Snow Day

I had this dream early this morning.

We were living at our house in Howard County and it had snowed the night before. Nancy and I were driving around early in the morning and the streets were covered with ice and snow. I told her that I thought that Kacie might not have school today and that Kacie was probably at home listening to the radio and could tell us when we arrived there. We pulled up to the house and the front door opened. Kacie was standing there and she looked around high school age. She moved her head from side to side to indicate that there would not be school today. Nancy looked at me and asked how I would spend the day and I replied "reading books to Kacie all day."

A Brief Appearance

Last night I dreamed I was in an apartment somewhere unknown and a young girl came suddenly into the room and said she was looking for Robert. She ran to the bathroom door, opened it and went in. Kacie came running out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her and wet hair. The girl was following her and as they left the room Kacie said "we're four girls."

How do you explain that one?

For Nancy...

These pictures were all taken the same day...

two of my fav pics of kacie

These are two of my fave pics of Kacie. (i have a lot of faves) She is at I think her friend Erin's wedding in South Carolina.  I always thought Kacie looked great with her hair pulled back from her face and when her hair was a little bit longer. She is also wearing my favorite earrings she owned. They are white roses with little gold detail and blue beads too. She got them at Nordstrom but they look very vintage.

Kacie Speaks

This morning I heard Kacie speak in my dream for the first time. As I was waking up, I heard what sounded like her voice when she was very young and she was asking Nancy a question. I couldn't make out any of the words, but Nancy answered her by saying "I don't know."

kacie loved cheese...

As we all know Kacie loved Cheese! This was a drawing she made on the computer and sent to me one day on the internet. Thought you all would enjoy this.

:)

08/11/08

We miss you sweetheart.
Mom&Dad

More OC Pictures

More photos from the weekend from the little digital camera here- -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/amandajaffe/sets/72157606569012753/

I had a great time this past weekend. Theres not to much more to add to what Natalie and Larissa said about it besides that I feel very lucky that I found good friends from Kacie's passing. It's making me feel like I can make up for how little I actually saw Kacie in the last year of her life.

Like Natalie and Larissa's stories on the Jetty, I had my own idea of Kacie visiting us out there.
After seeing Natalie's name carved in the rocks we walked back down and I asked Natalie if I could take a photo of her sitting on the rocks with the boardwalk behind her. As soon as she sat down, not one, but a whole bunch of big waves kept spashing both of us. I just kept laughing because it seemed like such a Kacie thing. Splashing both of us when we were relaxed. Like when she would squeeze your leg out of nowhere and yell "Monkey bite!". It was always annoying, but always funny.

Anyway. We'll see if any of the film I took out on the jetty turns out. I'll post some photos if they do.

better copies of the pictures

Here are some clearer versions of our photos. 

I don't think Amanda and I were too happy with the saloon one...i look like im 40 and she just kept saying "they didn't get my good side!" natalie, of course, looks lovely. but it was the experience that mattered anyway. we made sure we were all packing some serious heat.

As for the photo booth shots...I LOVED THEM! all 3 strips turned out to be hilarious. this one is mine...hopefully natalie and amanda will get theirs up here so you guys can see. 

...and I have a tiny addition to natalie's jetty story...

...we ate breakfast on the beach today, and while we were eating this one seagull (there were tons around, but only one was doing this) started hopping toward us. He had this funny little walk and every few seconds he'd take another step closer. At some point we realized that this bird was actually approaching us, not just hopping around randomly. We got up and threw our food away and the bird sort of settled into the sand a few feet away. Natalie asked me if i believe in reincarnation and i said yes...then she said "maybe that seagull is kacie." it was a nice thought, and i jokingly said that if it was kacie she probably would have been ripping the food out of our hands. We made our way to the jetty after that and amanda and natalie went all the way to the end...just like the night before, I was terrified, and only made it about half way before i chickened out. as I was standing there, i saw the seagull start hopping toward the jetty. this bird actually got up onto the rocks and was hopping from rock to rock all the way out. It passed me and kept on going toward amanda and natalie. I turned around and when I looked back, I had lost it....but I found it really interesting that the bird seemed to follow us that distance, even after food was out of the picture. It's a nice thought to think of kacie sitting with us on the beach having breakfast. 

unbelievable jetty experience

So... when we were down at the Jetty today. I walked all the way out to the end. Amanda was following behind me. There were a few fisherman out there. There was one man on the end who was reeling in his fish line. His fishing line looked like it was carrying something heavy. I said in my head "Kacie if you are listening let this man catch a big fish" The man finished reeling in his fish line and there was no fish on the fish pole. I sighed and turned around to look at the view of the boardwalk and see how far Amanda had gotten along. I looked down and there carved into a rock all the way on the end was my name "Natalie" I was shocked I couldn't believe my eyes.  I started to cry a little bit. I showed Amanda and she was like "Did you just do that?" I was like "Noo!" I couldn't believe it. Amanda took a few pictures of it. Once she gets them loaded onto the computer it would be cool if she could post it. There were no other names carved into any other rocks except for a letter B a little farther up. 

Blogging From the Beach!

Greetings from OC!

Lucky for us, the Dunes Motel (where we are staying) allows us to use all the amenities of the Dunes Manor Hotel...so we got to have tea today! They serve tea and crumpets in the lobby in the afternoon, and that was one of kacie's favorite things about the hotel, so we took full advantage of it today!

After that, we lounged on the beach, then by the pool, and then set out on more kacie-related adventures. 

We made sure to eat at a buffet that kacie would have been in awe of. so much food!!! After that, we went to have our old time picture taken. We also had some photo booth pictures taken...one strip for each of us.

Then we visited gary and nancy by standing in front of the webcam on the boardwalk. they got to see us enjoying some chocolate covered bananas. 

Then, we made our way to the jetty. I was terrified, but amanda and natalie were fearless and i had to follow them. there are some big gaps between those rocks. 

Then we went on a very long trek through every jewelry store on the boardwalk, looking for shipwheel earrings. we had no luck unfortunately, but hopefully we'll be successful tomorrow. 

After a little rest, we're off to the karaoke bar to make kacie proud!

and don't worry...better quality photos will come soon!

Live Music Events with Kace

Anyone have any other concerts they attended with Kacie? I know Gary mentioned the Frankie Valli shows (I actually bought one of his cd's out here and I really like it). I have a list and something tells me this isn't all of them but these are the ones I remember off the top of my head. I also think Natalie mentioned she got to see Cat Power. I am glad she got to see her because she has been a huge fan of hers since before I even knew her. I wish she could have seen Hayden too. He is Canadian and doesn't tour hardly anywhere and she always talked about how bad she wanted to see him.

Weezer - Athens, Georgia: They had two huge screens on each side of the stage. Before the show started, there must have been someone walking around with a camera filming everyone walking into the arena. During the show, the screens played those shots from earlier on video during "the sweater song" and sure enough there we were on the big screen, kacie and I were famous for a few short seconds.

Juliana Theory - Jacksonville, FL

Bright Eyes - 9:30 club Washington D.C. : There were some other bands there that I don't remember but there was this solo guitartist/ singer that kacie and I thought looked like one of Ben Stiller's sons in the Royal Tenenbaums.

Radiohead - Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD: This is the single best show I have ever been to. Especially because Kacie was with me. The tickets went on sale out front of the pavilion I think a few months before the show. The ticket office opened at 10:00 am. When I got there, there was a long line of people waiting to buy their tickets. Then the ticketing agent came outside and stated they were doing a drawing of numbers for the best spot in line. Out of a hundred people, I ended up being second in line. People wanted to fight me because I hadn't even been there ten minutes and I was now second in line. We had seats in Row S and practically directly center of the stage. The show was right after they released their Hail to the Thief album which was kacie's favorite Radiohead album.

Modest Mouse, Cake, De La Soul, and the Flaming Lips - Philadelphia, PA at the Mann Center: Second best show I have been to. Kacie and I are huge fans of Modest Mouse and we had to go because they don't tour the east coast that often. Kacie and I drove to Philadelphia and got stuck in traffic in the city. Kacie had to use the bathroom really bad and there was nothing we could do because the traffic wasn't moving and there was no where to pull off. She was miserable! We made it there in plenty of time and the show was great.

Those are the only ones I can remember now.

Kacie loves chatting on the "inte"

I actually had a good dream the other day. I was chatting on aol instant messanger with Kacie. I don't remember what she was saying but all I know is it was cracking me up. Kacie used to love chatting online. She always used to say "meet me on IM, meet me on IM." This is one of the things I really regret because I would always blow her off and had some excuse why I didn't want to chat. I personally hate "chatting" and I am not much of a talker either. When we talked on the phone, she would say something and I just wouldn't respond because I was watching t.v. or something. She would get really mad at me and say "God! I talk, then you talk."

The Lake

Another sad dream.

I dreamed that I was walking around a beautiful lake. The water was very blue and it was a sunny day. I was feeling very happy until the realization hit me that Kacie would not be able to enjoy what I was experiencing. I felt guilty for having such happy thoughts and woke up.

ocean city trip

This weekend  Larissa, Amanda and I are all meeting up to go to Ocean City together. We will be staying at the Dunes Motel. Not the Dunes Manor but they are owned by the same people. The Dunes Manor was little too expensive for us. But I still plan on going over to the Dunes Manor and stealing some tea and crumpets. We also plan on going to all the spots Kacie's ashes were spread, dough rollers, taking an old time saloon photo, relaxing on the beach, seashell city, the karaoke bar and the arcades. My birthday is very soon on August 6th and I really wanted to be able to somehow spend some time with Kacie for it. Wish you all could be there with us. 

My second dream of Kacie

I had a brief dream of Kacie this morning right before I woke up. She must have been about 10 or 11 years old, and I saw her for the first time.

Usually every summer, she would go to camp for a week or so, and we were looking around for a camp she might like to try.

Then we ended up at the dentist office waiting for Gary to finish his appointment. The receptionist said something and Kacie answered and I could see Kacie smiling. I don't remember what she said, something funny, Im sure.

Then, we ended up at a baseball game, something that we really never did together.

Then, Gary called me to wake up, that it was getting late, so thats when my dream ended.

television

Kacie always could only sleep with the television on. She said she needed some kind of noise to go to sleep. Personally, I hated sleeping with the tv on. I always would wake up to some creepy infomercial at 3am if I did that. Kacie had quite a few favorite shows... Can you think of any moments you had with the telly and Kacie?

Kacie loved the Andy Griffith show. When she first moved back from Texas she some Andy Griffith DVDs. She stayed with me for a little bit before she got her own place. She watched Andy Griffith every night falling asleep on my couch. I didn't have any cable.

Kacie also loved the food network. She had a lot of shows on there she liked. She use to talk about maybe going back to school for food marketing. She really dreamed of writing for a food/ health magazine or show. 

When Kacie first moved up to Maryland, her and I were obsessed with the reality tv show "Joe Millionaire" We watched it together every week. The show was quite trashy and ridiculous. Which equaled hillarious to us. This was at her apartment in Chatham Gardens. She didnt have cable so we had used almost a whole thing of tin foil on the season finale night trying to get a good picture in.

The Phone Call

Here's another sad dream that I had early this morning.

I was walking through a room and had no idea where I was. I noticed a small table with an old fashioned phone sitting on it. When I walked over to it, I noticed that the phone was off of the receiver so I picked it up and listened. I could hear someone crying. I immediately recognized it to be Jeff and I woke up.

book club blog created

Hi All,

I have created the separate book club blog. I sent you all invites to be authors and everyone else is welcome to comment and follow along or if you would like to be an author let me know. The blog address is :

www.kaciesbookclub.blogspot.com

enjoy!