 12 monkeys and while they are permitted to roam free, they stick to their territory and are rewarded for visiting with tourists. The park also keeps a sizable aviary including scarlet and military macaws. Scarlet macaws are the national bird of Honduras.
a black iguana sunning itself in the canopy.





We also took a day trip to Foster's West Bay Resort where we had a dolphin "encounter" and spent half an hour snorkeling with a big pod of dolphins. I had one dolphin come up to me and "gift" me a piece of seaweed; Martin had one grab his arm playfully. It was so cool.




We spent a day walking around the colorful little town of West End Village - the village is home to many dive shops, small hotels/lodges, restaurants, bars, grocery stores, and souvenir shops. This little town has a true Caribbean cool vibe with lots of young people - many we discovered have come to the island from the States to live and work for extended periods of time. The souvenir shops had lots of beautiful items made of mahogany but what appealed to be the most was the Lenca pottery. The Lencas are indigenous peoples of Honduras known for this beautiful and graphic pottery. I wanted to bring so much of it home but was limited to just a few small pieces that I could carry in my carry on luggage to bring home as gifts.

West End Village











Lenca pottery

We left the island Saturday afternoon, with Hurricane Richard trailing behind us. In spite of the weather, we fell in love with Roatán. The people are warm and genuine, the island is not over-developed and jaded, and yet not as primitive as Los Roques Venezuela. We had no problem understanding why so many expats have chosen this as a place to retire.

All in all it was a great vacation and I am so lucky to have a husband who planned it all and did such a fabulous job of it!

Conference Weekend and Sweet Reminders

Conference weekend has come and gone, but it was a great conference and one I'll be thinking about for awhile.

Last Friday was a really terrible day at work - I had so many patients who were not stable, one in fact who died that afternoon, plus a new admission and a couple of discharges - it was so stressful. I didn't sleep well that night which is not unusual for me when I've had a particularly "over-stimulating" work day, so Saturday morning found me tired and not particularly ready to turn on the television and watch conference. After breakfast I actually thought I would lay down and try getting some more sleep. As I laid there, I thought about how I had fallen into a pattern in my life that I sought to be busy all the time; staying busy keeps me from thinking about the things (and loved ones) that worry me. In fact, I think staying busy keeps me from thinking about much of anything at all. The weekends or otherwise "non-productive" hours feel depressing. Irritated at feeling sorry for myself and not able to nap, I turned on the TV to watch conference just as President Uchtdorf walked to the podium to deliver his conference message.

And that message was meant for me as surely as if President Uchtdorf was standing in my home talking directly to me. He talked about the dangers of being too busy and the importance of spending time developing relationships with God, with family, and with yourself. As I listened to him I knew that in my busy-ness I was avoiding myself and not spending enough time working on my relationship with the Lord. More importantly, his message was an incredible reminder that the Lord knows me so very well and knows exactly what I need. I am so grateful for that sweet reminder that He is my Father and loves me.

The "run" down

Maybe you noticed I changed the name of the blog. Oh, and I changed all the decor as well to match the new family photo (which if you are like me and read a blog through a reader, you don't get to see the "decor" anyway). I have no idea why I changed the name, I just felt like it. I find it a very odd thing to keep a blog anyway. I feel the same way about journals and I figure this is my equivalent of a journal. Why do I do it? I have no idea. LOL! But for the 3 people who actually read it (and likely look at Facebook, too) at least I have photos to share.

In a fit of insanity and not a little peer pressure from my lunatic friend Lynda, I participated in not one, but TWO, activities at Disneyland. The first was a 5K run (I didn't actually run, I just walked) and the second was a 1/2 Marathon (again, mostly I just walked . . . for 13 MILES!!!) Here are two pictures. You can see in the second one this is long after I have showered all the sweat off (what you can't see is the wheelchair I needed to get to this bridge - well okay, not really, but I was REALLY hobbling).




This next photo illustrates just exactly how you feel by the time you are at about mile 9:



You really, really appreciate all the people who take the time to stand out there and cheer you on: cheerleaders, high school bands, hula dancers, mariachi bands, spectators, neighborhood residents, police officers, etc. Many of them will call out your name (because it is printed in big letters across your front) and when you are at that stage of exhaustion and just going on pure willpower, it is very touching and motivating to be encouraged on by random strangers. I finished in 3 1/2 hours. And I doubt I would ever do it again! It took me 3 days and a vat of Bengay to recuperate. And many tolerant friends and family had to listen to quite a lot of whining afterward.

I'm still jumping through hoops with my research project. I heard today from the Kaiser regional nursing council that they approved my project (to now move on to Kaiser IRB for approval). The nice thing is that they really liked my project and want to hear back from me about my results. They also encouraged me to consider publishing the results. Right now I just want to get started on data collection which I can't do until I get Kaiser IRB and then GWU IRB approval. (I know that sounds like "blah,blah,blah" to all of you. That's what you get for reading this thing!)

Martin and I are planning a vacation in October. Actually Martin is doing all the planning. Looks like we are going to Roatan Honduras to do some awesome snorkeling! I can't wait.

And speaking of my sweetheart . . . he bought me an iPhone 4! And I already had a chance to "Face talk" with Andrew. Oh yeah, it's all about the babies.

That's it for now. Everyone is fine and we're hanging in there. We're all in this together.

Summer's End

This has been a summer of both joy and sorrow. Since last I wrote, a number of things have transpired in the Onken clan. First, at the beginning of August, our dear little Sadie was blessed. Both the Onkens and the Doolans were fortunate enough to have their entire family gather for this event (as well as Lindsey's baby Jonah's blessing). Skyler and Sarah flew in for the event and we had a lovely gathering at the Doolan's after the blessings. It also gave us an opportunity to have our Chelsea take some family photos.






The following week I left for a trip to Washington, DC for a reunion with some of my Rhein Main friends and also for an opportunity to meet with my professors at my university (George Washington University.) The good news there is that I really am in the last year of my program and am in the process of getting the necessary institutional permissions to conduct my research project. I'm hoping it is all pretty much "downhill" from here with graduation next May. I also spent some time in the museums while I was in DC - most notably the Holocaust Museum which is beautifully done but also very depressing/sobering. It is frightening to think how quickly totalitarianism and oppression of thought can occur in the wrong hands in a democratic and free society.

Then, all too quickly, Nick, Jamie and the babies left our home on August 16th to return to Boston for Nick's second year of optometry school It was really such a lovely few months having them here - not just the babies which were of course such a joy to have, but we so enjoyed Nick and Jamie's company and the opportunity to spend more time with them. I know they are happy to be back in their own place, but it sure seems lonely here without them.

The sad news is really about Chelsea and Trenton and the sorrow they are undergoing. As I hinted in my previous post, they found themselves expecting a baby, due January 24th (which happens to be my father's birthday.) Almost immediately, however, there were problems. The baby was diagnosed with a cystic hygroma which in turn led to further testing and a diagnosis of Turner's Syndrome. The odds were stacked against carrying the baby to term and yet we all remained hopeful and prayerful that we would be blessed with this tiny baby girl into our family. Unfortunately Heavenly Father had other plans. This past Thursday, after feeling no movement for two days, Chelsea went in and received the sad news that the baby's heart had stopped. Since she has not gone into spontaneous labor, she will go into the hospital this coming Wednesday (the 25th, the day before her 26th birthday) for a procedure to take the baby. If you are reading this, please take a moment to say a special prayer for her and for Trenton. In many ways we all see the hand of the Lord in what is happening, and know that he is aware of our needs. For that, we are all very grateful.

July already?

Yikes, time is sure flying fast. Here's a quick update on the goings on . . .

Nick, Jamie, Andrew and Sadie continue to be a joy to have here - lots of gooey hugs and kisses from the babies and both Nick and Jamie are very fun to have around. Nick has been helping Martin with various technical things at work and has been a great help to him.

Martin completed the purchase of another RV rental company down in Irvine called "First Choice." He's very excited about his expanded business. He's also branching out to booking some rentals out of San Francisco as an experiment.

Chelsea and Trenton have news as well . . . an event which will interfere with her plans for next spring's semester :) She's figuring things out in terms of her academic program - graduation in the fall vs. delaying her credential program . . . but they are both pretty excited.

Skyler and Sarah are enjoying Provo; Skyler's internship with the church actually turned into an extended temporary job with benefits and better pay. Fortunately his professors are letting him start next semester a few weeks late to accommodate this new development. I'm hoping they can come down here one more time for Sadie's blessing on August 1st before the end of the summer and before Nick and Jamie head back to Boston.

I spent 5 days in Phoenix at the end of June at a nurse practitioner conference - it was very informative and I was fortunate to run into a colleague who is in my program at GWU so we got an opportunity to compare notes and give each other moral support. I have a few weeks left of a summer class and then from here on out it should be strictly about working on my capstone project until next spring when I finally will be done! I am looking forward to going to the Long Beach International Quilt Festival at the end of July with my friend Lynda. We'll be camping out in a hotel suite sewing our little hearts out. It will be so nice to actually do some sewing again!