The Big Day!

Today was my special day to go shopping for my grand prize from the radio contest that you all helped me win! We were picked up at 9:30 in a stretch limo and taken up to Bellevue where we were met by a photographer and Matt Case from the radio video taping us! We got to meet another winner and her husband and looked around a bit. We then were introduced to Rex, Marci's owner and he provided us with a small welcome gift: a pair of sterling silver hoop earrings in a little pouch. Matt said a quick prayer and then the caterer welcomed us to enjoy the delicacies. And they were wonderful! Cheese souffle, mini goat cheese tarts, chocolate mousse and chocolate covered strawberries, smoked salmon tarts and fruit parfaits. All accompanied by parkling apple cider!

We each got a personal assistant to help us look around and that's what we did! Rex, the owner, encouraged us to take our time looking but to consider a significant piece, versus a few lesser items. He acknowledged that most things in his store were on the more expensive side so that we should enjoy our prize and choose something that we would treasure for years to come and that would remind of us our love stories. I had thought at first to get a watch but then decided that I wanted something I wouldn't be worried to wear. I didn't think I'd be wearing a $500 watch to the park!! So I then thought of an earring/necklace set. But as I looked, nothing really struck me as "meaningful" and technically I had already been given the earrings! I had a hard time not thinking of quantity over quality, wanting to stretch my prize as best I could, not sure if I wanted to spend my whole certificate on one item. Until......

I went and looked at some of the displays in the window cases and saw the only pearl pendant they had in the whole store. I was interested in something pearl, but not a strand of pearls. It reminded me of Kristen's Christmas ornament and I knew that was it. It is a single pearl on a sterling silver base edged in diamonds. I looked at the price tag and it was 1/2 again more expense than what I had to spend, priced at $1,450. Lori (my personal assistant!) said "let me go check on something" and went to ask Rex what he thought. He came over and said "I can do this two ways, I can change your gift certificate to $1,450 or I can change the price of the necklace to $1,000. How does that sound?" As you can guess, I agreed! The more I looked at it, the more I liked it. I had thought I wanted a pearl pendant, but this one makes me think the pearl is being held, not just dangling there by itself. And if I really wanted to get into "significance", the shape holding it is a triangle, which could represent the Trinity!

As we all had our packages wrapped up we were given a gift from Spirit 105.3 of a T-shirt, a Third Day CD, the DVD "Fireproof" and our Chris Tomlin tickets. Wow! The gifts just kept coming! We all gathered outside for a few photos with our limos and then we were off once again! The three of us winners agreed we should get together before the Chris Tomlin concert which would be fun!







Needless to say it was a very fun day with lots of treats and surprises! Thank you Spirit 105.3 for the opportunity! Thank you Marci Jewelers for the experience and the wonderful gift! Thank you Salon and Spa Dolche for the fun, new hair style! And thank you everyone who voted for our story. It was an honor to honor Kristen in such a way!

Katelynn's New Ride

Our friends Ryan and Staci gave us their daughters bike and helmet she had outgrown. Katelynn thinks she's pretty cool on it! Of course she still needs a little help from daddy. :)

NW Trek

Katelynn was given a Zoo/NW Trek pass for her birthday last year and we've had so much fun using it. A few weeks ago we had great weather and decided to head out to NW Trek, the local wildlife park. There were very few people and LOTS of animals out! We took the tram ride that usually is less than an hour, but it ended up being almost 90 minutes because of all the animals in the way! In some of the photos you can see how close the animals come to the tram (or how close we come to them, rather!) and there were a number of times we just had to wait for the animals to move!
On our way home I had Kevin stop the car so I could get a good photo of Mt. Rainier - my friend had just left to go back to Indiana and while she was here, the mountain was covered with clouds. I took this photo to prove it really does exist! :)

Daddys Black Bonnett Part 2

So let me begin by saying that we are way behind in updating our blog. Sorry. This is at least a week and a half behind.

This was my second session in the completion of my tattoo. It was a 2 hour session. As Mike, my tattoo artist stated, this session was just to lay the "base coat of color" down. It's hard to see in the photo, but 15 of the 18 feathers have a purple undertone to them. 3 of them are orange. Again, the 18 feathers represents the genetic defect that Kristen had, Edwards syndrome aka Trisomy 18. The 3 orange feathers represents the 18th chromosome having 3 chromosomes. My next session will be the last one and will be a 3 hour session. In that session is when the colors will be blended more with blues and greens on the 15 feathers and the other 3 will have red and yellows added to them. Kristen's feet will be colored in, the whole thing will have shadows added to give the tattoo some dimension, and the ribbons will be finalized.

I had this done on Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. Within 2 days, it began to peel, unlike the outline which took about a week to start peeling. It was kind of weird having red and purple skin peel off. I have to try really hard not to scratch it as it really really itches.

The funny thing about having a tattoo is now Katelynn says "I want one, a red one." My response, when your 18. Oh the joys of an almost 3 year old.

Daddy's Black Bonnett

So, this has been in the works for a while now. I knew that at some point I was going to get a tattoo of all my kids' hand prints. I was wondering how it would turn out whether to do hand prints on my back or on my arms or on my chest. So when Kristen was still in the womb I decided that the placement of such tattoos would be on my upper arms on both sides. Then Kristen was born and passed and all my plans went out the window. While we were at Tacoma General and many thanks to Sally, our nurse at the NICU at T.G., we got several really great foot prints of Kristen's. It was in those moments and days following Kristen's life celebration party that I decided to do Kristen's foot prints on my upper arms. Since we said she got her wings, I decided that I wanted angel wings surrounding her foot prints. After many hours on the internet and going to the library to look in books for wing designs, I was given a copy of a set of wings that I had in mind when I started looking for wings. Thanks Rick for the help.

I then started to do my research for a tattoo shop. Again, many many hours were spent on the internet trying to learn as much as I could about what to expect. I went to a shop in Tacoma, walked in an almost walked back out in the same breathe. I talked with the owner of the shop and was brushed off, like they were to busy to help me. Back on the internet I went. I found another shop online, this one in Puyallup. Tara and I stopped by one night, and needless to say I was impressed. The owner of this shop was not with somebody so we started talking. The information he gave me was great. I really liked the atmosphere of the shop, it was well lit and all 3 artists seemed to be pretty friendly. The next step was to look through the portfolios of each artist and decide which one I wanted. I came back when Mike, my artist, was working and gave him the general idea of what I wanted. It was fairly easy but there were some must have's in the design. It took him a couple of weeks to draw up my design.

So here I sit, 2 hours before my appointment and am nervously excited to get the first part of my tattoo started. It will be a 2 session tattoo, the first session will be about 2 hours only being able to do the outlining and shadowing of my design. The next session, in about a month, will be 2-3 hours and the one to add all the color to my design. I am really excited.....
So obviously the picture of my arm is before. Also Katelynn wanted a picture of her arm too, just like daddy. Keep checking back as I will be uploading pictures of my arm after it's done tonight.

Peace out.

K