Summer has started out as a season of change

So many things have changed for us in the last month or so, I can hardly keep track. Some have been exciting, others have been sad and all have been quite stressful at some point. Here is a rundown of some of the happenings as of lately.

May 30th my little sisters, Alli and Lexi turned 21. This event was exciting for the twins and maybe a little sad for me because when I went to buy them a nice bottle of wine the cashier didn’t even look like he was considering carding me. I was a bit surprised, maybe it is because I am used to Pullman where they card everyone. Either way, I didn’t like it because I felt very old all the sudden.

Another thing that happened that day, was Dusty’s mom passed away. It wasn’t exactly expected, but with all of Debbie’s health conditions not much surprised people. For about a month she had been having massive amounts of pain because of torn tendons, muscles and rotator cuff in her shoulder. The night before she passed away, she started having more pain in her leg as well, likely from a broken bone. The stress on her body was incredible and her breathing, which already was labored from lung issues, began to become even worse than normal. In the morning it had gotten so bad that she could not even talk. At that point Dusty’s dad Tim called for the ambulance. Once at the hospital, they put her on straight oxygen and tried to get her hydrated. This was difficult because her veins didn’t take well so it was tough to get an IV line started. Once they had her somewhat stabilized she was able to talk a little and seemed to be in less pain. The nurse took Debbie to get some x-rays to check what was going on with her leg and lungs. Shortly after she returned to the room from x-ray, Debbie began to have serious breathing problems. Because Debbie had a DNR order in place there was not much anyone could do at that point. The doctors said it was probable she had blood clot move from the injured shoulder into the lungs making it so she just could not get any air. Although this has been a HUGE change, especially for Dusty, it is also a comfort to know that she is in a better place and is not hurting like she was right before she died.

May 31st was our two year anniversary! This was definitely exciting, but given everything else going on we decided to wait and celebrate sometime after life slows down a little bit. If that ever happens, I will write another post in the future about what we decide to do.

June 1st Dusty and I headed back to Pullman so I could teach and try to get my class ready for the end of the year. I ended up using most of my time after school Tuesday and Wednesday writing sub plans so that I could take a Thursday and Friday off to help get things ready for the funeral.

June 3rd we went back to Spokane to help with arrangements and getting everything organized. Our parts in this included scanning old pictures and creating a slide show, printing pictures for memory display boards, putting together a playlist of Debbie’s favorite songs, and arranging bouquets of flowers to be used on the tables during dinner at the farm following the funeral .

June 7th Early Monday we drove back to Pullman for the last time (for a while anyways) to finish up my very last week as a teacher in Pullman. The week was so busy! Thankfully Dusty was a huge help, I don’t think I would have gotten everything done without him, since the week/weekend previous had gone so crazy, I was running a bit behind. During this week (in addition to packing up the rest of things in our apartment) I had to get my end of year assessments all graded, and everything put into grade book format so I could use it to fill in the students report cards. Once that part was done I had to inventory things in my room and get it all cleaned out for summer. Wednesday night we had a great dinner at sangria with some of our small group friends.


June 10th was the last day of school. It was so much fun but I will surely miss my class and fellow teachers in Pullman. After school was out for the day we went to a get together at my master teacher’s house to celebrate the end of the year. It was a tough day for me packing up the last of my school things and saying goodbye to all the friends I had made in the last two years teaching at Jefferson. Later that evening Dusty and I started cleaning our apartment hardcore. We had some wonderful friends come a help us out for a bit. Dusty and I cleaned late into the night and got up to start again Friday morning.

June 11th we finished up the last little bit of cleaning and packing in our apartment. Our land lords came over to check the place in the afternoon. We were glad to see they were pleased with our cleaning job, and even happier that we got our whole deposit back. Most rental places in Pullman people are not so lucky. On that note we loaded the truck and car and hit the road.

June 12th originally we had planned to go to the Combine Derby in Lind. However, many of our friends that we had made tentative plans to meet there ended up not being able to go for one reason or another. Dusty and I talked about it and realized that although we like the Derby we were mostly going to visit with friends. We skipped the stop in Lind and went straight to Prosser to pick up my new puppy, Moosey. Once we had her we drove back towards the Tri-Cities to eat dinner at our friends Grant and Andrea’s house. They have a cute little dog named Milo, who is just a little smaller than my puppy. I am very glad Milo was such a good host to Moosey by giving her the full tour of the yard, about ten times at top speed. This made for a very sleepy puppy on the ride back to Spokane.

June 13th LET THE UNPACKING BEGIN! We started to sort things out and arrange stuff into the single wide where we will be living for… awhile. We jokingly call it the “tin box.” I wish I could report that we got it all done in one day but that is far from the truth. After high school Dusty lived in the tin box while he was home for summers and there is plenty of stuff that was in the tin box prior to Dusty even moving in, we each had our own fully furnished apartments in college, then we got a bunch of new stuff from our wedding for our apartment together, don’t forget about some of our “growing up” stuff that we can’t seem to part with anytime soon…. So basically we have stuff and things coming out of our ears! Lucky for us the farm house has a big basement Tim is letting us fill up, for now.


June 14th Dusty started work and the crew is busy cutting hay already... so it can get rained on of course, ugh! I am hoping to get going on our garden soon. We sort of put it on hold when things got so busy, and now it is a bit muddy. I am very much looking forward to not having a job this summer and being able to try and catch up on some of the projects on our infinite to-do list.... but who can get anything done with this little furball around, I just want to watch her and take pictures of all the cute things she does!