2020….. its time to say thank you and good bye

     New Year’s Eve 2020 was spent on a respiratory unit at CHOA, with a terribly ill 16-month-old sweet baby Jack. Confined to a hospital bed, in an isolation room, holding my precious baby close to my heart…… I exhaustedly dozed in and out while watching the fuzzy, miniature hospital tv that was affixed to the ceiling. I scarcely caught the ball drop in Times Square, signaling the arrival of what was to be a life-altering year.  My big/little baby was hooked up to beeping monitors and  was receiving hi flow oxygen through a nasal cannula in an attempt to remedy his compromised respiratory status, courtesy of a wicked case of RSV and strep throat. His oxygen requirements were enough to put us in the ICU, but they had no beds available. He barely moved or woke up for three days straight. I laid with him, perpetually tangled in his various lines, literally nursing him back to health for the entirety of our stay. I was hardly able to sneak out of the bed to use the restroom. But it worked. I was able to get enough breastmilk into him to avoid IV hydration and with the help of supplemental 02 and antibiotics, he slowly started to recover.

  The conflicting emotions of fear and gratitude that come with seeing your child in such a distressing condition is pretty much the juxtaposition that was unknowingly to be carried throughout ALL of 2020… for me personally, for our family, and for the people of this planet collectively. Absolutely terrified by the current circumstance, but also deeply grateful for everything that we DO have.

       Jack came through his New Year’s illness, but January and much of February held a relentless stream of germs and sickness for our kids. Strep, flu, two ruptured ear drums for Henry….. someone in the family was down, for week after week…… Elementary school bugs are no joke. It was a brutal, disheartening period of time. When your kids stay sick you just can’t help but think you are doing something wrong or failing to protect them somehow. How can I feed them better? What vitamins should we add? Constantly researching and worrying and planning for how to shift the current circumstances. The whole experience helped to propel my curiosity about homeschool though… are kids really meant to be collected by the 100s and 100s and smushed into a comparatively small space for the majority of their days??…… licking each other’s faces and blowing snot all over the shared tables? I mean I believe in a healthy challenge to one’s immune system, but can a pre-K baby really go up against what the 4^th graders are spewing into the hallways??? Is this where the autoimmune crisis is stemming from? Are we overloading our immune systems at a young age, and then things are short circuiting in our thirties???? Being a sufferer of a dreadful autoimmune disease, I spend a lot of time thinking about these possible scenarios.  Who knows….just a thought I’ve had… but for sure those few months had me questioning if sending the kids to school was worth what we were experiencing at home that cold/flu season…..

      At the beginning of February, I was able to sneak off to El Salvador for a much-needed surf/yoga retreat. I have not taken time to myself like that maybe ever. Matt gifted the trip to my little sister Deanna and I, and he held it down at home with the kids while we got to spend some hermana time out in the world doing what we both love…. It was a very generous offering, and an absolutely moving experience. No surprise here, but the day before departure was spent schlepping the kids to the pediatrician, where all three were diagnosed with Strep… again. I got them squared away with food and their meds, but holy shit what a tough position to leave your family in for your first time away???!!!  I can assure you though, I was so burnt out at this point there was almost nothing that was going to keep me grounded. Matt and kids took me to the airport the next morning, and as we pulled up Jack projectile vomited all over the car. PEACE OUT guys, one more day of antibiotics, y’all will all be feeling great, see ya in a few!!!!!!

         The retreat was hosted by Soul Nourish Retreats (a sweet friend of mine is one of the creators and leaders of these amazing retreats), and it was held at a retreat center, Balance, in El Tunco (this gorgeous property is owned and operated by another dear friend) It was the dose of inspiration, freedom, excitement,  and return to the big world that I REALLY needed in my life.  By the time February 2020 had rolled around, I was about 6 months into cracking wide open. I have been on a long, deep journey of realization, reflection, and intense growth that began around the end of the summer 2019.  It’s been an immensely powerful, at times quite difficult, but necessary process. Its not easy to stare at the life you have lived so far, head on, and realize you have regrets, that certain things didn’t’ go the way you thought they would, or particular experiences hadn’t lived up to your expectations. To realize you are in a mental place that feels so far-off tract you wonder if its even possible to get where you want to go? I have come to terms with the fact that I had been shut down and in survival mode for the last almost decade of my life. I plunged into a position of total commitment to raising my children and providing all aspects of support for them… without the aid of a strong partnership with my husband. Matt was at the time committed to his career and providing for our family in other aspects. We were living different lives and succumbing to a different set of pressures and stresses, crumbling in our own ways, and not making the effort to support one another. I didn’t have anything left to give myself. I stopped learning, I stopped growing, I stopped being creative, I stopped prioritizing anything that made me… me. I was just getting through the days. Revealing this truth was kind of depressing, too much time wasted being dulled out, stunted, shut down, not fully tuned into the world around….. but I think reaching this dark place makes the awakening much more potent. This is not to say that I didn’t experience happiness or joy or fulfillment, I just wasn’t totally present. My life has been amazingly blessed and full of adventures and great things, but at some point, I feel like I lost control and was just at the mercy of whatever happened next… not consciously manifesting the future I wanted.

         Traveling, feeling a part of a bigger world, spending time in other cultures and geographical locations… that makes me feel alive. Thinking, learning, dreaming, setting goals, having hobbies, reading, and doing new things is vital to a fulfilling life… and I had stopped making room for these things in my day to day. Just because I am A Mother, does not mean I stop feeding MY soul. It doesn’t have to be a total sacrifice; I can still live too. Don’t get me wrong, being a mom and being with my kids brings me great rewards, but I didn’t know how to balance it with anything else. Without having much of a support system, I felt like I was walking through my world kind of alone. Over the years I just lost sight and gave up on myself, it stopped even being a thought.

    The trip to El Salvador provided some much needed time to focus on myself and provide some clarity moving forward.   It helped me to continue my waking up process. My career was something that I was at a crossroads with. My job had been pushed to the back burner as Matts work demands took precedent over the years. I was down to just a few shifts a month at this point, and the never-ending cycle of illness that was happening at home was making it difficult to make it into the hospital for even those few occasions. I was also battling my own health issues with Graves’ Disease, and was struggling to make it through the 13 hour work days. I felt like I could no longer give my all to my job, and I really don’t like to half-ass things. It was a hard thought to even let into my brain… leave my job?? But I LOVE my job, I LOVE delivering babies, I LOVE supporting women in such a poignant and vulnerable time in their life, I LOVE my co-workers…… how can I walk away from all that? How can I walk away from the only thing that identifies me outside of being a mother? How can I step away from contributing something to this world?  It was not easy, but I see it now as divine intervention. Had I not made that decision when I did, I would still be in the very stuck place that I desperately needed to fly away from. So, February held the closing of a 10-year, Emory Midtown labor and delivery nurse chapter in my life. It still doesn’t always sit well with me, but I know now it was the right choice. It will always be there to go back to…..or what if there is something else I’m meant to do? Now I am open to other possibilities for the future, and that is an exciting feeling.  To have the time, and to feel receptive to new chances is a privilege that I am incredibly grateful to have. I have had a job since I was 12…… for much of my life I have worked; babysitting, pet sitting, nannying, working in nurseries, working in restaurants, and eventually my RN career. Other than maternity leave, I have never not worked. So, I have had to ease into this new position, and it’s been a bit hard to feel “okay” about it, but it really has been the big breath of fresh of air that I needed. Luckily, the sacrifices made for Matts career to go where it has, has allowed us financial stability for now, and the chance for me to step back and reflect. And for that we are extremely appreciative, and hopeful that we can recover from the costs that came with the sacrifice.

        The end of February had us in NC for little sister’s bridal shower and some cousin time in Raleigh. We even snuck a few days in Wilmington with Mom and Dad and Dee and Thomas. Thank goodness for that …. because we all know what comes next………

         Friday March 13, 2020, Henry was scheduled for a tonsillectomy/adenoidectomy and bilateral ear tube placement. A tough surgery to decide to subject your child too, but in hindsight I know it was 10000% the correct decision for him. After a nerve-wracking surgical experience, and an absolutely brutal post-op recovery in the PACU (his pain was nowhere near controlled and there was a lot of screaming coming from a freshly cauterized throat), we headed home to promptly find out America had shut down….. the WORLD had shut down. Businesses closed, schools closed, sports canceled, travel banned. Of course, we had heard the rumblings about this thing called COVID-19 that was devastating foreign countries, but surely it wasn’t coming to the US……. a hefty dose of denial at work.

        The night following Henry’s surgery was undoubtedly difficult, as was the next morning…. but by that afternoon the boy was bouncing off the walls. How are we going to keep this guy quiet during his recovery????  Well, naturally the only thing that came to mind was getting in an RV. At least this way he will be contained; he can just sit and watch the world go by while we drive, and recover his little body. Right? isn’t this how everyone handles a post-operative hyperactive child??? It made sense at the time. Life is canceled, we will be self-contained in our home on wheels and therefore at no danger of COVID and we can get out of this city which will surely be a hotspot with its large airport and major hospital system right down the road.  So, we rented a Class C from RVshare, packed up and hit the road by Saturday evening.   We hadn’t made it but an hour before we were pulled over on the side of 85 south questioning EVERYTHING (theme of the year). Henry was in miserable pain and refusing his meds, Jack was already upset about being in a car seat, Isabelle had found something to be mad about, there was a lot of crying… me included, and a lot of self-doubt at play. But we paused, handled everybody’s needs (which is the nice thing about having a home on wheels) made dinner, talked ourselves back into the plan, and eventually got back on the road. We did not know where we were going or what our final destination was to be, but we had each other and that was all that mattered. We made sure to land in places close to a children’s hospital in case we ended up with any complications with Henry’s recovery, but for the next week and a half we made our way down the east coast of Florida and eventually found ourselves in a magical land called Sunshine Key. We had isolation, we had sunshine, we had saltwater, and we had a food source if shit got really desperate.  It felt like the safest place we could be during this apocalypse.

It is so wild to reflect on the exponential uncertainty and fear the world was experiencing at that time…… the newness of COVIDs arrival to America, the unknown, the anxiety, the panic, the sadness.  It certainly felt like an alternate reality. It didn’t seem possible that something of this magnitude was happening during out lifetime. How do you handle something like this? What is the right thing to do? How do we best protect our family?

      We didn’t know what was going to happen next, but we felt we had found a superior location to ride out the lockdown. Matt could work remotely, and virtual school had started up for the kids and we were getting into a groove of schooling in the RV. I called to extend our campground reservation for a month and found out that the state of Florida was mandating a shutdown of campgrounds. Begrudgingly we headed back to Atlanta for whatever was to come next. The world was starting to feel very scary. Any Walking Dead fans here? Remember that season that Rick and the crew came across the RV? They were unstoppable that season, the RV gave them such an upper hand in their fight to survive during the zombie apocalypse. Well, I can tell you Matt and I were having some extreme thoughts on this drive back to Atlanta. We felt so safe with our family together in this home on wheels. We hypothesized about just taking off in this guys RV and going off grid until everything settled down, we felt like we had an advantage in the RV. But rationality won out and we ended up back in Decatur.

       We settled into a very pleasant and quiet life at home, spending time working on the house, yard, garden, being with our animals and each other, and most importantly having Matt at home for what felt like the first time EVER. It didn’t feel hard at all to give up “normal” life. There were certainly plenty of times that we missed friends and family, but it also felt very okay to be just us and to just be at home. We made ALOT of really wonderful memories in lockdown. The emotions experienced during this time where again very conflicting and difficult to work through. I was so grateful and happy to have my family home, to see the world get shook up from the appalling way it operates…. feelings of hope that this event might bring large scale change… a rearranging of priorities for the world, a time of healing for mother earth….. But then there was this flip side of devastation from all the loss of life, loss of jobs, loss of livelihoods. So much sadness and loneliness for some. While feeling happy and grateful I was also scared and worried for my family, friends, for the frontline workers, for the planet and humanity in general. I felt an unease that our life was so good in comparison to the mass suffering going on around us, I felt like I should be doing my duty as a healthcare worker… how am I not in the trenches with my people??….. thinking about it was almost torturous. Our environment was in crisis, the world was in crisis, people were dying from a horrible virus, the issues of racial injustice were being brought to the spotlight, Atlanta was rioting, America was rioting….. Then the polarization came…. Instead of coming together we started to collectively fall apart. The doubt, fear, anger, distrust, the hatred… rising to the surface. What is real? What is happening? How did we go from all being in the same helpless place at the onset of this pandemic to the extreme antagonism that is starting to set in? It all felt very overwhelming. I realized that we are living in a very historical moment in time, and what am I doing about it?? What is my contribution?? I’m not doing my part in healthcare anymore, I’m not marching at the front of a protest, I’m not moved strongly by either political party to go be of service there…. What am I doing to be part of this moment in time???  My mind was totally f#$%^&

      After many, many, many conversations, Matt and I decided to focus on doing our big work at home.  We were keeping these children safe and trying to raise them to be the most conscious, loving, accepting, and honorable people they can be in hopes that they will be part of a generation that can bring real change to our world.  Just as importantly we wanted, to work on ourselves and make sure we are doing our part to be all of those things as well. While this approach felt selfish in some ways, to turn inward to our family when the outside world was falling apart…… I look at it as time spent preparing everyone to make an impact in the future, whatever that may look like.

       So, in addition to trying to navigate a pandemic, social unrest, personal existential crises for the adults, a rapidly crumbling and hostile world, keeping up with virtual learning (which my kids DESPISED,) and Matt trying to run a company in a very uncertain time…… we managed to keep things real extra.  During April and May we mustered up not one, but THREE trips to urgent care/emergency room.  To kick things off, Henry swallowed a quarter…. which was initially lodged in his throat (this was the scariest episode so far with any of the kids). He eventually worked it down in the back seat of the car as I flew towards Egleston, and then promptly fell asleep………. which was extremely unnerving. After a consult on the phone with peds, we re-routed to urgent care (in hopes of lessening our COVID exposure risk), to get an x-ray and make sure the coin wasn’t still lodged somewhere in his esophagus or worse, trachea.  The X-ray proved the quarter had made it into his stomach and I was sent home with instructions to scour every turd the little boy dropped. Fun. After three weeks of digging in poop, the quarter was never discovered. About that time we found ourselves headed back to urgent care with Henry, who was having incapacitating stomach pains…….worried the coin may have  somehow got hung up in his intestines. Another X-ray showed it had passed, but they had to work him up for appendicitis as well. No real cause of his pain was ever identified, but it eventually passed.  

       I will go ahead and throw in my emergency tooth extraction here. It was somewhere around this time. A tooth I had been neglecting for years decided that now was its time to come out, and after a round of antibiotics that didn’t work, to the oral surgeon I went. More fun.

      Isabelle had us in the emergency room a few weeks later, having almost completely chopped her finger off in an immersion blender while we were making blueberry cobbler. Now don’t anyone go calling CPS, I promise these kids are looked after… we just had a bad run……. With a mass amount of Dermabond and butterfly bandages, the ER team was able to put her little finger back together. It could have used some stitches, but everyone involved concluded to go with less invasive and a prayer. The glue and tape job held up for the most part and her finger is back to normal. The blade had cut through the entirety of one of her fingernails, so that was disgusting. 

     Both boys had episodes of transient viral synovitis this summer as well…. Jack in June and Henry in September.   So, they both had to go in and get worked up on those occasions…… how we haven’t ended up with COVID is truly a miracle.

     One of the big heartbreaks of the year was that my little sister and her now husband had to call off the fabulous wedding they had planned for April. There was certainly a lot of thoughts and emotions that were tied up in moving through the motions of cancelling plans of that magnitude, and setting aside the vision of what was to be one of the best gatherings of loved ones. However, it paved the way to a beautiful elopement in June. A gorgeous, teeny tiny wedding that was a good reminder to everyone involved of what a wedding is really about……two people and two families coming together. The only people in attendance were our immediate families, and we all got to spend a lovely, intimate, safe evening together and really relish in the love that brought Deanna and Thomas together. That was certainly a highlight of the year for our family. The kids got to serve their roles as flower girl, best man, and ring bearer, and the memories made amid this devastating year were beautiful and will last a lifetime. This event was also the catalyst to our next RV trip. With all the COVID fear we didn’t want to stay in my parent’s house for the wedding weekend, so we rented another RV and drove up to Wilmington. We had plans with Deanna and Thomas for a camping trip to the Outer Banks that we had made prior to their elopement. So it worked out that the wedding date came right before our camping plans and we were able to roll it all together into one big trip.

       Following the wedding, we headed further north and spent a few magical days at the campground on Cedar Island, NC… right next to the ferry boat loading dock. The wild horses run free here, there are miles and miles of empty beaches, a perfect dock for fishing, and you can watch the ferry boats come and go all day. Perfection. From there we camped in Ocracoke and then Hatteras, two of my most favorite places to go. The isolation of this little island chain hanging out deep in the Atlantic gives me all the feels. Worries of COVID seemed so far away in such a remote location. We felt sheltered from the horrors swirling everywhere else.

RV life was calling. It was presenting as an opportunity to best survive and thrive in the current uncertainties of the world. It was looking like a beautiful way for our family to come together and pave a new way of being. A way for Matt to get back some of the time he had missed with the kids while he was building his business. It was rapidly becoming a viable option for our life moving forward.

In late July Matt snuck in a trip to Colorado for an extreme mountain biking excursion, a trek from Durango to Moab. The kids and I quarantined, tested, and snuck back up to Wilmington for a few weeks while he was gone. We spent the remainder of the summer living quietly at home, podding with a select few, making the most of our neighborhood pools limited operating hours, and dreaming up our next move.

We knew at this point there was no way we were going to subject the kids to virtual learning again, our experience in the spring was too painful for everyone involved. And if we were going to live on the road, we need something flexible. So, I got serious about shopping homeschooling programs and trying to wrap my brain around how that would work. If you have been following the blog, then you are probably familiar with how the rest of the year plays out. We made big RV tripping plans for the foreseeable future, and then Matt had a work opportunity present itself in Colorado. Plans shifted a bit to shorten our time in the RV and instead move temporarily to Breckenridge, Colorado.

     We purchased the Shadow Cruiser at the beginning of September and spent the next few weeks completely renovating it. One day I will try to get some before and after photos of that process. If you haven’t read any of the previous posts, this is your queue to go back and catch up.

       We were a part of another beautiful wedding before we left Atlanta. Matt and the kids were in his best friend Nick’s wedding early September. It was a beautiful weekend spent in north GA mountains. Unfortunately we lost a few loved ones over the course of the year. My nextdoor neighbor growing up, a man that lived beside my parents for 30 years, Wade Lowe, passed away. He was like a grandfather to me and a really incredible person; a true gift to the world. Matt’s grandmother also unexpectedly passed the very day we arrived to Colorado. That has been a difficult loss for the family, and so we’ve all been doing some grieving. These are the first deaths the kids have really been cognizant of. Matt was able to go home and be with his mother for the service and burial, and I was able to participate in a beautiful Zoom memorial service for Wade.

      We have been in Colorado since mid- October and are pretty settled into, and loving mountain life. It has been incredibly fun and exciting to make a new place home, it was the perfect way to spread our wings and expand after having felt so stuck in Atlanta.  Colorado has endless wonders to behold. We have taken several day trips…….. Mt. Princeton Hot Springs, Leadville, Grand Junction….. we have explored all around Breckenridge, Frisco, Dillon, Silverthorne, Idaho Springs…. We’ve made some new friends, gotten involved with our local library, and this week the kids are starting some activities at the rec center. (tennis and rock climbing for Iz, basketball and a sports medley class for Henry) The kids have taken to skiing and snowboarding like little pros, and we try to get out on the mountain at least 2-3 times per week.  Having this sport to do together as a family has been extremely rewarding. Normally the kids do their activities, and we spectate and support, but this is something we can do TOGETHER and it is EVERYTHING. We are all very passionate about our time on the slopes. The kids have ample time to dive into some of their passions…… Isabelle has turned into Julia Childs and she bakes or cooks EVERY day. She has a new love in her life, George, a squishy adorable little hamster. She did extensive research on hamster raising and offered to buy him with her own money. She was having a VERY difficult time existing out here without her cat, so we acquiesced to the hamster request. It was the right thing to do, he has been a wonderful addition. Henry is as close to being a ninja turtle as one can be….. His obsession runs deep, and he spends a lot of his days “training”. He even sleeps in a cardboard box that he has made into a sewer……  Jack his simply happy being Jack and involving himself in whatever is happening around him. He is such an easy going, jovial little boy. He is truly a joy.  Matt has created a giant luge course along the side of the house that has provided some epic sledding. We’ve seen beautiful foxes and gigantic moose. We’ve gone snowshoeing, on a tour of a gold mine, hiking in the national forests, and before the snow found an epic skatepark to frequent.

Homeschool has been a struggle. It did not come as easy as I thought it would and has proven to be a difficult thing to make happen to the standard I had set. It has been a bit of a disappointing factor in the experience of this year, but I’m trying not to beat myself up too bad about it. I think with the trip, and the move, and the getting to know a new place…. its been very hard to get in a routine and get the kids excited about sitting down for some school.  I keep reminding myself that they are still learning every day, it just looks a little different than sitting down to a formal lesson with Mom. Matt talked me in to hiring a sitter to help during the week ….so I can have a better shot at effective teaching. It’s also allowed us to get out to ski without having to tote little Jack around with us. It felt weird bringing someone new into our world after having only been with our family unit for so much of the year, but it has been a great blessing and is allowing us to really enjoy our time here. Matt has been busier with work than I think he would like, but we still get to have him in the house with us all day, so we are happy for that.

The holidays looked a lot different this year, as I know was the case for most. We spent Thanksgiving with just our little family, and I got to cook a Thanksgiving meal for the first time ever and I really enjoyed it. Matts brother Ben and his fiancé have been able to come stay and ski a few times now, and they were able to be here for Christmas, so that brought a tab bit of normalcy to the holiday season.  We rang in New Year’s 2021 with our little family and the Avett Brothers, which was a real treat. They put on a wonderful New Years Eve event.

     We have made a lot of beautiful memories out here already, and it feels like we are living in a dream to wake up and look at the Rockies every morning. The snow adds an element of whimsy to everyday life… we get to move about a sparkly wonderland… I don’t think I could ever get tired of it.

      As I am sure everyone is experiencing, there is no real “alone time” to be had…. and the lack of other people to interact with is a struggle. The trials of raising three small kids remains no matter where you are in the world, so we are still working through the challenges of parenting and supporting kids in this particularly tricky year. The kids REALLY miss home, and there hasn’t really been a week that’s gone by without someone melting down about wanting to go home. We stay busy and excited and distracted, but they will get it in their head they want to go home, and we go down a sad little rabbit hole. Matt and I know that when they look back on this time it will bring nothing but a smile to their faces, and when we are back home, I imagine that these glorious mountains will be calling to them and they will just as desperately want to be back out here.

To touch back on my personal journey, I have had a LITTLE more time to spend on myself. I have really enjoyed writing about our journey, it has been cathartic, and I really appreciate the support I have received along the way. I always end up struggling with whether or not share what I write…….ultimately it boils down to, if just ONE person can FEEL something while reading, or RELATE to something shared, it’s worth putting myself out there.  It’s certainly still a difficult balance to keep MYSELF in mind as we are go through our days, but I feel inspired here and more supported having Matt part of our daily life.  I am trying to use some of this time to keep bringing myself back to whole and live fully in the present. It takes constant work! I have unfortunately had another thyroid flare, and that has been a bit of a setback, but I have a mission for remission in 2021 and I just know its going to happen for me.

     Writing all this down has me like WO. Where we started 2020 and where we finished 2020, I could have never predicted it. I know that we have been spared in so many ways this year, and that our life in general is blessed. We come from a place of privilege, and that is not lost on any of us. There were some major changes that needed to happen in our family structure that we were able to achieve with the opportunities this year presented. We definitely made lemonade….Our year held its challenges, but I am so grateful for the lessons that were learned and the growth that was achieved. Some much needed clarity was provided for both Matt and I. However, my heart has been ripped open for those whose lives have been devastated by what this year brought. I can feel the suffering that has been experienced by the world, and I just want everyone to know that the future holds some real beautiful potential. We are so close to creating a better world for all. If we all take the time to listen to our hearts and find peace within, we can then project that to the universe…. we can heal. We love you all so much, and look forward to reconnecting with everyone in 2021.

       

Below is the last writing I did….. its not complete, and it won’t ever be… so I just figured I would include it here. I found I wasn’t as inspired to write about our day to day in Colorado. We have some upcoming excursions planned however that I think will provide some good material, so stay tuned!!

10/17/2020

            The little squirms that added themselves to our bed, one by one throughout the night, start their wiggling early.  I have no idea what time it is or what our “ normal time” might be anymore… we blew through a couple of times zones over the last week…..but I do know that we are up early enough to catch a pretty gorgeous sunrise. Through the window of our new bedroom ( no drapes because they are still in the drier, lol), and from the comfort of our big cozy bed, we can see the sun climbing up from behind the hill, peaking through the pines, and shining magical beams of light that felt purposefully aimed at our groggy little faces. Jack is the only one that stayed in his bed all night, but henry and Iz are snuggled in with us and are happy to watch the colors of the sky change as the sun comes up, from the comfort of our cozy dogpile. I think for a second about going to wake Jack up so he can join us, but its okay to sneak in these special moments with the bigs right? I feel very at peace for the moment and reflect on the fact that we are safely here. 

           This early Friday morning launches our first real meeting with the new home. I can’t really call whatever happened last night anything but pure chaos.  I honestly can’t quite recall how we got the kids to go to bed in a new, strange place; they have grown so accustomed to the Shadow Cruiser and are usually pretty wary of sleeping in a new spot. Pure exhaustion… that is the answer to that. Everyone succumbed to the weariness that was acquired throughout our grand journey…..they were simply too exhausted to do anything but pass out. But, to wake up in this beautiful, safe home, with views that don’t even seem real.. has made it all very much worth it.  Our first discovery… from the living room we have an epic view of the Rockies in all its grand splendor. The magnitude of these mountains…how can this marvel exist? how can this be our new daily scenery? Its all too good to be true. Everyone is for the moment high on life and excited to make this place feel like OUR home.

        Well, we have a bit of a situation that must be handled right away. Our dear friends are getting married back in Atlanta tomorrow. Matt has the honor of being a groomsman and therefore has a responsibility to be at the wedding. As much as I genuinely want to be there in support of this darling couple, it doesn’t look like that’s going to be a realistic option for me. Pete and Emily, if yall are reading, it pained me to be in attendance to show my support of your marriage, I hope you know how much I love yall and wish only the best for your future!!!  The circumstances were unusual to say the least! Like I have said prior, we really have a hard time planning ahead, we knew when we embarked on our journey that they timing would be very tricky in regards to this wedding. We did not really know where we would be when wedding time came, and had no travel arrangements booked for Matt because of this. So, long story short, just as soon as we have arrived to our long awaited destination, we have to book Matt a flight back to Atlanta.  We only have the one car, and he has to drive back to Denver to catch his flight, so I am looking at being housebound with the kids in a new city/state/part of the country… while Matt travels for the weekend. Its really fine, all I want to do is get settled anyway, but its just an interesting twist to the story.

          Just as we are getting through this logistics and planning meeting, I get a text from Matts mom, “Please have Matt call me immediately, its important”. I knew in my heart of hearts immediately that something has happened to Matt’s grandmother. She is in good health, but I could somehow feel through this text that something has happened to Mimi. Matt called his mom right away, and found out that his grandmother had passed unexpectedly in her sleep sometime the night before.