What a week.

February 11, 2018

What a week.

This week was quite the busy week. I felt like I was going nonstop 24/7 but I loved it. This week I helped celebrate two awesome people's birthdays. First, on Wednesday night the family gathered at nikki's house for a delicious mexican meal to celebrate Grandpa's 80th birthday!! I still can't believe he's 80! We always love a good excuse to gather the family and eat way too much food. We talked the night away and during our cake and ice cream we all went around and told memories about grandpa. My memory was probably eight or so years ago when grandpa took me and Landree out for a ride in the tractor bucket. We had driven up and down the road for a awhile then pulling back into the yard, grandpa stopped to do something ( mess with the dogs or something idk...) so we were parked for a second and the bucket was the at the tallest point it could be. Well while grandpa was doing whatever he was doing, he accidentally clicked the button to tilt the bucket downward. Me and landree were sitting cross legged and realized we were starting to tilt towards the ground. At first we thought grandpa was playing a joke on us so we started yelling "Grandpa this isn't funny" "Grandpa stop!" Well the tractor was loud enough that grandpa didn't hear us. At this point me and Landree knew we were going to fall, probably to our deaths, so we started coming up with ways that we could possibly save ourselves or at least make the landing less painful. Well once the bucket was tipped down enough my crocs fell out and thats when grandpa noticed that we were about to be dumped out. Classic story and a good memory even though we thought we were staring death in the face. We vowed to never ride in the tractor again, but that didn't last very long so everything is fine. I will always remember tractor rides with grandpa to be one of the highlights of pine valley as a kid. Anyways happy 80th Grandpa! Love you!

lovin' his new trump hat <3

Thursday was the day that me and sara have been looking forward to for months!! The start of baseball season! Lucky for us there was a tournament for four days straight so that was even better. And the fact that its like 70 degrees outside makes it even more awesome! Love love love warm weather, and chilling with friends at the ball field.

Friday included more baseball and grandmas viewing. I've never been to a funeral/viewing before so I was a little unsure about what to expect, but it was cool. Not gonna lie, a little weird seeing grandma lying in the casket, but she looked beautiful. While I was standing over her I felt like she would wake up at any moment, I guess it still hadn't hit me. It was fun to see so much family that I haven't seen in years. The great grandkids spent most of our time chilling in the chapel area playing the piano and coloring. The little kids might have been playing tag, but Im sure that made grandma smile. Heres a bunch of random pictures from the viewing.

always been jealous of George's mad piano skills. Every sunday night at great grandmas the kids would gather around the piano, play and sing church songs and then george would school all of us with the harry potter song or the angry bird song. For some reason I never want to practice the piano but at grandmas I loved playing.

The coloring books may have been for the kiddos but I enjoyed them too.

Crawling under the benches.

Later that night we had dinner at pasta factory and then I met up with shawn to do some last minute shopping... which brings me to my next birthday shoutout... Alexis!!! Lex turned 18 on Saturday! Don't have too many pictures from saturday because I wasn't able to celebrate a whole lot with her, but we already made plans to have a rad celebration next saturday! Anyways lex you are one of a kind. I love how daring you are and how confident you are in yourself. We have so many awesome memories and Im pumped to make more these next few months before you leave :'( Love youu!! Happy happy birthday! #18

Last but not least, saturday was Grandma's funeral. It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I figured I didn't cry when I heard the news and I didn't cry at the viewing, Im good. Well I was wrong. When all the grand kids went up at the very beginning to watch the casket be closed, thats when it started. It finally hit me. We walked in the chapel and everyone was standing ( which made me cry more). It was amazing to see that grandma touched so many lives. Ive never been to a funeral so I don't know how many people usually attend but I thought grandma had a lot there. I leaned over and said to my mom " I think my family and like 5 other people would attend my funeral." Throughout the ceremony people talked about her nonstop selfless heart and all the service she gave and the thousands of cakes and pies she made. It was awesome. I learned a lot at that meeting. About life and about grandma. I had no clue that her mom died when she was only 2 or that she had another baby girl that passed away. I also learned that life is short and service is important. I hope when I die I can be remembered as a selfless, caring, loving lady like grandma is. One other lesson I learned is to get to know your loved ones and the people around you. I would say I knew my great grandmother more than most people, but I still wish I could've asked her about growing up with only a father and other questions that I had to learn about at her funeral. I do know she lived a purposeful life and is now happily living with her mother, husband, son and so many others. I can't even imagine the feeling of going to a funeral without knowing about life after death and the plan of salvation. How do people do that? We are definitely blessed and Im soo grateful for that knowledge. Not a goodbye, just a see ya later.