Remembering Grandma and a week of Murphy's law

Our family booked flights to Oklahoma to visit paternal relatives for the first few weeks in July.  However, my husband's grandmother passed away a week before our scheduled departure, so he changed his flight to depart a week earlier to attend the funeral.  The plan was for me to stay home with the kids during the week of the funeral and then fly out with the kids to meet him in Tulsa using our existing plane tickets.

His grandmother who recently passed led an interesting life.  She moved to Oklahoma in a covered wagon.  At the age of 18, she married a man whose parents came to the region along the Cherokee Trail of Tears.  Her husband became a well-known artist and wood sculptor.

Grandpa's pencil drawing of Grandma Sophie

Grandpa

They were married 44 years before her husband died.  She birthed 11 children who produced 38 grandchildren.  She had numerous great-grandchildren, great-great grandchildren, and even a few great-great-great grandchildren by the time she died at age 90.

She was an accomplished seamstress, quilter, and gardener.
(I'd like to thank my MIL for providing the following six photos.)

She sewed all the girls' dresses.

Quilting

 She was also well loved for her extraordinary sense of humor.

Having fun with my husband and his three brothers

Her family was so large that they had to reserve over half the seats in her church for family during her funeral service. My husband got to see many of his numerous cousins at the funeral.

Grandchildren at the funeral

My husband's family less me, our two kids, three of his nieces and a nephew

My husband with his mom (Sophie's daughter) and his brothers

While the man of the house was away with family for the funeral, I tried to keep the kids busy to help keep them from missing their dad so much, and we Skyped with him often.  We went to the pool every weekday, and both kids received daily swim lessons.

Relaxing after swim lessons

Pool diva and her stuffed friend, Mort

We invited friends over for lengthy play dates and visited friends for still more play dates.

 

We held babies and made them belly laugh.

We made crafts, decorated mini pancakes, and concocted the best BBQ chicken pizza recipe ever.

Happy face pancake

When we received a home showing in the middle of all my packing for our trip to OK, I threw everything into a corner, drove to a neighbor's house to pick up my boy's favorite buddy, and went to McDonald's where my boy gulped down his own McFlurry and then half of his friends' smoothie as well.

Sharing with a friend

We also purged the fridge in preparation for our travels which resulted in some very unusual looking but tasty cheeseburgers.

I tried to make the week fun, but I sure did miss my man.  I prayed often that week for single moms and wives of military servicemen who are away for lengthy deployments.  So many things came up that week that made me realize how much I rely upon my husband.  I had previously accepted a late night assignment to serve on a panel one night that week with the assumption that my husband would watch the kids.  I searched feverishly for a sitter and eventually found a new sitter whom I barely know.  I didn't have small bills in my pocket and ended up using the money I had just earned to pay for the childcare. 

Later during the week, I decided to treat myself to a sitter for two hours so I could pack and clean in peace.  As she pulled into the driveway, she got a flat tire, so I never got that break and felt terribly for her mishap. 

Major electrical systems broke while my husband was away which required me to pay crazy amounts for service technicians to tell me they were irreparable and required $1200 to replace.  Other repair needs sent me to Lowe's Home Improvement in search of new gadgets and gizmos with hopes that I would not blow up the house in my efforts to make necessary home improvements.  That was a hassle, but at least a nice man at Lowe's entertained my boy by pulling coins out of his ears and giving him other small coins.

I ruined a load of laundry when my daughter's red cover up bled in the wash.  A major thunderstorm knocked out power and blew limbs and debris all over our yard.  A record heat wave swept through the area burning out most of our once gorgeous grass and putting my flowers at risk. Then there was a termite issue in my favorite maple tree that added to my list of stresses. The kids were extremely hyper all week in anticipation of their big trip, so they were not on their best behavior and drove me nuts at times.  The nights were long as issues kept occurring keeping me up until 4am some nights.

My back went out at the beginning of the week, so I had to see my chiropractor every day that week.  My son had shoulder mobility problems requiring another office visit.  On the last day before we left, I developed a toothache requiring an emergency visit to the dentist.  All that driving (30 minutes each way) to doctor appointments did not help the healing process for my back nor did loading all those suitcases into the car for our journey to the airport.

Problems continued to mount, but thankfully, my parents met me at the airport saving me the hassle of loading and unloading luggage into a shuttle van and helping me get our bags checked.  We eventually made it to the terminal and had two smooth flights to OK where the kids' father eagerly awaited us.

At the airport ready to see Daddy