A memorable trip for many reasons

This trip was quite memorable.  I mentioned last week that a dear family friend past away.  Her name was Shirley Brewer and she was like my third grandma. The kids and I headed up to Denver for the memorial service which was held on Saturday.  

The kids wore their hats that I made them :)

Mark followed us up in his truck.  He had a district meeting on Saturday and then he headed back to Durango Saturday night.  It was too much for the kids and I to go up and back that quick so we stayed till Monday.

Friday night I got hang out with my newest niece, Emma.  She and I were wearing matching shirts so we had to get a picture taken. 

Saturday morning my kids were outside playing with the neighbor kids and Jack had a jeeping accident.  He fell off the power wheels Jeep.  Nice lip huh?

Saturday afternoon was the service.  My sister, Kelly, and I each shared some of our memories and my dad shared as well.  It struck me as I was preparing for this, how special this couple was to me.  I guess I always knew but when I had the chance to reflect on the impact they had on my life I was truly blessed.

Here are my siblings with Don (her husband). Don't mind our crazy eyes. The lighting was bad and this was the only picture we got of us with Don. 

And just us "kids".  I love my brother and sisters.  And yes I am the oldest and the shortest. 

We spent the rest of Saturday with family and friends celebrating Shirley's life.

Sunday morning the kids and I went with two of my sisters to Flatirons Church.  It's really a neat place. And I've never heard a bad message when I've visited.  I think what I appreciate about the pastor there is that he doesn't shy away from Truth or making you uncomfortable.  He's real. I respect that very much. 

This is some of the artwork on their wall. Crazy huh? 

After church we stopped for lunch and Katie, unknowingly, ordered a sandwich the size of second base.  It's hard to appreciate the size of the sandwich in this picture but we tried :)

I got some snuggle time in with my nephew Gavin.  He wasn't feeling well so he was especially snugly here.

We introduced football to Kale.  He watched the Broncos beat the Chiefs (we don't have live tv so this was a treat). He actually stayed for the entire game.  And I think he liked it. In the middle of that, Mark called to tell me that Mishka got skunked.   Poor Mark washed him 4 times then went to the store to get special shampoo.  Thankfully he smells amazing now! 

We left Monday morning to drive back to Durango.  Unfortunately Kate caught a stomach bug.  She was sick twice before we left.  I had hoped she had gotten everything out of her tummy.  Nope.  Poor thing got sick about 7 more times on the way home.  Thankfully she's big enough to make it into a bag.... I thought the trip was gonna be miserable but it actually went well despite the yucky circumstances.  She was a trooper!  

She's feeling better today but we're still taking it slow and gonna work on a bit of school and cleaning up.  The house was beautiful and spotless when we got home. Now not so much.  And we are leaving again for Denver on Sunday after church for Thanksgiving.  Lots to accomplish before then! 

Kitty the Great

As I mentioned in my last post, we were in Denver last week for my grandma's funeral. I called her grandma Kitty growing up but once I had kids, we named her Kitty the Great. She was 90.

Here's a picture of me and my mom and Kitty the Great holding Kale outside our church right after Kale was born.
My grandma was a very independent and intelligent woman. And opinionated (I had a couple opinionated grandmas - apparently that's where I got all my opinions...). She started working at the age of 9! On Pearl Harbor day she got engaged to my grandpa and then enlisted in the Navy. She was a radio operator.

After the war they got married and had 3 kids. My mom is the only girl right in the middle.

She had been living on her own in an apartment since she moved up to the Denver area to be near family. Recently she had a mild stroke and they were doing a lot of tests to check for that when she went downhill very quickly. It turns out that there were other things wrong that they had not discovered. So she passed away early in the morning on March 12.

It was one of those things were you knew it was coming sometime but at the same time it was unexpected. She had seemed to be doing well before that. She was sad though. And that made me sad. She missed my grandpa. And I think she missed her independence. She was still independent but not like she had been most of her life. For goodness sakes, she graduated from college at 45! She decided what she wanted to do then she did it. She always let us know her opinions. Some of them were fine. Many times, however, she had a crowd of people who disagreed. She didn't have much tact later on either. She may never have had tact but I didn't experience that when I was growing up :). She was just the grandma who made me clean my room...lol!

Her service was last Tuesday. She had a Catholic service which was actually very nice. My grandpa had one and it wasn't personal. My grandma's was. Afterwards we went to Fort Logan - a national cemetery - and had another service. This was a military one.Several veterans performed the service. This gentleman read something and prayed a beautiful prayer for our military.They folded the flag and gave it to my uncle and thanked him for my grandma's service. Talk about choking up!Add to that Taps...and a gun salute...And we were a mess. There's just something so beautiful about a military service. So much honor and respect. It was an honor to be a part. Made me so proud of my grandparents and their service.