Our Life: Exhausted

After three weeks of being in the NW we are finally home. What a whirlwind the trip was, well maybe it was more like a tornado! At least I feel like I had a tornado wreck havoc on my heart. The emotional ups and downs of the trip certainly took a toll. I'm so proud of our sweet baby who took the whole trip and crazy non-existent schedule like a pro.

For those who don't know, Bethany and I had a trip planned to go home for my cousin Alyssa's wedding on May 19th. However, we ended up going home early, as in two weeks early, because my grandpa had been put on hospice care. This was a completely last minute decision, I changed my ticket at 3:30 in the afternoon and Tom was driving us to the airport at 4:45. We were able to spend the whole next day with Grandpa up until he went to be with our Lord and Savior at 9:30 that night. He died on May 2nd, my grandmother's birthday. What a blessing it was to be there with him.

The next few days were filled with highs and lows. Grief and happiness as I was able to participate in a lot of wedding festivities I otherwise would not have if I had not come home early. I also decided that since we had more time than anticipated we would trek on over to Lewiston to see Tom's family. I'm sure that all of you with kids can empathize with me about the stress involved with taking a six hour car ride (by yourself) with a 7 month old. Bethany ended up doing great on the car rides thanks to some little rice crackers called "mum mums," I have no shame admitting I resorted to food to keep my child happy. :)

We came back to my parent's house while funeral preparations were going on. When we did eventually have my grandpa's funeral it ended up being an all day event. There was a nice private graveside service where military honors were done. It was beautiful. Later that day we went to the funeral home for the public memorial service. I surprised myself with very few tears, I suppose I may have been cried out. It was a nice day of remembering Grandpa Bever, but no get together in the Bever family is complete without a little drama. ;) I'm sure some of you can empathize.

After the funeral we were on to helping with the wedding full time. All of my girl cousins on the Witt side were able to make it and we had a blast. We were busy skewering fruit, talking nonstop, and rifling through Alyssa's "personal" gifts. The wedding was beautiful and Alyssa was so brave to opt for an outside wedding in May but I'm sure she is so glad she did. The weather couldn't have been better!

Finally the trip ended with the Rock n' Roll 1/2 Marathon with my mom, cousins Andrea and Elisha, and friend Diana. Running is a great stress relief for me and getting to do it with these special ladies just made it that much better.

Thank you to everyone who took Bethany off my hands during the trip. If it was for two minutes or two hours you helped keep me sane during these last few crazy weeks.