Positive Thoughts

Posted in Mom Life

Going into this month, I have a new perspective on how thing in the Ristine household are going to run. And all I have are positive thoughts going it. Don’t worry, there are no big changes for VRistine Photographer.

Just for my family. And we feel really good about!!

Aside from that, it was amazing to have one of sisters up here for the last two of March. I haven’t seen Angelica in almost four years. I loved every minute of it and so did my son. He kept yelling Auntie every time he wanted her.

While she was her we went to Pike Place, Funko HQ, The Tulip Fields, and the Woodland Park Zoo.

Of course we did other stuff like shopping, but we mostly just hung out with one another. Which is something you can never put a price tag on.

I was sad that she left at the end of March to go back home. But I am thankfully that I got to see her. And I know I will be seeing her again soon. 🙂

For now, I’ll be preparing for other relatives to come and visit.

As I stated in my last blog post my grandfather has very important surgery coming up on the 16th of this month.

And he’s going to need all the help he can get from family.

Family

Posted in Mom Life

Ah, yes, family.

These past few months I’ve been spending a lot time with family members.

For good reason too. I mean, don’t get me wrong my family is pretty awesome, but more then ever right now, we all need each other.

During the summer of last year my grandfather was diagnosed with throat cancer.

In September he started his treatments of chemo and radiation.

It went….

8 weeks of once a week for chemo.

And,

5 weeks of 5 days a week of radiation.

It was so hard on him.

I have never seen my grandfather like that.

As a photographer, I’ve seen many heart breaking pictures of people going through this. The pain, the agony, the heart ache of what the families go through breaks my heart and I start to cry.

Just from a picture.

This was so different. I just cried every day cause this was real life for me.

Not just some picture that I was looking at.

After his treatments were done and he was getting back to normal, he had to go through a few more test to see if the cancer had shrunk or disappeared. In the fall close to winter of last year, he found out that is shrunk to a 4.1 to 3.9. But it was still there. It wasn’t gone.

So they gave him the option of surgery.

If he doesn’t do the surgery, he has so many years to live and the cancer could come back.

Or, he can do the surgery and have a certain percentage of living a longer life.

(Has his oldest granddaughter, this is hard on me cause I lost one grandfather already and I don’t want to loose my only grandfather)

As of the last few months, my grandfather has decided to do the surgery.

I was informed by him that it could go one or two ways when he goes in.

1- they could cut his stomach to see if they could use the lining of it for his throat. If so, then they will proceed with repairing his throat.

2- they could cut into his stomach and if they can’t use the lining of it, they’ll close him up and send him home.

You can see why I’m choosing to spend time with family now.

April 16th will be here before I know it.

I used to celebrate it cause that’s mine and my husbands dating anniversary.

Now, it’s a date that I hope has the best out come for my grandfather.

As the date nears, and even after the surgery date, I will be having family members come and visiting him.

It will take a few months for him to recover. And thankfully he has all of us

here to help him with that.

We love you grandpa, and we want nothing but the best for ya!!!

Not the best picture of me, but I don’t care. This was before all of my grandfather treatments.

 

 

The Past is The Past

Posted in Mom Life

Ya, I stole that from the Lion King. Hey it’s a great movie. I loved it as a kid. And I still love it as an adult. Heck even my son loves and he’s only two. The scary thing is, well my husband thinks it is, I still know all the words and songs to the movie!! Ya, I’m a Disney kid at heart.

But with that being said, this blog post has been hard to type.

Just last year I found out that the land my child hood home was on, along with many other things, was sold for housing development. Now, I can say the past is in the past and the home has no memory to me. It’s just a home.

Well, I would lying if  I said that.

That home was every thing to me.

I grew up riding my bike up and down the long stretch of road. Or even rollerblading. It’s were I spent hours mastering my art skills in drawing.

It’s also where I meant my four best friends. And having one of them directly across the street from me.

That house made me the person that I’m today. The good and all the crappy bad that went with it.

It was very heart breaking to hear.

Well…….

Just this month my best friend post photos of the house torn down. Her family, who were like my second family, were the last people to own it. Sadly, they couldn’t get enough founds to move the home to a different lot. So, it was left there. To be torn down by the construction workers.

(Side note, my second family found a permanent place to stay. I’m thankful that they were able to do that.)

When I saw her photos, I was in disbelief. Like, no way that happened!!

I had to see it for my self.

So, after my twin nephews birthday, I drove over there.

Parked the car were I used to stand and wait for the bus every morning and saw it all gone with my own eyes.

I was heart broken, cause my son will never know what my old house used to look like. Or the adventures that I had in this area.

I do have pictures, some, from when I was very young of the house. And I have all the memories that made up my childhood from that house as well.

For now, I will patiently wait to see what type of housing development that they are going to put there.

Lake Stevens is a growing community, hopefully they don’t run out of room for everyone.

Side note: I didn’t have my camera with me. I only had my cell phone. So the picture quality isn’t all that great.

The Start of My New Year

Posted in Mom Life

 

I can’t believe that January is almost over!!! I feel like I need another week to just catch a breath from this month alone.

At the beginning of the year, I made it a personal goal to work out more. Just so I could have more energy to play with my son. Well, I was going strong for a week or so, and then my son got sick. And then there is the flu that is going around like crazy. And people at the gym don’t know how to rest when they are sick.

(Not saying everyone does this, but the gym I go to, I feel like people just don’t care about their germs and their sickness.) So I went less to make sure that not only I don’t catch it, but my family doesn’t as well.

I did take some family time and spent it with my father in law at his place. My son loves to explore there!! He’s two, so it’s a perfect place for him to get all his energy out.

(Below I posted some photos of him just being his two year old self.)

Can’t wait for this summer so he can explore even more.

I’m excited for next month!! So much is going on. Tons of birthdays are coming, valentines day, and a few friends are adding new members to their growing families.

Lets hope I can also get back on track on going to the gym more.

But, we’ll see how the next month plays out.

Cause you never know what could happen with a two year old.

 

Ringing the New Year!!!

Posted in Mom Life

What a year it has been for us!!

So much has happened for us this year. It’s hard to just talk about just one thing. But I do have a few I would love to share with you all.

This year, we celebrated a year of being home owners. It may not seem like much to most, but to us, it’s huge!! It’s something  that we both worked hard for to get. And being in a permanent spot with out having to resign another lease is something I see worth celebrating!!

I have so many ideas for our place, my head might exploded. You can blame HGTV. That channel with all it’s home remodeling shows gives me too many ideas for my town home. My poor husband can’t keep up with all my crazy ideas.

At lest I’m not trying to knock out a wall in our house any time soon.

This year I also went back to work for a bit.

YES, I went back out into the world and found a job.

I worked for a wonderful company called Dream Dinners.

Before you ask me about it, I will provide a link to their website.

www.dreamdinners.com

It’s amazing!! And the staff is incredible as well!!

I went back to work to help out my family. Cause we had just bought our house the year before and money was very tight for a family of three.

When I found this job, I had no clue what this company was about. But soon after working there for a month, it was clear that their mission is to grow great kids by bringing home made meals back to the dinner table.

I loved, and still do, everything they stood for. And, to top it off, I worked with some wonderful women. They are very empowering and encouraging . It was also nice to hear other mothers stories of their crazy little one(s) Letting me know that, I’m not alone in the mother hood world.

Sadly, I had to leave at the end of October due to some very bad shoulder pain. It was causing my left hand to go numb and making it hard to work.

I will say I cried when I gave my notice. It was very hard for me to leave cause the staff and the team behind dream dinners is incredible.

But, I have to get better. And that’s what I’m working at the moment.

Lastly, I started an etsy shop this year as well. As one of my sister in laws says, I wear many hates. It’s hard not to be so creative!!

My shop is called Wolf and Fox Design.

I do wood burning and t-shirt designs.

It first started out with wood burning. Something that I stumbled upon a couple of years ago and I just fell in love with it. It takes a lot of patience to wood burn. It’s not something you can hurry up and do. It takes time. And I think that’s why I love it.

I just recently added the t-shirts to the shop. I love designing new things and having people show casing my work in their homes.

As 2017 approaches the end, I’ll take in all the good and bad that came with it and learn from it.

It’s what going to help me grow even more for the new year.

I’m excited to see what 2018 will bring not only me, but my family as well.

Looking forward to a more healthy and adventures new year!!

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