Dance, Love, Wings and Always Dream: The Lord Just Knew

Originally when we thought we would be going to Japan in March, we planned on spending just a short amount of time with family, maybe two weeks tops. With the way things worked out, Sean was able to spend about a week with his family and come to Japan before his report no later than date. I stayed behind with our daughter because we were still waiting on passports. At first I was a little annoyed I couldn't come with my husband, we made the choice a long time ago I was going to travel with him. The thought of traveling with a dog, a cat, and a baby all by myself for 18 hours seemed impossible and I didn't think I could do it by myself. There were several moments in Idaho, Utah, and Oregon when I realized I was suppose to be there during the time I was, and was actually really grateful that things worked out that way. I like to see the Lord's hand in all things and choose to look at situations optimistically, maybe it was luck, maybe it is optimism, but I believe this was the way God wanted things to be for us. Even though I'm grateful for the opportunity to spend with family, I wish we could have figured something else out for travel. I look at my little daughter and think she is such a trooper and feel terrible for what I've put her through. The poor thing hates her car seat now. I did the math, and from the time I choose to visit my mother in Wisconsin, drive back down to Omaha (14 hours), drive to Utah (14 hours) drive up to Idaho (2 hours), drive to Boise to drop Sean off at the airport and then back to Rupert (4 hours), drive back to Utah (2 hours), then make 2 trips up to Idaho to try and sell Sean's truck (8 hours), drive to Oregon from Utah (14 hours), 2 day trips in Oregon both about two hours away from the place we were staying there (8 hours), and our final trip to Seattle where our plane took off from (6 hours). From the end of April to the end of June, my child has been on the road and in her car seat for 72 hours, not including trips to the store and such in between. 72 hours. I would cry every time someone strapped me in that thing as well. She loves to move and crawl which makes me feel even worse about it. This was all leading up to an 18 hour travel time over an ocean. Even though it was hard, the time we spent with our families was valuable. Here are some photos of us with Sean's family before he left for Japan. We were all there except for his sister Jenna who is serving a mission in Peru. For everyone but Sean's mom, it was their first time meeting Ely. She loves her cousins and I'm so glad she has cousin so close to age as her. I'm so grateful to Sean's family for helping us get out to Idaho and helping out while we were there. We had a wonderful visit and miss you all so much already.

Family BBQ

All of the cousins

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil

All of the Grand babies with Grandma

Skyping with Jenna on mother's day! We also were able to skype Kassidy, my sister, who happens to be best friends with Jenna! I held the laptop up to the computer so they could "see" each other