The Best part of Summer!

The Post below this one has a picture recap of our summer.  I wanted to make a special post on the best part of our summer.  Because it was quite a miracle and Heavenly Father most definitely had a hand in making this happen!

My dad was living in Idaho on the property of my cousin Sue.  She's the one on the left with the shorts and pink shirt.  He was getting restless and wanted to go back to Washington.  He made all the arrangements to do so but didn't tell anyone his plans, except that he was planning to take a short trip to "help Andrew (my brother-in-law) with a job he had".  Then he had a stroke.  The stroke was pretty bad but he seemed to get better so the doctor allowed him to go back home.  A day later he had another stroke.  This time is did permanent damage and dad was not going to be able to care for himself.  So, I packed us up, John got a week off work and we headed out to Idaho to figure things out for my dad the next day.  I had not seen or heard from Sue since I was a senior in high school.  (That's 20 years)  Our family has always been kind of close to Sue but when she lived with that senior year I thought she hated me and  I chose not to have any contact with her after I moved.  (That's a whole other story itself)

On the way to Idaho we stopped and visited as many family as possible and went to the 4 Corners monument, something John has always wanted to do).  We stayed in Dad's little farm-house that Sue and her husband remodeled and made up for him.  We spent time visiting dad and working out the details of who was going to take care of him and getting him there.  We took John to the SLC airport so he could get back to Texas and then we stayed and visited Sue for a few more days before heading back to Texas.  This visit with Sue and her family was the miracle and the best part of my summer.  She is AMAZING and I can't begin to express how much it means to me to finally have biological family to connect with and be close to!  It is such an amazing, healing, joyful feeling to have family that I can just be me with and not worry for a second whether they are judging me or my family, but that they love and care for me/us because we are family.   To add to it, Jakob made an amazing connection with his cousin Jarrett.  Jakob has never had a friend (or cousin for that matter) who he has made a connection with.  He is different from kids his age and Jarrett is JUST LIKE HIM.  All the same interests, quirks, crazy behavior, only a year older, etc.  They are so much alike.  And it turned out to be the same for Jarrett which makes it all the more special!  Jarrett is one from a set of triplets.  He has a brother Jackson and sister Jacie.  Those 5 kids PLAYED NON STOP the entire time.  They slept together, ate together, and spent every moment of time together.  It was awesome!  It helped that Sue lives on farm land with NOTHING around.   The family on the right is Jessica and her husband and baby.  Jessica was just a few years old when her and her mom lived with us my senior year.  She is the sweetest thing and it was soo amazing to get to know her and her husband.  

    

Our very long drive back to TX.

 One more pic before we left for Texas.  It never dawned on us to take any pictures of the kids until the day we were leaving.  Unfortunately, Jackson was staying the night at his older sister's house so we do not have any pics of him.