Missing My Valentine

Just when you think you have made it through all the major anniversaries, it's almost Valentines Day.  It's not a fun day when your 'valentine' has passed away, and everywhere you look are reminders about a day specifically to celebrate your love for someone.   This morning Harri asked me what Valentine's Day meant. I told him it's a special day to show people you love them.  He looked really sad and said 'well we can't can we!? Because they're not here!'. 

Since Aaron has passed away, I've been trying to tell the boys a lot more about what he was like when we first met.  Jay often laughs about things I tell him.   The main thing that stood out to me when I first met Aaron was that he just seemed different to all the other guys at church.  He obviously was, but it was in a good way.  He loved all things American and was obsessed with NBA basketball, NFL, hip hop and rap music and wore really trendy clothes (for those days anyway!).

Valentine's Day was never really a big event in our house.  We knew we loved each other and didn't feel like we needed to make a big deal out of one day, but Aaron would often surprise me with a bunch of flowers and my favourite chocolates, after work.

After saying that Valentine's Day wasn't a big deal, it was actually the day that Aaron proposed to me...all those years ago, in 1995.  He was definitely the one who was the most romantic in our relationship.

We had talked about getting married, so I knew that he was going to propose sometime and had a suspicion that it was going to be on Valentine's Day (he was romantic at times, but also not that great at keeping a secret!).  I was only 20 and he was 22, but we knew that we wanted to be together forever.  

We ended up going to Hollybank Forest for Valentines Day for a picnic tea.   He was so nervous, so it was obvious that he was going to propose.  I think I bought him something unromantic like a baseball cap for Valentine's Day which he loved, and then he asked me if I was ready for my present and he got down on one knee and told me to open my hand and shut my eyes. 

When I opened my eyes up he had placed an open box with my engagement ring in it.  I looked at it and then looked at him and he said 'will you!?'.  We joked about it for years because he never actually said the words 'will you marry me?'  When he was trying to act cool and make jokes about wishing we didn't get married, he would say silly things like 'I meant 'will you cook me tea?'. 

We were married on the 23rd November, 1995 in the Sydney temple and had a reception at home two days later. 

We waited for four years before we had kids and remember those years being lots of fun but also very stressful.  I was at uni and Aaron was working at Woolworths and we hardly had any money.  At the end of each fortnight it seemed like we never had enough money to pay any bills, let alone do anything like go out very much or save money for house deposit or to travel anywhere.

We used to spend a lot of time just hanging out doing the things we loved like just shooting the basketball around together.  Aaron used to hate it that I used to beat him at 'horse' and every Saturday we would have another play off. 

Having four years together before we had the boys meant that we had a lot of time with each other, and we really grew to be best friends.  Our relationship was one where we could just muck around and stir each other and loved to have a laugh together, but we also told each other that we loved each other, every single day.  Aaron would often tell me numerous times a day, and it became a big joke when I was out as he would text me or ring me and want to chat and tell me he loved me, even though we had just seen each other half an hour before.

Over the last week I've had fun going through lots of old photos and they've made me smile as I've remembered how silly he was, and how much fun he was to be around.  He had the best sense of humour and we used to pretend that we hated his silly 'Dad jokes' that he would make, but deep down we loved them.

 

How spunky did we look going off to the Make a Wish ball to talk about the wish that Noah was granted!

I remember so well the feelings I had this day. It was our first time alone over night in ten years as we flew to Melbourne for one night to see Pink in concert.  We were so nervous about leaving Noah,, but so excited and had the best time in Melbourne -even if it was just for about 15 hours.

We loved working together with the youth from church, and loved being able to help plan and go to fun activities with them.  Aaron always loved acting like a kid himself, which is why he got along so well with teenagers.  This was him 'turning me on' at the 'T' dance.

I'll never forget when he stole the show when we did a little skit at another youth dance which was Disney theme.   We were 'Sharpay and Ryan' from High School Musical.  Aaron was totally into it.

I miss him so much.  Life was far from perfect, and our relationship was far from perfect but we were very happy.  I've heard so many times how having a child with special needs puts a strain on relationships, but I feel like it brought us much closer together as we had to rely on each other so much and help each other.  Without each other we couldn't have cared for Noah so well. 

Having Noah meant that we couldn't do the things that many other couples take for granted - things like just leaving the boys with anyone so we could go out, but we learnt as time went on how important it was to make time for each other and our relationship became better, because of Noah.

When Noah passed away our lives felt so empty.  Aaron found it extremely hard and these photos just show how different we both were afterwards.  We have smiles on our faces, but they aren't like before.  It's like the light in our life had gone and it was so hard to see Aaron like that, because he really just missed Noah so much.  

We took this photo on New Years Eve - just 26 days before Aaron passed away.

This is our last photo that we had taken together . We were so excited that Mum and Dad took the three boys for us for two nights.  We hadn't had that much time alone together, since before Jalen was born.  It kind of felt like the old days when we used to play basketball together on the weekends. It was so nice just being the two of us.   It was just 13 days before Aaron passed away. 

 

We were still so sad that Noah wasn't with us, but it kind of felt like a turning point for us. Aaron seemed to be dealing with it a lot better, and we could see that we had a lot to look forward to in the future, like having more nights on our own without the boys :)

 

Oh how I wish that we had more than 13 more days on earth together.  I know we will be together again but it's so hard to live without him until then. I'm missing my valentine so much.

(ex tropical) Cyclone Oswald

Before we left to go to Queensland we were using our weather apps a lot, to check out what the weather was going to be (remember the old days when we would only have the weather man on TV to tell us what the weather would be for the next day or two!?:).    Unfortunately we knew we were heading up to some not-so-good weather, but knew it would be humid and warm still.

That not-so-good weather started off as a little bit of rain now and then, and then on Australia Day is started pouring down and the wind started to really pick up.   Late on Saturday night we saw some warnings on the internet about destructive winds and heavy rain.  We didn't think much of it until we woke up on Sunday morning and knew that the storm was getting pretty bad. 

We were planning on going to church that afternoon in Surfers Paradise, and then going to my cousin's house for tea that night, but the warnings were saying to stay off the roads if you didn't have to go out, and we knew that things were going to get a lot worse as we realised that we were right on the path of ex tropical Cyclone Oswald which had caused a lot of destruction and severe floods up north, and was making its way south, to the Gold Coast.

We ended up having to stay in the hotel for two days which was frustrating because all we wanted to do was get out and have some fun, but all I could think of was to be grateful that we were safe and okay, because further north so many other people had lost their homes, power and even lives. 

It's so hard to describe what a cyclone is like, but the power of the wind was incredible and it didn't let up for 24 hours.  It was raining so heavily that if we went out on the balcony for just a few seconds we would be drenched.  The whole building must've been moving a little because we could hear the TV on the wall creaking. 

We couldn't imagine the winds getting any stronger, but suddenly there was an announcement over the speaker system of the whole hotel.  It told us that the winds were going to become stronger over night and they asked everyone to bring in all the furniture from the balcony.  It was funny sitting there all night with the outdoor table inside with us.

The boys were quite scared because the gale force winds were so loud and just didn't stop.  We all decided to sleep in the same room together that night and Kobe and Harri finally fell asleep, but Jay and I could hardly sleep because of the noise of the wind and rain right on our window and because the huge waves were so loud. There was so much rain, that although we were on the 23rd floor, it was coming through under my balcony door, into my bedroom. By the morning I could put my foot down off the bed and my toes would be covered in water! The hotel ended up having to get a carpet cleaner to come in, to suck all the excess water out of the carpet in my room (and many others around the hotel).

Luckily we had an indoor pool at our hotel so to get out of room for a bit, we would go there to have a swim, but to get to it you had to walk outside for about 20 metres.  It was crazy to see that branches and debris was being blown around everywhere and to feel the power of the wind (the lady in the pic was trying to not get blown away!).

When we went to the indoor pool on Monday morning the winds were still so intense. It was amazing seeing the power of the wind in the trees.  Harri is making sounds like he's really scared, but he was actually loving it!

Finally by around lunch time on Monday we could see that the winds were starting to die down.  We were so glad to see the sun coming out and on the way to visiting some of our family for tea that night, we stopped off at the beach to have a look.  When we drove around Surfers Paradise we couldn't believe how many trees were down and saw lots of glass that had smashed out of shop windows. 

All week the beach had been closed because it had been stormy and the water was too dangerous to swim in, so we knew that there wasn't much luck of us swimming at the beach the rest of the week, especially after a cyclone.
Right then it didn't really matter that we couldn't swim, because there was so much amazing sea foam everywhere because of all the huge waves. After having a day of deserted streets and beaches, everyone else was out checking it out as well. 

Every time a wave would come up it would wash a whole heap of new foam onto the beach.  I took my brand new thongs off to have a run in it, and before I knew it they had been swept away! The power of the waves were still so strong, even though they didn't seem that big on shore.  Chrish also lost his shoes for a bit, but luckily we both found them again after a little while.

We would see the foam coming up and would think that it was just a little bit of foam, but before we knew it we were swamped in it!

We had the best time playing in the foam and didn't want to leave.  Luckily we didn't realise at the time that the foam could actually be toxic because of all the pollutants in the water from the cyclone as it would've ruined our fun! I'm sure that was more the case further up north where there was a lot more flooding, but I haven't heard of anyone becoming sick from playing in the sea foam and we are still alive to tell the tale :)



We were covered in it but the boys weren't worried one bit, even though we had our clothes on.  I absolutely love this photo of Kobe.  He was having the best time.


It was so nice to have such a fun time in the foam after being stuck in the hotel for a couple of days. I wish that everyone else who was affected by the cyclone had been so lucky though.  I couldn't stop thinking about all those people whose homes had been flooded and whose loved ones had died.  If only a little bit of fun in the sea foam could make up for what the cyclone caused for them too.

Kobe's Dream Came True

A few days before we left to go to Queensland Kobe kept saying 'it's not long until my birthday!'.  I told him there was still a while to go as his birthday is in June, and he said 'yeah but it's not long'.  Then one day while my Mum was visiting he said 'Grandma! It's not long till my birthday, we are going to go to Sizzler for my birthday again!'. 

I realised that he thought that it was almost his birthday, because we were in Queensland for his birthday last year, and he thought because we were going again, that it was his birthday soon! I told him that his birthday was still a long time away and he wasn't having his birthday in Queensland and felt so bad when his lip started quivering, as he tried to hold back the tears. 

The first thing I wanted to do when we got to Queensland was to take Kobe to Dreamworld so he could go on the Big Red Car ride, as it was shut last time we were there, and that is all he wanted to do. 

I took my good camera with me on holiday, but decided I didn't want to drag it around the theme parks as I wanted to just enjoy the time with the boys, so you have to put up with my Instagram photos.   Sorry to anyone who follows me on Instagram and may have already seen them.   I have to admit I'm very addicted to Instagram and am so happy to have a quick and fun way to share photos.

Having the ride actually running this time, made up for the fact that it wasn't actually his birthday.  He was so excited to go on it, and the best thing was that there was hardly a line up for it, so we didn't have to wait long.

Jay and Harri were most excited about being able to go on a tour of the Big Brother house.

It was cool to see it in real life and so strange to see how all the rooms were set up, with the camera runs in the back.  It was a really trendy house and looks a lot nicer in real life. 

We really loved Dreamworld this time as there's so much for everyone to do.  Harri would not go on any of the bigger rides and felt sad that even Kobe went on a ride that he was too scared to try.  He was in tears saying 'I'm the most un-bravest boy ever!'. I could tell he really wished he could get on some rides, but just couldn't do it.  He had fun meeting the characters and found his favourite ride in the kids section, that he loved.

Mum, Chrish and I took turns hanging out with Kobe and Harri so we could go on the bigger rides with Jay.  It's not much fun all having to split up all the time and I wished all of us could just go on the rides together. I told the boys that I don't think we will be going back until all of us are big enough (and brave enough!) to all ride together. One ride we did love, that we all could go on was the Thunder River Rapids Ride.

 

I love the atmosphere at Dreamworld.

 

We had tickets for Dreamworld and White Water World that could be used for three days, and we couldn't wait to go to White Water World as it was too cold to go there in the winter.  The day we went it was raining on and off and we knew that it would be, but we ended up being up there when the weather wasn't that great.  We decided to go there on a day we knew it would probably rain, since we would be wet anyway, and we knew that they wouldn't shut down any of the rides. The great thing about Queensland in summer, is that even if it rains it's still very humid and warm enough to swim.



 

We absolutely loved it and had the best time.  I surprised myself by going on the bigger rides...well all except for one which terrified me! I absolutely loved the Green Room and kept wanting to go on it again, and again.   Harri and Kobe spent hours and hours in the 'Cave of Waves' which was a cool wave pool.

We had the best day at White Water World and we thought that because it was much smaller than Wet 'n' Wild that we probably wouldn't enjoy it as much as Wet 'n' Wild but we were wrong.  If I had a choice, I would definely go back to White Water World over Wet 'n' Wild.