Lovebuch family happenings

Hello All, I wanted to share some additional information on opportunities to join us in remembering and celebrating Derek. And thanks to everyone who joined in the birthday Bingo fun, it was very touching and a nice reminder to me just how many other people out there are missing Derek and thinking of him. First of all, we do plan to have a "celebration of life" (in other words a party in Derek's honor) at a future point. We will probably try to schedule something for around next September with a contingency plan for COVID if that ends up being too soon. For that, I will do as much digging up of emails as possible and will also use the blog to help spread the word widely. One way or another, there will be rusty nails to drink communally in our future. In the meantime, on Saturday we are going to do a small tree planting for Derek at a spot that he had chosen in Seward Park. Because of his work, colleagues at the City and at Garden Cycles have been able to coordinate this t

October 8th would have been Derek's 34th birthday. I knew it would be difficult so we came up with a plan to stay busy. We spent the day hiking as a family, Alpen made it all the way up Little Si. It was the perfect hike, a little cloudy but enough to feel like exercise. With dinner from Island Soul, one of D's favorites, we had all had a rusy nail (scotch + drambouie) which was a D favorite as well. Funny enough, I recently found a video Derek recorded at the top of the bigger Mt. Si, nearly 8 years exactly before. He's musing about his summer spent in Seattle anticipating returning to Pt. Reyes for another season of gridding. I know many folks were thinking about D yesterday, and I wanted to share a birthday bingo that some of our friends here put together. If you'd like to participate too over the weekend, feel free to share any notes in the comments or photos with me and I can add them here. I thought this was a sweet and touching tribute that Derek would have reall

Hi there friends, I suppose some of you may already know, and if not, well, here it is. Derek's condition changed very quickly over the last few days, and on Sunday he let me know that he was shutting down and wanted to start hospice care. That night, he was coughing and uncomfortable. Neither of us slept hardly at all. I wasn't sure that we would make it to the next day. He kept asking what time is it? I would say 3... 3:30... 4... etc until somehow we got to the morning. Alpen was in there with us most of the night too, somehow peacefully asleep. With considerable effort, he, David and I made it to his Monday morning clinic appointment while Oma and the Lovells watched Alpen and helped around the house. He spent most of the day there, feeling quite uncomfortable with pain from an absolutely awful cough, receiving platelets while everything was set up for hospice at home. He was needing oxygen to breathe, but had also taken out the plug from a bloody nose that had been on and

  It’s a weird time in Seattle. Last Friday, the smoke arrived. Rarely do we wish for rain. But I am wishing for rain tomorrow; it’s in the forecast, but that's no guarantee around here. Swept in from winds to the south, we received smoke from NorCal and Oregon fires to add to our smoke from our own fires burning on the east side of the mountains. The smoke arrived Friday and caused a Fine Particle Mater reading of < 2.5 micrometers ( PPMs) to hover around 125. These size particles will enter the lungs and bloodstream and cause problems. Both long-term heart and lung damage, but more acute coughing and aggravated breathing too. A ppm of 125 is considered “unhealthy.” Sensitive groups should stay inside and nobody should be exercising outside. But then by Monday, the PPMs had risen to 225. A ppm of 225 is “very unhealthy” and recommended that nobody goes outside. Meanwhile Portland was experiencing PPMs from 300 to 500. Thankfully for our family, Byrne and Peggy are already up he

 The Sleeping Lady Located on the east side of the Cascades, in the Bavarian-themed town of Leavenworth, the Sleeping Lady Mountain Resort Hotel spreads across several acres of ponderosa/lodgepole pine forest. The various cabins, eateries, and walking path are open to visitors and guests. A combination of dirt and concrete paths meander through the grounds pasisng a restaurant, iniduals cabins, several 8-room building pods, a library, bar, and spa. The back property line is the famous Icicle Creek, a popular river for access to climbs, rafting put-ins, and trailheads. We stayed in a room located inside one of the 8-room pods and it was perfect. The sheets were the softest sheets I can ever remember sleeping in. The bathrobe was made of the same material. After slipping into the robe for the night I laid down and couldn’t tell where the robe started and the sheets ended. I was a sleep in 5 minutes. Which is saying something in Dex times. However, we're getting ahead of ourselves h