Whirlwind... and lessons learned

Whirlwind is the only word that can truly describe the last 3 weeks of my life. Here's a brief recap... I'll include the details as I post the events.

Sunday, October 12th Chris leaves town to write in peace and quiet for a few days... has no cell phone service. 

Monday, October 13th I get word that my grandfather is dying.

Wednesday, October 15th I jump on a plane to go be with my grandpa. I take the baby with me but leave my kids with in-laws in the hopes that Chris can come retrieve them soon (remember, no cell phone, he has no idea I'm heading to California!) He gets the message late Wednesday night and is able to get the kids Thursday morning.

October 15-19 I help care for my grandpa in California while Chris take the kids on our already planned Fall Break vacation.

October 20th I fly back to Utah and we go straight to Gardener's Village for FHE with Chris' family. 

After being home less than 48 hours I get back on a plane to Northern California to help my sister-in-law Traci celebrate her 4oth birthday. Chris is home alone with the kids again. While visiting my sister-in-law, my grandfather passes away. Chris cancels his trip for the next week and we start making plans to go to the funeral. I fly home Saturday afternoon and we head out that night to see HSM 3 with all the Higbee's (2 of our nephews were featured dancers in it). 

Monday, October 27th, after being home a mere day and a half,  we jump in the car and drive to California and go straight to my grandma's house. The funeral was Tuesday and we drove home on Wednesday. (more details to come). Thursday my mom and grandmother arrived to stay with me. Friday was Halloween, Saturday we had another service for my grandfather, Sunday we blessed Coleman and had 45 people over for brunch and Chris left early Monday morning for a week in NYC!

Madness! I meant to start catching up on everything (including my blog) first thing Monday morning, but I slept most of the day instead (I guess you could call that catching up... I sure needed it!) and Tuesday I was glued to the election results! So, now I think I really am ready to start catching up! Wednesday's the day... laundry, bills, email, phone calls, cleaning, blogging... it's all gonna get done in the next few days.

So, what were the lessons learned? Here goes...

1. The importance of family. Loved being with so many loved ones while caring for and celebrating my sweet grandpa. 

2. That my husband may be a better homemaker than I am. My house was SO clean and I know they ate better than they do when I'm in charge of cooking!

3. That Halloween will still come even if you don't decorate, buy and carve pumpkins and 3 out of 4 kids are wearing costumes from previous years.

4. That I can have 45 people over without cleaning my house and they will still love me... because they love me.

5. That even though Chris didn't keep my drawers and closets as organized as I would like (how could he... I'm a little anal about it and he doesn't really know my "systems"... because I don't really tell him) my family is still healthy and happy and the house looks great. I'm feeling like I can maybe be a little less anal about things!

So that's it. It's been a month of learning and growth for me and I am so grateful for it. Hopefully now I can really start catching up on things... as you can see I have a lot to blog about!