Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Reluctantly Recounting

It has been so, so long since I have even looked at blogs, let alone worked on mine, that this post is very overwhelming to me. I have basically been out of town partying at one place or another for over 5 weeks now--closer to 8 weeks if you don't count a small 2 day reprieve at home. Not to complain...it has been so fun! But how do you do 8 weeks worth of fabulous adventures? I will try really hard to just condense it all and then start refreshed with more details on my future posts.

After we got home from Colorado we had a 2 day break at home immediately followed by a long flight to SLC and then Idaho Falls for grandpa's funeral. I would have loved, loved, loved to enjoy the funeral but Cooper had an episode in the "nursery" so I was stuck outside the chapel with him for the "what I heard was a wonderful" 2 hour funeral. I was mad...very mad. All of that effort and money to get there and pay tribute to my grandpa just to sit outside the door. Oh well!! It allowed me the opportunity to ponder on my own thoughts and memories of grandpa. After the funeral we flew to SLC for the burial and to say our final good-bye's.














This is Luke's birth mom and my cousin Melissa.













We stayed in SLC for a week at my aunt's empty house to bide time until the family reunion. We thought we would get bored but I had so much fun getting together with old friends, seeing Jake's family and our new nephew Austin, having fun at Gardner Village, making the obligatory father's day gift search at Cabela's, hanging out in the pool with family, and of course enjoying lots of Cafe Rio and Magelby's Fresh. We had a nice, relaxing time.














Friends and family.






Gardner Village










At the end of the week we rented a mini-van and drove to the family reunion in CO. Such a cool place!! We stayed in this 10 bedroom lodge that had 2 rushing rivers right outside the front door. Despite having to keep a CONSTANT eye on the kids and looking down the river first whenever I couldn't find Cooper, the location was perfect. It was nestled against a mountain and you felt like you were all alone in an outdoors utopia. So fun! We had such a nice time hanging out, biking, white water rafting, fishing, throwing rocks in the river, hot tubbing, playing games, and creating our own mini-Olympics. It was definitely a family reunion to remember! We woke up early on Thursday morning, hopped in the van, and drove right back to SLC just in time to fly home that afternoon. Needless to say, it was a VERY long day for everyone.


















































A few days after we got home we loaded into the Suburban and drove ourselves down to FL to go to the beach while the Sedgwick's visited from CA. We stayed there for a week and just arrived back in GA. Whew! I'm tired just writing that.
My "claim to fame" about this whole traveling ordeal is that I only lost 1 sippy cup in the entire 8 weeks of mass transportation!! How much talent does that take? You Mommy's know how hard it is to keep track of sippy cups!

So, now I have a week at home to recover and then I'm off to FL for one more week of fun with the Tasker family. Then Jake will officially have his family back. For those of you who are concerned about whether I'm doing all of this vacationing because Jake and I are having issues...don't worry! We are doing just fine. When Jake's dad heard how much we were apart he was really worried that we were separating or something. I had to laugh at that because that's probably what it looks like!

Oh yeah, and I broke my toe yesterday which just made my day after a long, tiring vacation. I guess no more exercising for me!! Hah! Just kidding!






8 comments:

Ashley said...

Wow,You have been a traveling fool! It looks like you were having so much fun! Its good to see you blogging again! I have missed your posts!

Shalie said...

ITS ABOUT TIME YOU BLOG AGAIN! I have been missing out on seeing pictures of my cute nephews I can hardly stand it! I'm glad you had so much fun with your family, and melissa looks so happy in that picture of the two of you, how is she doing? Well, thanks for blogging and keeping all of us folk who don't travel as much as some peple up to date on your fabulous life! Sure love you

The Child Family said...

Your family reunion looked so fun!!!! It was so good to see you for the afternoon while you were a your aunt's house.
Are you glad to be home again, or are you hankering to get out and party some more??

Rebecca said...

I cannot believe you are traveling that much! You're going to sleep for like 3 days after you're all done. That toe episode sounded soooo painful (Jessica told me about it.)

Shalie said...

To answer your question... Yes, we get just as much sleep camping as we do here. We bought a 12 man tent, that we can stand up in, and we put the pac n play in it for Chase, and lay Kade down on the airbed until its time for us to go to bed and then we moved Kade onto his own little bed. We have been very blessed to have our kids sleep as well as they do, wherever we are! It could be because we force them to sleep no matter what!! I'm glad you're back from vacationing for now, I think Jake missed you

Wilde Lady said...

My my, woman, you are a traveling fool! It looks like you guys had a blast though everywhere you went. I'm so sorry to hear about your Grandpa. I hope you were able to enjoy parts of the funeral at least. And leave it up to the Jewkes family to have their own Olympics, I would have loved to see that!! You look great and I'm sure that Jake's happy to finally have you back.

Jene and Megan said...

Yay, I was waiting for new pictures!

The Allred Family said...

I love that pic of Coop flying. you need to get that framed.