A momma, her girl, a funeral, a few airports and some unexpected family time Part I

We made it home in time for dinner with our boys Thursday night--not CHRISTMAS dinner, but we managed a bite of Mexican Food at a restaurant on the way home. Christmas dinner came Saturday night when we had "Christmas" as a family.

BUT--how wonderful to have been "stranded" with family and not stuck in an airport like some people.

We left Wednesday morning and headed to Portland to fly out. We landed in Seattle, boarded our next flight and we were on our way to Sacramento where we met my dad who was driving through on his way from Reno to Grandpa's house in Tulare (about four hours from Sacramento). My daughter is amazing and such a great traveler! She played at the airport, ate when I offered her food, slept on the plane and in the car.

Then we got to Grandpa's and met up with my Aunt Joanie to start working on the "logistics" side of things. Grandpa had a lot of stuff. Books. Papers. Pictures. Plates...plates from everywhere in the world. He and Grandma collected them anytime they took a trip. I counted 86 plates on the walls and I know there were some stored in the cupboards. I brought four home with me from trips I remember taking with them.

BUT...enough words. Here's the first round of pics:

There was some unpacking and undressing...


There was some wearing of Great-Grandma's Christmas Apron...


...and Great-Grandma's Jewelry.


Then my cousin showed up and we played and ate snacks together.


And then I was tired and crashed out.


Next up: pics of the funeral. But first, because we're home we have some other stuff to work on. Dinner. Baths. PJ's. Stories. Bedtime.

We're home!

FINALLY! More pictures and details of our trip to come later!

Portland or Bust!

Here's my girl doing her best to get home! We head out for Portland tomorrow! Tonight we're going to Christmas Eve service at my auntie's church, eating a ham dinner and then getting packed up! We'll hang out with my brother, sister-in-law, nephew, auntie and cousin in the morning and then head to the airport tomorrow morning. Pray we make it home!

One more flight down...one more to go!

We are in Los Angeles until Thursday when we (hopefully) fly back to Portland. This weather is so strange!

Anyway--we're having fun hanging out with my brother, sister in law, nephew, auntie and cousin. At least I am not stranded at an airport sleeping on a floor trying to figure out how to feed me and Tori. God is good.

Off to play with the fam!

I'll be home for Christmas....

well...sort of. My flight was canceled today thanks to the kickin' storm rolling through the great northwest. I'm at a friends house in Sacramento until tomorrow when I take a flight down to Los Angeles for a few days. I fly out of LAX to Portland Christmas day at 4 PM.

Ugh. Super sad. But there is a reason.

Headed out!

You may remember I posted about my Grandpa being in the hospital several days ago. Saturday night he went home to be with Jesus and see Grandma. He gets to celebrate Christmas where they celebrate it best!

I leave tomorrow on a (too) early flight out of Portland and into Sacramento. Tori and I will meet my dad who is driving through Sacramento from Reno on his way to Fresno. He'll pick us up and we'll drive the last three to four hours with him. He'll also be taking us back to Sacramento Sunday morning to get back home in time for work and normal life on Monday.

Pray for safe travel for all of us. Pray for peace for all of us. Pray for peace and an incredible testimony for those who knew Grandpa and will be at the service but don't yet know Jesus. Pray for Tori to LOVE flying and to be (unusually) mellow and well behaved for me.

As always, thanks for praying...

Walkin' in a winter wonderland...

For those of you who live somewhere that gets a lot of snow, bear with us. We hardly EVER get snow and its quite the novelty when it shows up! SO...my kiddos woke up to a light (very light) dusting of snow on the ground and got all sorts of excited about it. It has continued to snow throughout the day which means school cancelations are likely tomorrow. WAHOO!

Andrew: "Can you say snow?"
Tori: "SNOOOOOOWWWWWW!"


Andrew: "Good job! High Five!"


Andrew: "Now we watch the snow. Isn't it awesome?!"




And now we play in the snow!







Yes, Tori's gloves are too big and make her fingers look broken but it was the best I could do. This child INSISTS on wearing gloves JUST LIKE Andrew's and refused to leave the house without them. *heavy sigh* Oh well! Could be worse: she could refuse to wear gloves all together and then we would have freezing fingers. So I guess gloves that are too big are better than nothing!

They call him "Pastor" or "Mayor" or "Mr. Cooke" or "Bill". I call him GRANDPA.

My grandpa went into the hospital last week with a leak in his brain (no, I don't know the techinical medical term for it--just roll with it). We thought things were getting better, but it seems things are going downhill. He's had a series of several small strokes and his heart is working too hard and not getting enough work done. They've put in a temporary pace maker to see if that helps. If it does, they'll make it permanent. If it doesn't, its back to the drawing board and really only a matter of time.

In the mean time, I've been doing a lot of remembering (death or near death does that to a person) and the thing I remember most about my grandparents is that they were pastors of a church, or teachers, or the mayor or something like that. Everyone around me always had to use a title with them. I always thought it was pretty stinkin' cool that I got to call them Grandpa & Grandma. I mean, really--its, like, a cool INSIDE thing. At least, that's how its always been for me.

I call him Grandpa and my kiddos call him "Great pa-pa". I will miss him terribly when he goes, but I also know he gets to see Grandma and do a lot of celebrating when he gets there.

Then & Now:

This was then:



This is now (3 years later):

So many things, so little time...

Some things weighing heavily on my mind...

1. My grandpa was taken to the hospital the other night and then flown to Stanford because there was "a leak in his brain". They were considering brain surgery but have opted out because the leak is healing itself and is so small, its really tough for the docs to find. But still--its my grandpa. And he's in the hospital. And that makes my heart heavy.

2. My step mom is doing really well--they've taken her arm out of the sling and are talking about her putting weight on her leg December 29th!! That is good thing and not really a "heavy" thing. Just on my mind.

3. My dad's job is slated to end tomorrow. However, tomorrow morning at 9:00 he has a meeting (read: interview) with numero uno in the "new" company (the company Dad was working for was bought out...you know how it works). We are praying he chooses to keep Dad employed.

4. Work is busy and it makes me tired but in a good way. We hired a new receptionist and she's doing awesome, but its a heavy burden to realize I'm responsible for her training. If she's poorly trained, that would be *MY* fault. I don't really care for having that kind of responsibility. But, on the flip side, I'm a total control freak and do not deal well with mistakes and incompetence so I suppose I should be the one to train her so I can blame no one but myself. Ugh. Sucks to come to that realization, but also a good reminder.

5. It's Christmas and we have two kids we are doing our best to raise to know the REAL reason for this time of year. We don't want them to do the "gimme, gimme, gimme". We want them to have fun. We want them to appreciate their savior. We want them to know its about GIVING.

My tummy is growling. Time for food.

My Crazy Husband

Mark always manages to find a way to make me laugh--sometimes very unexpectedly.

The other night we busted out our Christmas decorations and took some pictures of the kiddos helping out (they're really fun this year!). I downloaded the pictures and found the following:









We have several nativities around and, apparently, Tori's Monkey Toy is a part of all that this year...