**Added 8/13/11: Well, would you look at that. Still didn't post it after updating 2 months ago. So I'm just doing it. Here ya go... original post below, untouched, just as I left it back in August of 2010.
----------------ORIGINAL POST from 8/20/2010---------------------------
...and a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to be born, and a time to die...
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance...
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing...
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away...
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak...
(All taken from Ecclesiastes 3)
This seems to have been the theme of our lives the past few months. We have literally had every one of these seasons in the past 3 months or so. Seasons are not always easy. Without the comfort and help of a loving God who promises to never give us more than we can bear, I am not sure how I would have made it through.
This post is a quick (but long because there is a lot to cover) catch-up post of the major seasons we have gone through lately. Each of the events that I'm going to talk about deserves MUCH more than a little tiny piece of a single post, but if I don't just do the quick version, it will never get done.
So first, we had Mother's Day - May 9. Aside from the usual "specialness" of Mother's Day, this one was extra special because it was the last one that I would get to spend with my grandmother. And I'm so glad that we got that chance to gather as a family one last time. Very unfortunately, I was not really on top of my pictures that day, so these are the best we've got.
We did lunch at my sister's house to celebrate the moms on my side, my mom, my grandmother, and my sister. I love them all so much!
And dinner at Mr. Wang's for all you can eat crab legs (don't knock it til you've tried it) with my mother-in-law. Love the my newest mother too!
Next, Cullen and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary on May 12!! For the 3rd year in a row, we went to our "anniversary dinner place," The Melting Pot. It is such a great romantic, slow paced place to go for occasions like this. My sweet hubby also gave me beautiful flowers (picture below) and as is our tradition we watched our wedding video when we got home. Well, we attempted to, we actually watched all the pre-ceremony video and fell asleep during the ceremony. It had been a long few weeks and we were sleep deprived. Again, no great pictures from this either (...I know!!). But it was a wonderful night and I am so very thankful for the amazing man that God has given me to spend my life with. Our relationship has grown so much in the past 3 years and I continue to be amazed at how much my love for him grows each day. I can't wait to spend many more anniversaries with the love of my life!
Cell phone picture of the beautiful flowers he got me!
The handsome groom & beautiful bride
We used mason jars for drinks. The bride & groom had their own special glasses...
and the rest of the guests used a sharpie to label theirs with a little tag
That same weekend, my grandmother, Sissy, had a stomach virus and wasn't feeling well. By Monday she was really weak and ended up in the hospital getting re-hydrated and being treated for what seemed like nothing too major. Cullen, Gainer, and I were planning to leave for the beach on Thursday to have a short anniversary trip before the rest of the family (Mom, Dad, dog Barnsley, Sissy, Kelley, Jay, Madelyne, Bennett, & dog Abbey) came down that weekend. Well, Sissy got progressively worse and to make a long few days into a short sentence, we ended up staying in town until Friday morning to decide if it was "safe" to leave town with her illness. She was a good bit more stable on Friday, my parents assured us that there was nothing that we could do if we stayed in town, so we left and headed to the beach. We got daily updates from my parents, and things weren't great, but she was stable. It was hard being there and knowing that she was ill back home, but since she was in intensive care, there were only brief 30 minute visiting hours throughout the day. So there really wouldn't have been a whole lot of benefit to staying at home. We had had this anniversary trip followed by a family beach trip planned for a while and Cullen already had the days off of work. So we decided we would just go while we could and keep in close touch with my parents. So, that paragraph got really long... like I said, most of the stuff in this post deserves it's very own post, but I'll try to condense everything into one.
Friday afternoon/evening when we got there, the upstairs air conditioning wasn't working in the beach house, and neither were the phones! Both of those were extremely important (especially considering cell phone service there stinks and I wanted to be accessible if anything happened with Sissy). Luckily the A/C guy came out that night and there was an order in for the phone to get fixed asap. So we had some takeout and enjoyed a casual night at the house.
Saturday, we enjoyed our first (pasty-white-in-need-of-sun) day on the beach!
That night for our beach anniversary dinner, we went to Guy Harvey's. It was really great to have some goood seafood! (Self portrait... did you spot the remote??)
We have a yearly tradition, which started on our honeymoon, of taking a picture similar to this one below each year.
1 year anniversary trip to Jamaica:
And honeymoon in St. Lucia:
Back to real time... At that point it was decided that my parents (and obviously Sissy, who was still in the hospital) would not be making the trip. But we really thought things would be ok... it was just going to take a while for her to get back to "normal." Given that we had been anticipating and planning this trip for months, it was hard knowing they wouldn't be coming down. We weren't really even sure how long we would get to stay, depending on how things improved with Sissy. Jay (brother-in-law) ended up having to work the first few days of the week, but Kelley (sister) decided to go ahead and come down with Madelyne (niece) and Bennett (nephew) on Sunday. Jay ended up coming down on Wednesday, and Cullen and I stayed until Saturday. I believe Kelley & Jay stayed until Monday! It was a really nice, long trip, but in the back of my mind the whole time I was still worried about what was going on at home with my grandmother, and wishing the whole family was there together. Without going into the details of every day, I'll just share a few of my favorite pictures from the trip.
(There was this amazing close-to-shore sandbar that appeared every afternoon around 2-3pm. It was great for the kids - and adults - to play and lent itself to some interesting sea creatures!)
Friday afternoon/evening when we got there, the upstairs air conditioning wasn't working in the beach house, and neither were the phones! Both of those were extremely important (especially considering cell phone service there stinks and I wanted to be accessible if anything happened with Sissy). Luckily the A/C guy came out that night and there was an order in for the phone to get fixed asap. So we had some takeout and enjoyed a casual night at the house.
Saturday, we enjoyed our first (pasty-white-in-need-of-sun) day on the beach!
That night for our beach anniversary dinner, we went to Guy Harvey's. It was really great to have some goood seafood! (Self portrait... did you spot the remote??)
We have a yearly tradition, which started on our honeymoon, of taking a picture similar to this one below each year.
Little trip down memory lane... here are pictures from 2 year anniversary trip to San Francisco :
1 year anniversary trip to Jamaica:
And honeymoon in St. Lucia:
Back to real time... At that point it was decided that my parents (and obviously Sissy, who was still in the hospital) would not be making the trip. But we really thought things would be ok... it was just going to take a while for her to get back to "normal." Given that we had been anticipating and planning this trip for months, it was hard knowing they wouldn't be coming down. We weren't really even sure how long we would get to stay, depending on how things improved with Sissy. Jay (brother-in-law) ended up having to work the first few days of the week, but Kelley (sister) decided to go ahead and come down with Madelyne (niece) and Bennett (nephew) on Sunday. Jay ended up coming down on Wednesday, and Cullen and I stayed until Saturday. I believe Kelley & Jay stayed until Monday! It was a really nice, long trip, but in the back of my mind the whole time I was still worried about what was going on at home with my grandmother, and wishing the whole family was there together. Without going into the details of every day, I'll just share a few of my favorite pictures from the trip.
(There was this amazing close-to-shore sandbar that appeared every afternoon around 2-3pm. It was great for the kids - and adults - to play and lent itself to some interesting sea creatures!)
Stingrays jumping in pairs!
Learning to swim!
Gainer picked this little guy up in her mouth on her morning walk with Cullen! If you know Cullen well, you know he loves (and collects) all things turtle. So neat!
That afternoon, Cullen and Jay found this bigger turtle while driving the kids around in the golf cart.
This one was completely spontaneous, honest!
All in all it was a really fun trip. Madelyne and Bennett are at such sweet ages (says the aunt who gets to spoil them and send them home!) and it's so neat to see their little personalities developing. It is always hard to come home from the beach, especially after being there with family, but it was also hard to come home knowing that my grandmother was still in the hospital and not knowing what the future held. However, she seemed to be doing better, so we were glad to come home and get to see her.
That Monday was Memorial Day, so it was nice to have one extra day to relax (and work on pictures from the trip - the only reason I had so many available to add to this post! haha) before getting back to the real world. We both worked all week - there was a lot of catch-up after being away/"disconnected" for so long. That Sunday I left for a trip to Gainesville, FL for work and came back late Tuesday night. All along the way, I was working like crazy during every free minute trying to get my dissertation proposal ready so that I could meet the June 30 deadline that I talk about in the last paragraph of the post below (link). And when I say every free minute, I am not even joking... ask my poor hubby who was in charge of just about everything that needed doing in our household. I literally went to work & school when I had to and came straight home and worked. I think I might have gone to the grocery store once in about 6 weeks?? He ran errands, bought gifts for folks we needed to buy gifts for, and even picked out bridesmaids shoes that I needed to wear in Dessie's wedding!! The list goes on. He. Was. Amazing. And I couldn't have done it without his support.
And all this time, my grandmother was still in the hospital and I wasn't even able to be there a whole lot to visit her or help my mom who was going multiple times a day. We did go visit her on the weekends, but I wish we could have gone more. Things were very up and down. One day we thought she would surely be discharged within a few days, the next we were thinking it would be weeks for sure.
On June 19, I was a bridesmaid in the wedding of one of my best friends, Dessie (whose party I talked about above)! It was my first Greek wedding, and it was fabulous!! Friday night we had the rehearsal dinner at The Bright Star which is an amazing restaurant if you've never been. Saturday morning we got to the church and were pampered with hair and makeup before pictures! The wedding was beautiful and the reception (at The Club) was also beautiful and SO much fun. We had a great time dancing the night away. It was great to see Dessie and David so happy and I was honored to be a part of their day!
The next day was Father's Day. My mom had hosted a tea for one of our good family friends on Saturday, not to mention was managing things with Sissy who had been moved from intensive care to a "step-down" floor (meaning she was doing better!) that same day. So my parents picked up some delicious food from a great seafood place, The Fish Market, and we had a nice family gathering at their house. My mom's birthday was also on Monday, but she decided her day would be "postponed" since there was so much going on. Although it was strange not to be celebrating, I understand how she just wasn't in a birthday mood with everything going on. Often we combine Father's Day with her birthday, but this year it was Father's Day only. It was sad not having my grandmother there since she was always at all family events, but we were encouraged since she was doing better and had been moved out of ICU.
***See update at top***
That Monday was Memorial Day, so it was nice to have one extra day to relax (and work on pictures from the trip - the only reason I had so many available to add to this post! haha) before getting back to the real world. We both worked all week - there was a lot of catch-up after being away/"disconnected" for so long. That Sunday I left for a trip to Gainesville, FL for work and came back late Tuesday night. All along the way, I was working like crazy during every free minute trying to get my dissertation proposal ready so that I could meet the June 30 deadline that I talk about in the last paragraph of the post below (link). And when I say every free minute, I am not even joking... ask my poor hubby who was in charge of just about everything that needed doing in our household. I literally went to work & school when I had to and came straight home and worked. I think I might have gone to the grocery store once in about 6 weeks?? He ran errands, bought gifts for folks we needed to buy gifts for, and even picked out bridesmaids shoes that I needed to wear in Dessie's wedding!! The list goes on. He. Was. Amazing. And I couldn't have done it without his support.
And all this time, my grandmother was still in the hospital and I wasn't even able to be there a whole lot to visit her or help my mom who was going multiple times a day. We did go visit her on the weekends, but I wish we could have gone more. Things were very up and down. One day we thought she would surely be discharged within a few days, the next we were thinking it would be weeks for sure.
On June 19, I was a bridesmaid in the wedding of one of my best friends, Dessie (whose party I talked about above)! It was my first Greek wedding, and it was fabulous!! Friday night we had the rehearsal dinner at The Bright Star which is an amazing restaurant if you've never been. Saturday morning we got to the church and were pampered with hair and makeup before pictures! The wedding was beautiful and the reception (at The Club) was also beautiful and SO much fun. We had a great time dancing the night away. It was great to see Dessie and David so happy and I was honored to be a part of their day!
The next day was Father's Day. My mom had hosted a tea for one of our good family friends on Saturday, not to mention was managing things with Sissy who had been moved from intensive care to a "step-down" floor (meaning she was doing better!) that same day. So my parents picked up some delicious food from a great seafood place, The Fish Market, and we had a nice family gathering at their house. My mom's birthday was also on Monday, but she decided her day would be "postponed" since there was so much going on. Although it was strange not to be celebrating, I understand how she just wasn't in a birthday mood with everything going on. Often we combine Father's Day with her birthday, but this year it was Father's Day only. It was sad not having my grandmother there since she was always at all family events, but we were encouraged since she was doing better and had been moved out of ICU.
***See update at top***
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