The last phase of our trip…(September 2011)

I won’t go into the emotional drama of everything that I was going through after my grandma left us.  Jared came in on the plane early (I mean 12 am early) Saturday morning and my uncle and aunt were kind enough to caravan with me so that I didn’t have to drive the car alone to pick up Jared after two days without much sleep (good thing I’ve had two infants or I wouldn’t have been sane at all ).  I felt very blessed that I was able to be at my friend Kristen’s house while she let me blab all I wanted to and we just hung out.

We did decide that we would go stay at my grandma’s house so that we could get some things cleaned up  and it wouldn’t be vacant and it could just be our family there.

The funeral was scheduled for the next Thursday, so we had some time to visit with family and since it was Labor day weekend, it worked out pretty nicely.  We got to go to the annual Buhler family Labor day picnic at the park which was nice.

  

My brother Eric brought my niece and nephew that live in Ogden so it was great to get to see how big they’re getting.

Jared was tossing the football with the kids and I love some of these shots and how their personalities come out in the photos.

 

We also got to spend a morning hanging out at my brother Bill’s house with his wife Megan and their two cute girls.  They recently got this very nice playground set and I couldn’t get Christian or Sandy to stop playing for a picture.  This is the best one I got… Kind of whimsical though…

Here’s Megan and cute little Abby (she’s my baby clone with darker coloring so I think she’s perfect ).

 

The Funeral was Thursday September 8,  2011 and it went very nice.  I was asked to play the Violin but the problem was that I didn’t have one so I had to get on Facebook and ask if anyone was willing to loan me theirs.  My dear friend Shawna was amazingly trusting and loaned me hers and so because of her, everything worked out really well.  Thank you so much Shawna for trusting me with your violin!  I am so grateful!

That afternoon after the funeral, we (Jared and I) mostly poked around grandma’s house looking at albums and things, it was fun, but somewhat emotionally draining.  I was grateful when my friend Julie called to see if I wanted to come with her to go shopping and then to a wedding that her husband wasn’t really wanting to go to.  It got me out of the house and it was so fun to be with her and just acting like girls and not moms for a moment.  Thank you Julie for the great time!

The next morning, Friday, we packed up the car and got ready to go.  I was very emotional trying to part myself from my grandma’s house with all the memories that were there and not knowing if I’ll ever see it again.  So I cried as I walked around and took pictures for an hour and the kids played in the yard in all the “secret” places I used to play in.  I had to take some pictures of them as well in their exploring (besides relishing the beautiful weather and actually being able to play outside).

Once Jared finished packing up the car, he joined the kids in a game of leap frog.  Which produced some funny photos.

Here’s a photo of my grandma’s darling house.  This place has held so many memories for me, I’m very sad to have to leave it.

Here are the kids enjoying hiding under the forsythia bush so they didn’t have to leave either.

We drove home that day.  Poor Jared drove the vast majority of the way home because I was so emotionally exhausted I kept falling asleep and couldn’t pull myself up for air.  I can not express how grateful I am that Jared took the time off from work to be with me and help me come home safely.  I’m so blessed to have him for my husband!