Life as a Cleveland: Puzzles

Showing posts with label Puzzles. Show all posts

Life is to SHORT

CJ 2009

Five years ago this October we meet our neighbors Laurie and Andrew, and Laurie's 13 year old niece Ciera Jolien (CJ). She immediately became a part of our lives. She came to visit often, and we loved having her come over. I taught her how to cook, make Kool-aid, and even how to do her math, and I enjoyed every minute of it. She started calling Josh and I mom and dad, and at first I asked her not to because I didn't want to step on her own parents toes. However, with time it was very enduring and made us realize the impact we had on her life (and she had on ours). As we moved away and she moved in with other family members, we spent less time together, but she was always welcome in our home, and we would get excited when she called to ask about a math problem, or how to fill out her college application. How she called Bo her little sister, and was so excited to meet her, and want us to be apart of her graduation ceremony. She was an amazing young woman that had a lot to look forward to.

CJ and Bo

Final piece

So when I got the phone call from her aunt Laurie that she was on life support and we needed to come say our final good-byes I was in shock, and couldn't wait to go home and tell Josh. We got in our car and went to the hospital in hopes that the doctors would change their diagnosis, and tell us she was going to be fine. When we walked into her room we knew, there were no words said, but we knew that we really had to say good-bye to a young woman that changed our lives for the better. CJ had a heart condition since the day she was born, and more recently a blood platelet condition that caused her a lot of pain. Friday night CJ had a seizure that cause blood and swelling in her brain, the doctors tried to fix it with surgery, but it was to late the damage had been done, there was nothing more they could do for her. They took her off life support and she passed away Saturday evening. All I wanted to do was hug our baby girl, and not let her go.

CJ we miss you so much you touched many peoples lives, and many people that love you very much.

Heart Strong for CJ

It is a great honor in our house to put the final piece of the puzzle in. I am sad to think we will never see her final picture of her puzzle that she was still left to complete. You will always be a part of our lives puzzle. LOVE YOU CJ!

Update Time

In the last month we have gone to the Zoo twice (Thanks Mom and Dad Theis for the season Family pass to the Minnesota we love it)

worked a long weekend before one of my best friends came to visit with her family (We can't wait for them to find jobs in Minnesota and move here permanently) We can already tell that Owen, Kaitlyn and Bo are going to be fast friends just like their mom and I are.

Kaitlyn, Bo and Me

Bo Checking in on Kaitlyn

Owen and Bo playing together

went to our friends to watch the Superbowl,

No Daddy I don't want to cheer for the Bears (JK)

went on a date for our anniversary,

sang Karaoke with my co-workers,

Erin and Nieps singing

Did 5 1/2 puzzles

(Sorry the next two pictures wouldn't rotate no matter how hard I tried to change them)

Cambria Farmers Market

Fern Grotto Wedding

Bo loves Puzzling too

San Francisco Conservatory

Covered Bridge

My least favorite brand "Click" none of the pieces stay together very well and they all fall apart every time you touch them, so we only put 3/4 of it together and then took it apart)

and spent a lot of time hanging out just the three of us.

Bo loves to carry things around one in each hand

Wrigley likes to hang out with the stuffed animals

Hangin' out in her chair, watching cartoons

Time for bed with my puppy.

It's puzzle Season!

If you don't know already Josh and I love doing puzzles together. As winter quickly approches puzzles have started to come back into our weekend routine.

Our favorite puzzles are the 1000 piece, Hometown Collection featuring art from Heronim.

"At the Light Before Christmas" 2010 collection

I will have to look back to see how many we have already done, I would say close to 20 though. We get all of our puzzles at Target for about $4.00 a pop, which is a cheep alternitive to going to the movies or even out to eat. We wait until we put Bo to bed, and out comes the puzzle, (sexy I know). In the days prior to Bo we could usually bust one out in a weekend, but this one has taken us two, and we are only 80% done. Oh well, just more fun for us.