The Day My Life Changed....7/15/09

I got a phone call from Denise, an assistant manager at Walmart, at 5:34am, stating she was sorry that she had to call me so early in the morning. She told me that she has someone that needed to talk to me. As I look in bed next to me, I thought maybe it was Ken, cause he was not there. I had dropped him off at a bar the night before, and he wasn't home yet. So here I am thinking, he had gotten so drunk, and didn't know where he was, so he walked to Walmart. Boy was I wrong. I was in for a big shock. The person that wanted to talk to me was State Trooper Butler. He asked if I still lived on Godwin Street, and asked if I was home. He had some news that he needed to share with me.
So, I went to the front porch and sat in the chairs awaiting his arrival.

That was the day my life changed for the worse. I was told that there was a call to 911 around 2am, that there was a person lying in the middle of the road. A couple minutes later, that call was updated to the person had been struck by a vehicle. That person was my husband,
Kenneth Alan Neumyer Jr.

He was born June 24, 1973. He was killed July 15, 2009.
He was a loving husband. He was a daddy to Lizzie, Ben, Devlin, Amber, Alannah, Alyssa, Damien and Christopher. He was a brother to Kim, Craig and Jeff. He was a son to Ken and Kate.
He was my life. We were gonna spend the rest of our lives together.
Someone left him to die... someone who didn't care that he had a familt that loved him. They didn't care that now, I have to raise two little boys without a father. I have to teach them everyday what a father would teach them. I have become a mother and a father. I am now a single mother of four. All because someone didn't care.
I will not stop until I find out what happened to him.

He was loved by many. He started his job at the Short Stop in Selma in July 2008. His customers loved coming in and seeing him. He always greeted them with a smile. He loved his job. He met so many people. All the regulars, all the passer-bys....everyone always had something nice to say about Ken.
The store set up a bucket for donations, and to tell you....people loved him. People want to take care of his family. In his store alone, over $600 was raised. The district manager put a bucket in her other stores, and they raised as a group over $400. People loved him, people that didn't know him wanted to help. He was that type of person. I can walk in the store now, and people tell me how sorry they are for my loss. It's not just my loss, they lost a great friend at the same time. If I ever need anything, I know where to go. All of our neighbors have come to help. I never knew most of them until now. I am very grateful for the friends that he made working at the gas station.
They not only put up a bucket, but his boss, Rebecca, put up his shirt for people to sign. As you can tell, people loved him. This shirt was filled up within days. There is a second shirt that was signed more by the associates that worked with him. He was a very lovable person, that was loved back.

The only part of his family that I had ever met were his parents. I met his sister in law, Jaime, once and her son Troy. Other than that, I had only talked to his family. It was a goal of ours to go to Boston to meet his family. I was upset that I had to meet them under these circumstances. His family was a very close family. The four kids were very close. As talking to his sister, the two of them were really close when they were younger. They got into a LOT of trouble together. Then Kim turned into a girl...so Ken got his little brothers to follow him and the three of them got in trouble together.

And now, I have to raise my kids everyday, knowing he is looking down upon me, and will always look out for me. I have to keep his life alive in his boys hearts. They will have to be told all the time who he is, and what he was about. I have to live my life without him. And believe me, the first several days were really hard. The weeks after got a little better, but it's still really hard. I keep waiting for him to come walking down the street, or come around the corner, or be in the bed waiting for me. I hear his voice, I look for him. I have dreams about what happened to him and no one will help me find out what happened.
My life changed when my husband was killed.
My life will never be the same.
Rest in Peace.
Kenneth Alan Neumyer Jr
6/24/73 ~ 7/15/09
I love you.
Always.

Artificial Stupidity....!!

I noticed I really look like my mom in this picture (above). Wow... it looks really blonde!


Ken didn't want me to get a haircut, so I went for highlights instead. I still love my friend Lisa, but to have her do them, was gonna take a long drive. So, I got Ken's boss' daughter to do it for me. Thanks Stephanie! It looked like it was gonna be really blonde before I rinsed out my hair...
In the end, all is well... I have highlights! It was not as blonde as the creme made it out to be.
Steph did a GREAT job!! Thanks!!

Independence Day 2009

Maureen came down to enjoy the day with the boys and I. First we started out at Selma Elementary School playground. Then we went to McDonalds and ate some dinner, and Christopher played in the playspace. We then went to Uptown Selma to grab a seat. Damien is a little skittish about fireworks, so Mo brought some earplugs for him. He was a little leary at first, but put them in and understood why he was wearing them.
I love this shot! You can see the ones that had exploded already, then the lines are the ones that were just shot up. I love the little squiggly lines from the fireworks.
Swirly ones.... I love Ken's camera. I was just a snapping. Not really watching what I was taking pictures of .... most of them turned out really good.
These colors don't fade.... God Bless the USA. Happy July 4th.
Yes, Christopher fell asleep during the show, and we were within a block of them setting them off. You can see the green earplugs in Damien's ears.
"Earplugs to keep the noise out of his ears." this is what he said they were for. I love how he talks, cause he likes to explain things. Christopher saw "the quiet ones!" even though he fell asleep after about 5 minutes.
The boys had so much fun with Maureen. Thanks for coming out here and spending the day with the boys and I.

Sprinkler+Trampoline=BigSlipandSlide!!!

By this time the girls were all pooped out, actually, the fun had just started. I just got them to lay there so that I could take the picture!

Elizabeth was helping the boys jump today. Yes that is Damien wearing underwear, because we have no idea where his swim trunks are. And Christopher, he did not like not having a diaper on, he was always holding himself!

Damien had fun using his hand to make the water go everywhere. Way too much fun. But it allowed the girls to jump on the trampoline by themselves.

Everyone else has pictures like this one, so we decided to try it out. It took several tries to get a good one, cause one of them was always screwing around. It was amazing, the girls were all getting along too!

Alyssa caught in mid air, having fun on the WET trampoline. And then Lizzie and Lannah were having fun in mid air too!

Report Card Time...

Alannah is a 5th grader!!!

Alannah has already gotten on to Practice Planet to study this summer. It's a site that she can access from home and answer questions about math and english. My baby is growing up.

Awards: 4th quarter Honor Roll
All School Year... Honor Roll!!
4th quarter.... Perfect Attendance!!!

For the second year in a row, Alannah's has tested above the State Norming. I have one smart puppy! She is brilliant in Math. The Reading test was stuff that they had not gone over in class, her results were 3 points away from being the next level up.

Alannah loved to sing. Ms. Murphy said she was always singing in class. If they had music on, Alannah was singing along. I thank Ms. Koo for that, for allowing Alannah to open up her voice!

I now have a third grader!

Alyssa's is graded differently that Alannah's. All the S's are for Satisfactory.

Ms. Peele did a great job with Alyssa's Diabetes. I was very pleased with how well Alyssa got along in the school, and with all her classmates. Funny thing, the 2nd to last day of school, she gave her phone number to a boy. Please don't let them be in the same class next year, please Lord!

The boys being boys!

Nothing like letting it loose anywhere. Ken showed him that he can pee outside. But we didn't mean for him to just pee in the front yard where everyone to see. I was about to take a picture of Alannah and she said look at Damien, and I turned and snapped - not trying to, but ... Not trying for a child porn pic here, at least I censored it. It was just funny how he whipped it out.

Nana Kate bought all the kids doggies with blankets. Let me tell you how much Christopher loves his. He likes to bring this anywhere and everywhere. That and his Dimples bear. This is one of the best things she could have bought him. "Doggie" is so nice and fluffy, he is so soft!
Damien loves playing on the computer. We have this Elmo's workshop game that allows him to color, paint, place stickers, or play with costumes. Well I found some of the same things on NickJr.com. Here he is coloring with Little Bill.
He likes to color the whole thing the same color, and then erase it, and change colors. He is really good with the mouse, especially since we think he is left handed. You give him a pencil, and it automatically goes in his left hand. Which is fine, but it's gonna be hard, cause no one else in the house is left-handed. Mom did this to me...
I am so proud of him. Now if I could just get him to learn what his letters and number look like. He will try his hardest to say them, but doesn't know what they look like. He knows just about anything else. He's really good at putting words together to make sentences, knows his shapes, colors, just about anything. He does know that his name begins with a "d" and Christopher's name begins with a "c."

Fun in the Sprinkler!!!

The kids really wanted the sprinkler out. They begged and begged. And begged. So I had Ken set it up before he went to work, and they had so much fun. The boys LOVED playing in the mud. This is really the first time that I had LET them play in it.

All Christopher kept saying "Lightning Makeen got wet!" He thoroughly enjoyed getting wet as long as the girls didn't let the water spray directly in his eyes.

The girls loved playing outside. They actually were getting along, I'm amazed. Alannah had a brilliant idea of washing their hair while playing in the sprinkler. I said what the heck, at least make it fun while doing so. So Alannah washed Lyssa's hair, and rinsed it.

The sprinkler started out over on one side of the backyard, and one of them was always moving it. They figured out how to pinch the hose, and had one go over to "fix" the sprinkler head, and the one pinching would let go! Damien loved that. They put the sprinkler on top of the castles slide to make a wet slide. They filled the blue bucket shown above up with water and splashed everyone. Then the girls had the brilliant idea of spraying the trampoline and then jumping on it. Slip and slide more like it.
But all in all they had so much fun. I sure do like it when they all get along.

Thanks to those who seved and died for us!

We salute those who have served in the military. We thank those who lost their lives in order for us to have the freedom that we have today.









Ken set off some NC legal fireworks... the kids sat on a blanket in the front yard eating their corn on the cob. Got them to look at me for a quick minute, while Ken was lighting another one.





Alyssa, Alannah, and Christopher loved them, didn't mind the noise, but Damien for some odd reason, is the only one that hates the noise makes. I went to grab my camera from the truck, and Ken set off a NC legal whistler, and boy, Damien screamed cause I was not with him. You can tell he had some fear in his face in the picture.





I don't have the best camera in the world, but I love how these came out. You can actually see the works part of them. I love the streams of color coming out of the big flash.


It may look a little shaky, but it's weird, that one was taken without a flash. I wanted to get some of the color in it. And the one that used a flash, was steady. Go figure.


Ken mowed the lawn, as I took the kids up to Rex. Jay's brother had a stroke, and we went to see him. He can not use his right side, and can not talk. But he is making improvements, on Sunday he was on feeding tubes, Monday he was able to swallow some food and keep it down. He has therapy every morning at 9am. (if you read this, say a little prayer for him.)


While we were at Rex, I took the kids to the Special Care Nursery. One nurse that was working that day, remembered Christopher. She loved the fact that we came up to see them, and was amazed at how big he's gotten.


Then we came home, jumped on the trampoline while Ken was grilling steak, hamburgers, hot dogs and corn. The corn tastes so much better when we cook it on the grill as opposed to boiling it in a pan.


Hope everyone else had a safe and happy memorial day.

Alyssa's 2nd Grade Animal Project

Alyssa just had to do a project. And she chose tigers, all on her own. She said she chose them because I like them. Is that not sweet or what?



But this project had been given to her the week of mother's day, and was due May 21st. When and how did I hear about it? On the Monday before it was due, and by one of her classmates mom. (She works with me.)









So she had to create the habitat that the tigers live in, in a shoebox. So we bought some moss (swampy lands), and some fake trees (forest), and put in a small pond/lake. Tigers will bathe and hunt in the water. Bought some blue foam, and some stickers to make the sky. Teacher said not to spend a lot of money on this, to try to use things around the house. So instead of actual Bengal tigers, we used Tiggers! And we bought stuff at the dollar store!











Did you know that you can hear a tiger's roar up to TWO miles away?
(that's gotta be in the wild, cause I don't think I could hear it over the trains near our house!)























Did you know that, just like snowflakes, no two tigers have the same exact stripes?






They monkeys, deer, boar, and buffalo.



She and Alannah wrote all the facts on the poster, and then I went over them with a marker. (I was trying to avoid mistakes with the marker!) It's really hard to copy kids' writing, and you can definitely tell which one wrote which fact! But all in all, it was a great project. Really great for knowing about it 3 days before it was due!