Visiting Oregon After My Mom's Stroke

On September 27th I got the phone call no one ever wants to receive, telling me that my mom had had a stroke and was in the hospital. I found out on Tuesday and on Thursday I was on the plane to Portland. Fortunately my weekend was pretty much unscheduled so I was able to get away easily.

 The picture above was actually a couple of days after I arrived. When I first saw Mom she had about 30 electrodes connected to her head to monitor brain function. Those came out shortly after I got into town. My sister, Jill, arrived from Boston the same morning that I did and we met up at the airport to head out to the hospital together. Our brother, Reed, picked us up in Portland after we took the light rail into the city center.

Mom was in the Oregon Health and Science University Hospital in Portland, which has an excellent stroke unit.

 It's up on the top of a hill and there were some nice views overlooking the city of Portland and the Willamette River.

 There were some nice fall colors starting to turn, which was farther along than the autumn leaves were in Virginia at the time. Autumn is Mom's favorite season and we were sad she wasn't able to enjoy the turning leaves.

Dad, Jill and I would arrive at the hospital every morning at around 9:30am and stay until about 4pm. Mom was mostly unconscious during this time and only spoke a few words while we were there. It was General Conference weekend, so I played some Mormon Tabernacle Choir music for Mom because I thought it would be soothing to her.

My younger brother, Brett, came in from Texas for a day, so we were all able to be in a group photo. We weren't sure how much Mom would be able to recover from her stroke. I took a red-eye flight back to Virginia on Monday night and arrived home at 9am on Tuesday.

It was hard to leave, but I had to get back to give piano lessons. On Thursday morning I was heading out to California to help Adri as her new baby was due, and I was already cancelling lessons for the following week. My dad was holding up very well, considering his wife had a stroke and his step-father passed away within a couple of days of each other. He drove us into Portland to the hospital every day and was very sharp.

Mom ended up being in the hospital and then in a rehab center for over two months. She's able to talk normally, walk on her own with a walker and doesn't have any drooping on her right side, which was the side affected by the stroke. Her mind is still a little fuzzy on details and dates, but does well with a bit of prompting and reminders. We're all just so happy that she's still with us!

Civil War Reenactment in Stafford County

We live in Stafford County, and during the Civil War both the Union and the Confederate troops traveled through Stafford as they marched to different battle locations. Every year there's a small group of Civil War reenactors who set up an encampment in Stafford.

The camp is set up in the town of Falmouth, which is near the Rappahannock River. Across the river is the city of Fredericksburg, where there was a Civil War battle.

Below was a small skirmish demonstration.

This Confederate officer explained about the different types of rifles used--

and the different styles of uniforms.

This woman told us LOTS of information about the county of Stafford during the Civil War. I thought the most interesting thing she said was that the population of Stafford was decimated during the Civil War and didn't recover it's pre-war numbers until the 1960's, so it took over a hundred years.

This cottage dates back to Civil War times and has been owned by the same family all those years.

This cottage was set up to show how an average family lived, not a wealthy one.

Later in the day there were some cannon firing demonstrations.

Kent had the chance to practice loading the cannon.

It was awesome to learn more about the Civil War history of where we live. We enjoyed our day!

Philadelphia Trip

We took a two-overnight trip to Pennsylvania with our friends, Dave and Tresha Andrews. We picked up Kent from Arlington Cemetery around noon on August 11th and kept driving north. Our first stop as we got into Pennsylvania was to Valley Forge National Historical Park. 

Kent and I had gone there with Adrianne and one of her friends 13 years ago, but we hadn't been back since.

The weather was miserably hot and humid, so we didn't get out of the car to do much walking around.

We drove around the park and went to the visitor's center.

One place we did go into was the Washington Memorial Chapel.

It was built about 100 years ago as a memorial to the leadership and character of George Washington.

There was lots of beautiful workmanship and wood carvings, with a Revolutionary war theme.

And of course, a representation of George Washington.

That was all we saw that day. We spent the night in a hotel outside of Philadelphia and drove into the city first thing in the morning. Yes, we did hit rush hour traffic as we drove in, but it was very exciting to see the new LDS temple as we were driving on the main freeway into town.

We had reservations to go through the temple open house at 10:30am so we parked and had plenty of time to walk around the grounds and to go to the visitor's center before our tour.

I thought the temple looked similar to the Salt Lake Temple, but on a smaller scale, but I know it was built to tie in to the architecture of the city of Philadelphia.

After we toured the temple we went to the Reading Terminal Market to find a place to eat lunch. The market was very crowded, but we found a place to buy a sandwich, then bought some Amish-made donuts and ice cream for dessert.

Afterwards we toured the now defunct Eastern State Penitentiary.  The Andrews had heard it was an interesting place.

It looked like a fortress from the outside.

The inside was pretty grim. All the prisoners were kept alone and had a private outdoor space.

The cell below once housed Al Capone, and he was allowed to bring in some furnishings to make it comfortable.

That was all we did on Friday. Again, the weather was so hot and miserable it sapped our strength and made us not want to spend any time walking around the city.
On Saturday morning we went into the city again, and still hit traffic, even though it was Saturday!
Our first stop was Independence Hall. We didn't get a chance to tour it,

but we did stand in line to see the Liberty Bell. I like the picture below with Independence Hall in the background.

It was hard to get a good picture, so the one below was the best one. It looks like the Liberty Bell ate a little girl.

When we parked the car on the street to go to the US mint, we noticed we were right next to Christ Church Burial Ground.

Benjamin Franklin and his wife are buried there.

This Benjamin Franklin statue was nearby.

We toured the US mint, one of the four (I think) places where coins are made. The mint there has the capacity to make about a million coins an hour, which is mind blowing! Photos weren't allowed in the building, which is a shame because it was a very interesting place.

Not far from the US mint was the Betsy Ross House.

They had a woman representing Betsy Ross and answering questions, so that was fun.

Our last stop before we left town to return to Virginia was at a cafe to buy a Philly Cheese steak sandwich. We couldn't leave town without having one of those! It was a great trip in spite of record breaking high temperatures.