Until We Meet Again Grammy

 To say this week was a whirlwind is a complete understatement. I started the week with a quick 24ish hour work trip to Bend. It was quick and stressful, but on the bright side I did get my room upgraded to a river view room.

After Bend, I got to be home for a whopping 24 hours before we all headed out to Arizona. I mentioned a few weeks ago that Jeremy's grandma had passed away. It was now time for her funeral and we headed to Arizona on Wednesday afternoon.

Thursday, Carolyn and I had the tender opportunity to go to the funeral home, style Grammy's hair and dress her for burial. It was so special to have this time with her. Over the course of Thursday more and more family arrived. We got a chance to catch up with people and had a big family dinner.

Friday was the funeral. It was such a lovely service. Each of Grammy's four children spoke and we had a family choir that would have made Grammy proud. After the luncheon, we went to the cemetery for the burial.

Saturday, we had family pictures. We had kids of all ages and about as many temperaments and patience levels. Somehow, we made it through. We obviously don't have the picture back yet, but we did snap a couple of pictures behind the photographer's back along the way. After pictures we had family lunch and hit up a trampoline park. We finished the day with even more family hang out time.

In addition to everything above, I also neglected to mention that my kids and Jeremy spent every free moment they could on grandpa's e-bikes. 

This morning we left bright and early to catch our flight home. It was such a wonderful and exhausting time. I hope Grammy knows how much we love and will miss her and I hope we did right by her with this weekend's send off.

Halloween 2026

 Another Halloween has come and gone. This was one of those magical years where Halloween falls on a Saturday and it made for a fun weekend of celebrating.

The festivities started on Friday. Both girls had Monster Mashes at their schools. Carrigan definitely did not want to attend hers, but did get in some Halloween fun with a party at dance, complete with costume contest. My girls had a group costume this year with their cousin. Luckily for C.C., her cousin is also on the dance team so they had two of the three parts of the costume and they took a paper cut out to represent Elsie's part. That did the trick and the girls ended up winning the contest.

Elsie did want to attend her Monster Mash, but as the only part of her three person costume, she decided to go a different route and went as a cowgirl.

Merrick went with his friends to a haunted house on Friday night. He said he only got scared a couple of times. He said at one point, the lights were out and when they came on someone was in his face so close he could have stuck out his tongue and touched them. He did not do that, but part of his group got kicked out when one of the girls reacted to a jump scare by punching the worker.

Saturday was the real deal and the girls and Isabel got all parts of their costume together for the first time and headed out trick or treating. I am not sure too many people got their costume, but I thing they nailed it. 

Merrick did not trick or treat, but did dress up as a construction worker and went to a party at a friend's house.

It was another great Halloween in the books and, as a major bonus, it didn't even rain!

Quick Trip

I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that Merrick had some friends from Roseburg come up for a concert and that while they where here, he had asked one of the girls to homecoming, her homecoming. Well, this was homecoming weekend and that meant a road trip to Roseburg.

Jeremy, Merrick, and I headed out around noon on Saturday. The girls stayed behind. They went with my parents to their church party and then spent the night the night at the Brown's. 

We arrived at our hotel around 3pm and took some time to relax and settle in. Our hotel room had a balcony that overlooked the river so I spent some time out there soaking up the scenery. Within minutes of being out there I had seen a heron on the water and a deer just on the other side of the river.

Just after 5, Olivia arrived at our hotel and we went out to take pictures. The group was really large and they had a professional photographer. Since I was the outsider, I didn't feel like I could jump in too much, but I did manage to snag a few pictures.

After that, the kids were on their own and so were Jeremy and I. We had planned a nice dinner out, but pictures ended up being later and further than we thought so the fancy dinner was out the window. Instead, we ended up at Five Guys. It was still delicious though and I'm not one to complain about delicious food,  even if it is not fancy. As we were leaving the restaurant, we were treated to a beautiful sunset while we drove to a concert at a nearby theater. 

The concert was great. The venue was fun, the performances were awesome and entertaining. It was a great night all around.

This morning, after a late, lazy start, we had breakfast. We then proceeded to get locked out of our room when the lock on the door malfunctioned, but I won't get into that. Once we were back inside our room, we packed up and headed home.

It was a whirlwind trip, but a lot of fun. I know Merrick was really pumped that we agreed to let him go down and we made the best of it with a fun trip for all involved. 

Big Trust

This week I have been annoyed with my hair. Growing up as the daughter of a hair dresser, I remember her saying that bad hair days happen but if you have three bad hair days in a row it is time for a haircut. Let's just say I was definitely feeling like it was time for a hair cut.

This is where the big trust comes into play. CC has recently taken a interest in cutting and styling hair. I don't know if I have mentioned it before, but she has cut her own hair the last two times. She also gave Elsie her last haircut. CC's self cuts have turned out great! Elsie's cut was a little rough. We made it work, but Elsie is notoriously difficult to give hair cuts to because she does not hold still and she is very impatient. It also turns out straight hair does not hide flaws nearly as well as curly.

With that backdrop, I was strongly considering letting CC cut my hair. We had found a TikTok video for curly cuts that I have used previously and I was fairly confident she could do it. Yesterday, the stars aligned. I put some big trust in her and let her go to work. Without further ado, here are the results.

I think it turned out great and she may be hired again next time.

Change in Season, in the Weather and in Life

 The weather is getting colder. While we are still enjoying sunny, warm days. The evenings and mornings are getting chilly. The vast amount of leaves falling to the ground tell me that fall has arrived. Halloween is just around the corner and celebrations have started. Elsie had the primary pumpkin patch activity this week.

The last several years, Elsie has invited her friend Marlow to the activity and this year wasn't any different. The girls enjoyed running and participating in the fishing game, they picked pumpkins, ate doughnuts and played on the playground.

Also this this week, we had some special visitors. My Uncle Lynn and Aunty Sherry came to visit from Virginia. It has been a few years since we saw them and it was wonderful to be able to catch up and hear stories and see pictures and videos from their mission in South Africa.

This week was definitely not all highlights though, Thursday was a tough day. We started the day with receiving news of Jeremy's Grammy Bunker's passing. This has been coming for a while and it was her time after a life well-lived, but it is still always difficult. Grammy was also Jeremy's last living grandparent and that is always a tough good-bye. We will head to Arizona in early November for the funeral.

Also on Thursday, CC severely injured her wrist at volleyball practice. We have just been watching the bruising and swelling for a few days now, but have decided to take her in for an x-ray in the morning. More to come on that next time. 

Fun With Friends

 This week the weather has been beautiful. Elsie has been taking advantage of the sunny days and meeting her neighborhood friends at the park as much as possible. One day she went up with her friend Nora. It had been picture day so both girls came home from school and changed clothes before getting together. When they met up they discovered they were matching.

Last night Merrick went to a concert with some friends. There is a girl he met at FSY this summer who lives in Roseburg. They have met up a few times since then and yesterday she came up with a friend so they could go to a concert. Merrick took advantage of the fact she was here to ask her to homecoming. He will be taking her to her homecoming since she is a Senior and wants to attend her own. We will drive with him down to Roseburg in a few weeks to make that happen.

CC doesn't have any photos this week, but she doesn't want to be left out.  We went to the dentist this week and the dentist said that CC is the least likely to have cavities of the three kids.

Fun Run and Fun with Fish

 Whew! We made it through the all the curriculum nights and life is now back to regularly scheduled programing.

This week Elsie had her fun run at school. I can't remember why but I wasn't able to make it last year and so apparently I "never come to the fun run". I guess I also didn't specifically tell Elsie I was coming, so when she came out to the starting line and saw me, she lit up. She is still getting over being sick and I think she was glad for the extra support and cheering as she ran.

Despite being just as busy as the rest of us, Merrick somehow made a lot of time for fishing this week. He is becoming quite the fisherman. This week he and a friend decided to give night fishing a try and went out with headlamps and in the rain to give it a go. They were hoping to catch catfish and didn't end up with any, but did catch 12 other fish. They have started fishing with chicken liver as bait and that has been pretty game changing.

After two weeks of running completely ragged and nursing Elsie back to health, I ended up going down a couple of days ago. My fever broke last night and I am hoping I am on the mend. There is never enough time for being sick.