Jury Duty In Downtown Cleveland

I am worn out. Serving as a juror in the State of Ohio vs. Angela Williams was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life but I was grateful for the experience. Hope I don't have to go through it again.

Here are a list of links that show you some of what went on. I might elaborate more later but my brain is tired of reliving and telling the story.
http://www.fox8.com/news/wjw-news-cleveland-rta-bus-driver-found-guilty,0,7096802.story

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/11/former_rta_bus_driver_convicte.html

http://www.wkyc.com/news/local/news_article.aspx?storyid=125610&catid=3

http://www.wkyc.com/news/local/news_article.aspx?storyid=125584&catid=3

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/11/post_124.html#comments

http://www.fox8.com/news/wjw-rta-bus-ax-txt,0,4249229.story

For journaling purposes I will probably cut and paste many of these stories onto my blog later before the links are gone but for now I want a break:)

This is a copy of what has been posted on Facebook again because I think I want to remember. It changed me.

Sarah Pead Parks is emotionally spent. If you want to see details of the jury I just served on this is the most accurate I have read so far. http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/11/rta_bus_driver_angela_williams.html

Sarah Pead Parks and this ...
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/11/former_rta_bus_driver_convicte.html
Yesterday at 4:37pm · Sarah Pead Parks I cried when they immediately cuffed her. I just wasn't prepared for that. I tried to hide it but there is so much tragedy on both sides
Yesterday at 4:40pm · Haley Hammons Ick, I would be emotional too.
Yesterday at 5:28pm · Tacie Kerr Wow - I've been following that story. I don't envy your participation.
Yesterday at 5:37pm · Brandon Pead WOW im sorry sarah i cant believe that thats y I couldnt do jury duty
Yesterday at 6:23pm · Cindy Abawi that is a tough one. So sorry for all involved
Yesterday at 6:28pm · Robyn Holladay That would be really hard. I've always wanted to serve on a jury, but not one like that!
Yesterday at 6:34pm · Sarah Pead Parks One of the hardest things is that as a jury you can't consider the sentencing phase or what that would intell at all in your decision. We assumed that the first count was a felony but had no idea that the second count was a misdemenor or what the sentence would be for either count. After being able to catch up with the news there was a lot we didn't know, such as that Judge Saffold was the only party, including the victims family, that would not accept the early plea agreement for the lesser charge she ended up recieving through our verdict.
I think that is why it freaked me out that as soon as the verdict was read the warden cuffed her. Up until that point she was going home every night.
It all comes back to a mother of six who made a big mistake that a lot of us make everyday. In a moment of inattentiveness, she killed a man and is sitting behind bars tonight. Her position held her to a higher standard but I am done with the cell and a lot of other things in the car even though we felt like there was reasonable doubt that she was on hers.
Yesterday at 9:23pm · Deb Langfritz Rust That is horrible!!
Yesterday at 10:10pm · Sarah Pead ParksI am still sick to my stomach and wonder how I will settle down enough to sleep. I am glad I got to be a part of the process but never want to have to do it again. The other jurors were awesome and pretty understanding when I went and cried in the deliberation room after we delivered the verdict and they were going through the sentencing and commentary phase.
Yesterday at 11:21pm · Carrie Jackman Wow! How hard.
Yesterday at 11:30pm · Janine Zayed That's the jury you were on? Oh my gosh, how tough. Let me know if you need anything or just want to talk...
5 hours ago ·

For now I am just grateful for my freedom, from jury duty and in life.

Picture Preview

I am SOOOOOOO super excited!!! We got family pictures this last weekend and our amazing photographer Ashlee just posted a little preview. http://ashspassion.blogspot.com/
You should check them out.

I stressed out because I really wanted the fall colors and it has rained and rained and then poor Ashlee ended up having an emergency surgery. She was only a week out of the hospital when she took these.

It rained the whole day before the pictures and the morning of was cold, wet, windy and threatening more rain but it held off. I think all of my prayers, and the extra effort I made to be nice under stress to my family paid off:)

Can you believe I get to LIVE here? This year has been especially gorgeous, or maybe I feel that way every fall:)

P.S. I did iron Emily's skirt that morning but somewhere between home, the car seat and picture time it didn't matter. lol.

Future Director - I Love My Son's Mind!!!

Sam wants to grow up to be just like George Lucas. When he was 5 he let us know he didn't think it was fair that George Lucas thought of Star Wars first. That's okay though because he has his own line of action figures, The Creation Pods, that are all made out of aluminum foil. He is planning on directing Creation Pod movies and including 2 peices of aluminum foil in each DVD of 100 episodes.
Bionicles are also cool as you will see in the following self directed movie. I hope it doesn't make you sea sick.
Yes my boy is cute and yes he is dirty. I need to throw him in the tub.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Sam's Baptism

Sam is getting baptised next Saturday, June 20th at 10:00 a.m. It will be at the Mayfield Ward building, 32895 Cedar Rd in Mayfield Heights. We would love to see anyone that can make it there.

Hello, anybody out there?

Yes we are still alive, healthy and crazy as ever. I know I am a blog slacker and have heard it from many of you, but our computer has a personality conflict going on with our new camera and refuses to acknowledge it in any form. Grrrrrr.
I know that it is actually possible to post without a picture but how fun is that? I get my inspiration from those many pixels of joy and can't seem to make myself move beyond it. So here is a nice random shot of the bumper of my car from when the 82 year old woman decided she didn't want to turn right onto the interstate and instead proceeded to drive straight into me as I made my right turn.

Its okay though, she saved me a $250 deductible from when I caught the corner of a railroad tie with the otherside side and I got a beautiful shiny bumper out of it.
Maybe soon we will back up all of our data, kill our computer and start from scratch. Alas, that is the advice that HP finally gave us after hours of support calls. Gotta love Windows Vista!

Emily Lectures Santa

One day in December Emily asked me why Santa was so fat. I explained that he was pleasantly plump and that it was because so many people around him fed him cookies on Christmas Eve.
A few days later she came back to me and told me she didn't think we should leave Santa cookies. When I asked her why, she poked out her tummy as big as she could and then used her hand to gesture that it was even bigger and whispered, "He doesn't need them. I think we should leave him apples. Sliced ones."
When we were at Lake Farm Parks, Santa made the mistake of asking what kind of cookies we were going to be leaving out for him. Emily turned to him and said matter of factly, "We're not. We are going to give you sliced apples." at which time Sam threw in "And water, because that is the healthiest for you."
Santa took it well.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Just in case he didn't get the hint that night Emily felt like she should remind him right before bed Christmas Eve and we made this video.
I think Santa and Mrs. Claus caught the hint. I signed them both up for a new gym membership yesterday.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Lake Farm Parks

I don't know why this title makes me laugh but that night we were the Lake Farm Parks at Lake Farm Parks. The Country Lights Event that the farm puts on during the holidays are awesome. There are lights in the forms of all kinds of winter creatures that line the long, winding drive that are magical. Once there your ticket designates a time for a ride across the countryside behind two massive, amazing horses, where there are more lights that come on and off to illustrate nursery rhymes. The air is filled with the smell of roasting cinnamon almonds, cashews and living cows :-)

See how much fun we had waiting in freezing rain for our turn to see the lights.
There are lots of other activities indoors to warm the soul. My kids favorites were talking to Santa (this one WAS the real one - lucky us!) and the elf workshop where every child gets to pick out and build a toy with the help of an elf. First they choose it, then they build it, then they paint, glitter and wrap. Sam built a tank and Emily built a gingerbread house. I was with Emily in the workshop so I got way more pictures of her.
We missed the Nutcracker horse show because the roads were awful that night and it took us twice as long to get there. We were actually lucky to get home safely considering the ice storm that was going on and freezing the roads as we happily painted blocks of wood.

This is Emily making a candy cane.
Recipe: Two pipe cleaners- 1 white, 1 red.
One cordless power drill to clamp down on the ends of the pipe cleaners.
One Elf to help you practice starting and stopping the above mentioned power drill and to hold the other end of the pipe cleaners.
One happy trigger finger that knows how to listen to the above mentioned elf.
One cute munchkin with a happy, trigger finger.