our stay in California

We've been in California for 3 weeks now, staying with Vicki. Justin's siblings have been in and out, too. Vicki was doing pretty poorly when we arrived, then had a week of good days. Since she was doing well (coming to the pool and grandsons' baseball games in a wheelchair, sitting in the backyard around a bonfire and exchanging stories with her surprise-visit siblings), we made a quick trip to Utah to visit my family and some of Justin's relatives. We had a great time there, and I even had all my six siblings and my parents in the same room at the same time for a picture. It'd been a long time since that happened. (We never did get all the grandkids rounded up for a picture, though they were all there.)




In those four days we were gone, Vicki went downhill again and surprised us unpleasantly when we got back from Utah. She has made imminent progress toward death since then, and has been mostly unresponsive for a couple days now. We expect she'll last a couple more days.

Unfortunately, our plane tickets back to Africa are for Wednesday, and though we tried, we cannot change them (all flights are overbooked through August).

This time here with her has been really nice, though, and we are glad we came when we did so we had a good solid week with the Vicki we know and love. We will always remember and love you, Vicki. Here are some pictures of just some of the great moments we had with her. (And proof that I failed to follow her advice and always take tons of pictures!)

June 2009, on the Hogle zoo train in Salt Lake City, with granddaughter, Irelyn.




July 2008, a snapshot Juma took on a car trip to the airport for a family reunion outside Seattle.



March 2008, stubbornly not giving up and hiking to the top of very high sand dunes in Death Valley just weeks before she found out she had cancer.




May 2008, Juma welcoming Grandma home after her surgery when the cancer was discovered.



August 2007, on a ride at Santa Cruz boardwalk with grandson, Rylee



Summer 2003 (?), the picture Vicki has chosen to be remembered by.