Southwest Summer Reprise

If you've followed my blog for any amount of time, you may be sick of my drive-by-phone-camera pictures of the gorgeous rock formations that we pass on our trip to and from my Mother-in-law's home.

But I can't really imagine posting about the summer without pictures, since it's worth a thousand words.  In this case, the words all speak of how far away and how foreign this land is to our home.

I randomly grabbed pictures from my phone, and this one is on our way home.  Eowyn had just barfed all over a Wendy's in Amarillo, Texas.  We immediately headed for the nearest hotel and called it a (long, hard) day of travel!

At this point Arwen was on antibiotics and medically prescribed doses of ibuprofen.   The next day my husband would make a dash to the Urgent Care at 5:30am and be diagnosed with walking pneumonia.  He was prescribed antibiotics as well.

This is Galadriel sitting atop the van before we left.  She...was happy to be heading home.

 Upon arrival in my husband's home town, we had one dinner with his brother and my sister-in-law and the kids' cousins, and then that family (which is a huge source of fun and socialization for us when we visit) left town for the year.  That's another story, but we were alone with my loving, fun mother-in-law for the remainder of the visit.  The girls, especially, were bummed.  But we watched lots of hometown baseball games and celebrated my mother-in-law's 81st birthday.  We were trying to have fun and enjoy our time.  About a week into our visit, Gramz got the flu.  It hit her so hard that she began to fail to know what day it was.

Gramz prefers to eat out, but she was no longer able to leave the house, so we brought food in.  One particularly sad night we had dinner out, alone.  That was a first in that town.

Slowly she began to improve.  Just as we thought we might be able to leave on schedule, my husband came down with her sickness.

This water park was a desperate attempt to keep the kids' spirits up as we waited to see when Dad would be healthy enough to drive us home.

Our long days of waiting were filled with visits to Hobby Lobby, taking advantage of off-season sales on flannel.  We made lots and lots of blankets.

 Yep, even my big boys (who will kill me if they see this picture on my blog!)

We visited my mother-in-law's farm, where there is a pond.

 We bought paddles for the very old boat there, and one afternoon we brought Reina along, just for fun.

 The kids caught skinks.

 Gotta love skinks!

 We found a lake with floatie things.  The kids had a lot of fun here.  Not to complain, but it was 100 degrees every day and Sam won't get into the water.  So, hot for me.  I did splash off to stay alive.

 Back at Hobby Lobby, we bought little bird houses to paint.  And we painted.

Sweet, slow summer days.  The boys got to golf a lot.  Much harder on my girls.  But we tried to show lots of love to Gramz, tried not to wish away our summer days,  or our time in the Southwest.

Life is best lived when we try to appreciate the gifts of each day.  After a month of trying to appreciate all of the little things, we headed home, with Dad doing "better."

We made it home just in time to celebrate Galadriel's 13th birthday.  We ordered a bunch of school books, joined a bunch of fall activities, and took a couple weeks to recover from things like pneumonia.

Now, as September nears it's end, I am so grateful to be home.  So grateful for our daily routine.  So grateful for every day of health and peace.