Family & Summertime

To be honest, I just haven't felt like writing lately. I have so much to tell, but the energy and frame of mind to do so seems to have passed me by :/ I'll do my best to fill you in, so much has happened. There may be mulitple posts to fill you in though.. haha.

After spending the afternoon with my mom and sister, Caleb took me out to one of my favorite places for dinner on my birthday. We went to a famous little restaurant in a tiny tourist town about ten miles south of where we live. They have amazing food and the town is simply gorgeous - we don't get to go there enough. It was truly a good day and I felt blessed to have over one hundred people wish me a happy birthday via social media, phone calls, etc.

Two days later at 7am I got a phone call that scared me to tears. My great-grandma, one of my best friends, was being taken by ambulance to the ER for congestive heart failure. I assumed the worst, talked to Caleb, and threw a bag together that would last me a week away from home. I got everything ready for the Tween Event I was supposed to head that night, and explained to the children's ministry director that I wasn't able to stay. I then got in the car and made the three and a half hour drive to my hometown. On the way there I was notified that she was being transfered to a hospital about an hour away from town, but she was stable. Slightly eased, I met a friend for lunch and to fill him in, dropped my dog off, and headed for the hospital. In the four days I was in that area, I have never seen my great grandma so.. helpless. She could've done so many things, but it hurt my heart to see her sitting there in the hospital bed. She was never one to be idle, and liked to keep herself busy. So for her to be able to do nothing except sit in the hospital and have everyone else do things for her was hard. After almost a week of being there, they released her and it was decided that she would go be with my parents and sister for a while. This has been an adjustment both for her and my parents and sister, but everything is going well. It's great to have her just a half hour away instead of three and half hours away :)

Since we got back from the other side of the state, it has been unusually hot and humid. I can handle it being warm, I mean, hey - I grew up here, I'm used to it being hot. But I guess our unusually warm winter led to an unusually warm summer and I'm not a fan. It has been between 95 and 100 with full humidity this whole week. Thats a bit too warm for me :) But it has been fun anyway. Quite a few people from Caleb's side of the family are here from Texas, so we had a barbeque at our house on the 4th and invited both sides of the family. It was a blast, and the kids (randing from 20 mo. to seven years old) kept everyone on their toes. Ohhhhh I can't wait until we have a few of our own running around the house :) We also got to go to an art fair, which was fantastic. There's an art fair here every year on the weekend of the 4th, so I always look forward to going and seeing all the neat stuff. Well, this year my favorite things were the ceramic fired -anythings- which were in abundance, and all so gorgeous!

My last thing for this post is to share my exciteement that we are finally able to get our kayaks out on the river :) We've been to the lake a few times so far, but it's tradition to kayak the river on the 4th of July. This year we didn't get to do it on the 4th, but we were lucky enough to get a few tickets for this weekend. We won't have as many people as usual, but it'll definitely be great to get out onto the river again, and this time a brand new section that we haven't done before. I guess the section we're doing this time is wider and more shallow than usual. I'm not a huge fan of deep rivers, because I usually can't see the bottom and that just creeps me out.. haha. So a new, more shallow stretch of river will be a fun new adventure.