Saying goodbye

Last Tuesday my last living grandmother past away to a better place. Grandma Schall was my stepfather's mother, so I met her when I was a teenager. She was a sweet lady and was always happy when we had a chance to see her when we were in town. I am so thankful that we were home to visit and she got to hold Tamlin when he was about 4 months old. Tam was her first great-grandchild. It was shortly after that visit that she unfortunately had a stroke and never fully recovered. I think I will always hold that image of her holding my son as one of my last memories of her.

We were able to drive east to make it to the funeral last week. This was the first long drive for wee little Jude and we weren't too sure how it would go (5.5hour journey). On the way out, we left in the evening and I did all the driving in the dark. Everyone else in the car slept most of the time. We did stop for a feeding around 11pm at a rest stop during which everyone woke briefly. While stopped, I realized that things are always 10x funnier in the middle of the night on car trips. Example...Jude was eating and explosive pooping at the same time, which we all thought was freakin' hilarious! Even Tam was cracking up and Brian kept calling our son Thunder Butt.
Otherwise, the trip was uneventful, but did take 7 hours.

While home, it was bittersweat. We got to say goodbye to Grandma Schall. Tamlin pointed out that she looked nice and was sleeping in the casket. But, we also got to see my family briefly and they got to see Baby Jude. Jude obliged by loving being held by everyone and being so cuddly. Other highlights were Tamlin got to play with all of his Nana's toy cars and was delighted to play with the playschool doll house (but by placing cars in it). We also got a chance to take both boys down to the park on the lake which I grew up playing in. Tam had fun on the playground and chases the seagulls around.

Then, a little over 48 hours later, we drove back home.