Saturday, January 16, 2010

Hola from Costa Rica!

Josh had a lawyers convention in Costa Rica, and I invited myself. Although these pictures and videos show an amazingly fun time (and it was), most of the time we laid on a lounge chair and read and slept. It was hands down the most relaxing trip ever, which was perfect timing. I even got a little color on my face finally!! And I even look skinnier in these pictures than I do in real life, which never happens. Sweet. We can't wait to go back with Madster someday when we get her passport.

Monkeys were everywhere.

Wannabe monkey. Yes, that is me. When I have no hair, I look just like my brother, who happens to be a boy. :o) Luckily, I have no fear of heights.


Romantic pizzeria dinner at a rooftop cafe.


Boat ride to see the creatures of Costa Rica.


And some videos:

A 3 foot long iguana that lived on our hotel roof just outside of our bedroom window. Started out creepy (these things are huge), but we ended up liking these creatures. Here is a male iguana doing the mating dance to a female. The largest one we saw was about 5 feet long. Whoa.


Josh attended four days straight of surf camp. Not bad for a beginner, huh?


Croc sighting on the boat ride. Josh was not having it....


Real monkey family


Wannabe monkey family. This was one of the coolest things we have ever done. You go from tree to tree throughout the entire forest, surrounded by iguanas, monkeys, birds, and butterflies, insanely high off the ground. It is amazing.

Friday, January 15, 2010

I'm not going to lie.....

I'm not going to lie.....I am very, very sad. No matter how well I was prepared for losing Charlie, and knowing exactly everything I was going to experience because of losing Evan, it doesn't make me miss his sweet little face and noises and presence any less. I can literally feel my heart in my chest hurt, and I really do have to remind myself to breath sometimes, and I have to get out of bed every morning and remind myself that life IS good and that I WILL be okay. I went out to the graveyard to design a new grave marker for Evan & Charlie, and they had just moved Evan so that they could be next to each other. In all honesty, it was probably the most pain I have ever felt in my heart. I just kept thinking about what a loss it is to my little family that BOTH of my boys are gone. There is an emptiness in my home. It was hard to be faced with the reality of it, seeing them buried side by side.

At least this time, I know not to feel guilty for moving on. On Charlie's last day, I told him that I love him with all my heart, and that I know that he will understand that after he leaves me, I am going to do EVERYTHING I can to move on and have fun and be happy as soon as possible. I'm sure if he could have spoken, he would have encouraged it. Because it is just too unbearable to carry that sadness every day for the rest of my life.

As you can see, I have been pretty busy finding things that make me happy, and here are a few of them from the past month:

Maddie's preschool's Christmas show. She is one of the cuddly little brown bears. Can you see why she wanted to be in the snowflake class? She kept telling me that her matted brown costume was itchy. :o)

The ladies in my family. My emotional (and physical during the pregnancy) support system.

The fact that I found a robot the day before Christmas Eve. Hallelujah! Santa always comes through!!

Maddie's soon-to-be-uncle, Adam, who came up with this creative solution to non-sticky snow and helped Maddie make this snowman so that I could stay in my spot under a blanket next to the fireplace. :o)

This very colorful rendition of the nativity scene. Maddie was SO excited that she got to be Mary for the first time.

My 6++ foot brother having to be the "jackass" in the family nativity. It must be a pain to be the last one married in a family!

Newport Beach. Quite literally the happiest place on earth.

Finding out that our favorite place to get chili in a breadbowl in Newport is named this, and we didn't even know it.

That Josh is a real life Prince Charming and didn't even make too big of a deal out of the fact that within 2 minute of being in Disneyland we had to buy Maddie new shoes because the ones she was wearing gave her blisters, even though Josh told her three times before we left the house to change her shoes because she needed more comfortable ones. Girls and their shoes......

And last, but certainly not least, the Cranberries concert in Las Vegas. We bought these tickets months in advance, and promised ourselves that no matter what the situation was, we were going to go and have a blast. Well, I was seven days post-partum and literally couldn't even stand, had to go to the bathroom every ten minutes, was an emotional wreck, and hadn't slept through the night in seven days. But I went, and let me tell you, it was the most uplifting thing I could have done. I walked out of there stronger and determined to continue to live a rockstar life. Yes, I buried two sweet, adorable babies. And yes, I can hardly breathe when I think about it. But, I am hoping those are just the sad, life-changing chapters in a long, fabulous book of my life.

A little video to show how Delores rocks:

Sunday, December 27, 2009

From the Arms of One Set of Loving Parents to Another.



My uncle David was kind enough to take some pictures at Charlie's funeral, and my brother Brian was kind enough to record the audio from Charlie's funeral. Here is the link if anyone who wasn't able to make it to the funeral because of the holidays is interested to hear the service. It was a very lovely and spiritual day.

http://www.brianstucki.com/albums/charlie.zip (Just a warning that it is a large file)

Presiding: Bishop Calvin Rasmussen
Opening Song: "I Am A Child of God" - Congregational Hymn
Opening Prayer: Richard Harris
Musical Number: "I Lived in Heaven" - Madeline Harris
Speaker: Rachel Harris
Speaker: Joshua Harris
Musical Number: Hymn Medley - Stacey Eaton
Speaker: Bishop Calvin Rasmussen
Speaker: Stake President Kurt Teshima
Closing Song: "Families Can Be Together Forever" - Congregational Hymn
Closing Prayer: Karen Harris

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

And a video too....

More Pictures of Charlie

I realized that there weren't many pictures of Charlie on the blog when someone mentioned it to me. These are some of the most intimate and sacred moments of my life, and I'm a little on the private side, but I realize that Charlie has touched many people's lives and that NOBODY feels that they had enough time with him. So here is another little glimpse of a very special little boy.















Merry Christmas from Maddie

Don't worry about Maddie. We have not forgotten her Christmas. We took her to see Santa last night and she was VERY stressed out about what to ask for. It turned out to be (1) a real chihuahua, (2) a robot, and (3) a bathrobe. Crap......Is receiving one out of three going to be enough to keep her believing?
When she was told that Charlie died, she cried. And then she immediately worried whether Santa knows where heaven is because Charlie needs to get his toys too. What a sweet big sister.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Charlie's Funeral Information

Saturday, December 19, 10:00 Visitation and 11:00 Service at LDS chapel at 9580 Peace Way. Interment directly following at Palm Memorial Park at 6701 N. Jones Blvd. Luncheon directly following at LDS chapel at 9580 Peace Way.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Charlie's Angels

At 1:04 am, Charlie joined his brother, Evan, in heaven.

We wouldn't change a thing about his two weeks of life.

I will post here the information for his memorial service when we know it, but it will be this weekend.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Charlie

It appears that our time with Charlie is even shorter than we expected. Please change any prayers for Charlie to those of peace, love and comfort.

We have loved our time with our sweet baby Charlie.

Receiving his blessing from his daddy last night.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

A Giant Thank You

Please understand the sincerity behind this giant thank you, and forgive me for doing it in such an impersonal way. I have received congratulations, condolences, love, food, baby gifts, flowers, balloons, cards, etc., from so many people, both family and friends, during this pregnancy and during my time with Charlie so far. I haven't had the energy or the time to properly thank everyone for this, but I hope you will accept this blog post as my gratitude.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Friday, November 27, 2009

Baby Boy Harris Is Here

Posted by Rachel's brother Brian:

Josh and Rachel are atill stubbornly discussing the name and promise to have the perfect name soon, once Rachel is able to hold her baby boy. He was 7lbs 6oz and 19 inches long, born at 5:57pm Thanksgiving Day. He seems to be doing good and hasn't needed any machine assistance so far. They are still observing and assessing his abilities in the NICU. Rachel is still recovering and asks for visitors to hold off at least one more day, especially since only parents and grandparents are allowed to visit the NICU at this time due to flu season. Their baby is a wonderful reminder to everyone to be grateful for everything they have. Josh and Rachel definitely feel blessed. Please include Baby Boy Harris in your family prayers of Thanksgiving this week.




Sunday, November 22, 2009

Thursday, November 12, 2009

My brain is not rotten....

As I sit here on bedrest all day watching hours of crappy t.v. and feel like my brain has turned to mush, I am very, very happy to find out today that I was on the Dean's List for my first year of law school grades. That makes me like this -----> :o)

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Happy Birthday Maddie!

Five years ago, I was in labor while Josh's whole family was singing happy birthday to him and he blew out the candles - in my labor & delivery room at the hospital! Josh just kept saying to keep her in there until after midnight so they wouldn't share their birthday. Well, at 1:36 am Madeline London Harris was born. We called her Miracle Maddie because of all the medical issues we went through to get her here healthy and alive, and I still feel like she is an absolute miracle.

My sister-in-law, Candace, was kind enough to bring cupcakes to Maddie's preschool class for her birthday party since I am stuck in bed. Here she is eating her cupcake with her cousin, Cole, in her classroom.

Then that night she had nine little friends go to the Color Me Mine studio where they picked out what they wanted to paint....

Then we all walked across the parking lot to the Little Pastry Chef Bakery where they made their own pizza....

And decorated their own cakes....

And then Maddie got to blow out her candle and make a wish. (Something about wanting wings like a fairy so she could fly.) And when we got home she opened her present from mom and dad - her own sewing machine!! (For anyone who thinks she is too young, you obviously don't know Maddie very well!) And then, we totally got shown up by Grandpa Rick's birthday present - pet frogs! Only a grandpa can give a present like live pets and get away with it!!!
(I didn't include pictures of any of the kids from the party because a friend of mine who has a private blog said it wasn't appropriate to put other kids' pictures on a non-private blog. I totally respect that, but what do other parents think?)