Blessings...

Huh, s'been a long time again.

On Wednesday, February 3, 2010, my dad went to be with Jesus. I have a memorial post that is waiting in the wings...it involves several other people, at least one video and maybe an audio file...but it is taking time to gather and life has been going on around here...and I didn't want to WAIT for that post, before I could blog again. So I guess this is the announcement...and then we'll just move on, for now.

The title of this post is blessings. As hard as losing my dad is, this last two weeks has been incredibly full of blessing. (This is bound to be a long post so saddle up...or get a cuppa-whatever...or open a new tab... ;) )

For instance, I flew nearly immediately to Arizona to be with my mom but that left Bubba and the girls here to deal with school/work etc. It became clear within hours that we were going to NEED Bubba in Arizona to help us figure out some of the financial aspects of this loss. What to do? What to do?

I'd been talking to my friend (S.P. elsewhere on this blog) throughout the long night of surgery. She knew that we were going to need help regardless, so she started organizing in her own little head (she's like that) and called Bubba after I left and they worked out a plan between them. Seems that they love us so much that Camera King (her husband) was willing to take off work and drive S.P. and her girls the two days to our house to make this terrible week seem like more of a girlie trip.

While they were here they made the girls EAT, and NAP, and do a little school work...bossed them as needed...made them do chores and all the other things that are necessary to keep moving forward...check out the fun they had...







During the week they all went to a local-ish museum for a day of fun. The huge blessing from the momma perspective was that our family had recently paid for a membership to the museum and after explaining the situation to the staff at the museum and showing a companion membership to a museum in Colorada, they let them ALL in, no further questions asked. Kudos to the folks in Ft. Worth for making it even possible for them to go...





Here they all are once again...Topo, Coco, Monkey-Face, Gabby, Bear, Beanie and Tibbie...


And THEN, we got home. Another little blessing (well HUGE, considering how much I hate driving in precipitation) we flew through some snow...it seemed not that big a deal in the plane...a matter of moments really. Then we landed on dry pavement. Drove all the way home on dry pavement. Kissed our friends...kissed our girls...slept in our own beds and woke to this...



And it snowed like that for the entire day...and stayed snowy like that for another whole day...we got somewhere around 10 inches...I didn't measure, but them that did came in with numbers from 8 to 12 inches...and we PLAYED. Who has time for grief with this kind of stuff going on? Well, we still had time for it, but this was a welcome distraction.



I made blueberry syrup that pleased me GREATLY and we also had real maple syrup, a la Laura Ingalls...twas a terrific "snack" of colored snow...



We had a big ole snowball fight...



Here I am, BEFORE the snowball to the head...I think



A rare picture of our boys together...Bubba and Camera King with Monkey-Face, Tibbie and Beanie after our EPIC snowball fight...notice how wet they are...I was worse...well I was about the same as Beanie and Tibbie...my hair literally dripping...



And here is what Auntie S.P. was doing while we were flinging the white stuff...she was warm and dry (except for the one snowball that Bubba threw at her to make sure she was part of the "fun") and making sure we all got fed...these were so nummy...I'm not sure what I would have done without S.P. there reminding me in her quiet way that it was time to cook/clean/eat/live and DOING a lot of it for me when I just couldn't face it...


That night it snowed some more...and we played some more...



And then we relaxed...watched a movie...celebrated a birthday a little early...and that was a blessing too. The quiet...the peace.





It was a terrible reason to be together...but it was still a joy. God provided us the peace that we needed to feel "okay" again. As far as the sad...and what Bubba and I were doing during most of the time that our friends were with our kids...that's another post for a different day...


See you around...