Long Road - Trip

I am happy for one thing: My Grandma is in heaven now with Grandpa after being seperated from him for 5 years now. I thought this trip might be harder for me. Don't get me wrong, it was difficult leaving the only home I'd known as "grandma and grandpa Harbaughs'" for the last time; it was hard seeing grandma lay in her casket; it was hard seeing her pictures, clothes, puzzle, and magazines just as she had left them days prior not knowing she wouldn't come back. All this was hard - but I knew deep down she was OK and that somehow made it all easier. I found this great picture of my grandma when she was about 5yrs old, posing beside HER grandmother back in the 1930s. Doesn't she look like Shirley Temple?

I have been home now for 24hrs and man has it been a long, trying, exhausting, taxing, but alltogether great trip. I got the hesitant "OK" from the on-call OB doctor that I could travel to Iowa to attend my grandmother's funeral. Just 12hrs after I got the call that my grandmother had died we picked up our nephew, Jonas, on our way to Portland to ride the Polar Express train for Mases' 3rd birthday just as we had promised to do months earlier. On Sunday we traveled home only to be greeted by my dad and Jo, do laundry, and travel back up to Portland. We stayed in a hotel and at 3:30am were up and getting ready to catch the shuttle to the airport.

The flight to Chicago was great - but we were met with dense fog and a 6hr delay on our flight. We finally made it to Iowa, climbed in our rental van, and headed for Waterloo, IA. We had to find a hotel that night due to a miscommunication and by 9pm we were all snug in our beds in Iowa.

Tuesday was grandma's funeral. They laid her to rest first, then had her memorial. I had never experienced one like this - but it was refreshing; no "body" at the front to stare at during great stories of her life. We all had a day of visiting with family, which was great. Tuesday night we were back at Grandma's house spending the night with a houseful of people. Luckily Maysen went right to sleep. That is, until 2am when he woke up throwing up everywhere. Maysen has only had ONE episode of throwing up, so this was confusing to him stating "I coughed" repeatedly. We cleaned him up and put him back down only to have him throw up every 30min until 7am. He then (along with me) slept until 11am. The rest of Wednesday was great!

Wednesday night the family got back together at Grandma's for dinner. Nate and I decided that we'd just get a hotel room for the remainder of our trip as to keep Maysen rested and non-distracted by other company ... nor to spread any more germs! We were eating dinner when all of a sudden Maysen had another throw up episode so we hiked him back to the hotel. After a 13hr sleep, he was ready to rock and roll for Turkey Day!

Thanksgiving was a great day - filled with relaxing and memories. It was fun watching the little cousins who had just met for the first time play pool in the basement just as we had done many years previous with our cousins. Maysen loved seeing and playing with his cousins Colin, Milo, and Bailey for the first time. We hope to see them again soon!

We got up bright and early on Friday (yesterday) for the long jaunt home. I was rather dreading this trip home as I knew what the trip up was like. However I was surprised that both flights from Cedar Rapids ---> Chicago and Chicago ---> Portland went off without a hitch. Maysen even slept for half of the 4hr flight to Portland which was great. The only downside was that Nate started getting sick on the flights home - even throwing up most of the 4hr flight home to Portland. He slept on the drive from Portland to home, so that was OK. Dad and Jo spent the night and left early this morning. It's great to be home.

The only hard part about getting home was getting the mail last night and realizing we had received Grandma's birthday present to Maysen which she had just mailed a few days prior to her death. We opened it today and Maysen looked up and said, "Fank You, Nana!!".

I was thankful overall for an abundance of things on that special day, but more importantly that we were able to spend Thanksgiving together - something Grandma would have wanted.

Please feel free to visit my pictures from Maysen's Polar Express party as well as our trip to Iowa on my Flickr page (click on the Flickr shortcut on right).