Our Quick Trip

On Tuesday we received news from our family in the West that one of Brian's good friends, Steve Crowe, had passed away. He was a sweet gentleman that Brian had worked for for over 10 years in high school and college. And in many ways he mentored Brian. Brian was able to watch this man's life change when he became a dad and Brian watched this man with his wife and young children. And these two "quiet" men bonded. So when we heard the news....with very heavy and sadden hearts we began to make our own plans to travel out to the mountains.

We decided to take the whole family for this "quick" trip mostly to be together but also to reconnect to some of our friends that we don't alway get to see or talk to. And we were very thankful we all went....even through the 18 hours of driving in just 2 days(really just 42 hours)!!!

It was a fun opportunity to teach the kids about mountains since we don't have any around here. Anna was a little hesitant about some of the residential roads we drove along...but I was too. I relied on Brian to navigate the minivan on those roads, I did the highway :)

On Thursday we left at 5:45am!! We thought the kids would fall back asleep but they didn't... just a little too excited about the trip and some toys we had picked up for the trip. The actual driving and trip went pretty fast, we were there at 2pm which was nice to have some time for unpacking and rest. We stayed with a sweet lady, Mrs M., from Brian's father's old church..she was such a gracious and giving host. And handled the kids "exploring" the house (and decor) very easily...she let them play with all sorts of stuff without worrying about how many pieces it could be made into (thank goodness they didn't break a thing).

We headed to the church about 4:45pm for the family visitation and public visitation at 5pm. After greeting the family, I took the kids to the nursery to play and outside (yes even in the damp cool weather..they had to get out). Two ladies volunteered to keep the kids in the nursery for me during the actual funeral service at 7pm!! I was thankful for their servant hearts and glad to be in the service. Although we were broken hearted over the loss of Steve, Brian really did a great job sharing memories of Steve and his family. And a reminder that mourning is natural and permitted....he looked at Jesus weeping over Lazarus. Even when Jesus knew that He was going to bring him back to life, Jesus mourned with the family over the loss of their friend/brother.

I wasn't able to take many pictures. Brian had a role to play in the funeral services and so my job was to keep the kids. And although we were in a beautiful area...it rained pretty much the whole time. Here are two taken after the funeral at the church where Granddaddy pastored for almost 20 years!!

On Friday we got another early start! We were all packed up and back in the car by 9am!! We attended the graveside service with the Crowe family and then decided to spend some time with them. Although we knew we had a LONG trip a head of us ... it was very good to spend time with such a sweet and amazing family!! They are such an inspiration and it will be a sweet blessing to keep up with them and see the plans that God has for them, even through this life changing loss of their husband and dad. And it was great place for our little ones to run around and place since there were other little kids around in a very child-friendly house.

Needless to say, as we got on the road we knew we were going to have LONG afternoon and evening!! Our kids did very well. They napped as soon as we got into the car, played, watched a video, stopped for dinner, played, video and fell asleep. The picture is of them crashed at 10:30pm in the van. When we got home (just before midnight) we just changed diapers and any dirty clothes and then they went right to sleep in their beds until 7:15am this morning..... yay! They even slept in :) What troopers :)