tomorrow isn't guaranteed

I've heard this saying over and over again but it never sunk in until now.  My wonderful, loving, laid back, hard working uncle unexpectedly went to be with the Lord yesterday. From what I am told I thought the world of him when I was a little girl.  My aunt tells me that I called him Egwin instead of his real name Edwin.  I remember holidays at their house...mainly thanksgiving.  I also remeber our Colorado trip we went on together as a child.  I remember his elk caller.  He would try to attract the elk.  He was always in a good mood whenever I saw him and always seemed to have some sort of project going on.  He would always pick on me when he would see me as an adult but it was all in good fun. I know he's not in pain anymore and as hard as it is for us to not have him here, it's part of Gods plan for him to go home to be with Him.  He was finished with E here and he needed him.  I wonder if Nanny needed help with something and the Lord knew that E could help her, so He called him home.  I won't question God's plan but accept that His plan is perfect and ask Him for strength and comfort.   I didn't want him to go and didn't get a chance to say good bye, but one day I'll get to say hello when I meet him again after I meet Jesus face to face.  

goodbyes are never easy

Today was one of the hardest days I've ever had to experience.  My sweet grandmother went to heaven.  She was truly one of the kindest, gentlest, most loving, caring women I have ever met.  She has spent her life serving the Lord and exemplifying Christ in everything she does.  I have so many wonderful memories of Nanny.  The first memory I have of her isn't exactly my memory but more like a story about the day I was born.  When she heard that I weighed 6 pounds 8 ounces, she said "that's the size of a good pot roast."  So in her mind, when I was born she was thinking of cooking.  That's another memory I have about her.  My brother and I went over and spent time with her during the summers for a week at a time.  I have tons of memories of Nanny helping us make custard in the microwave, jello pudding, and chocolate pies.  She never said no if we asked to bake something.  And anytime I had a special request for smothered steak, it was waiting on the table for me when I arrived.  I'll never forget our school programs and going over to her house after school to change and get ready and have dinner before the programs.  I can't forget the cruise I went on with her and my mom.  I have pictures to help me relive that trip.  Nanny went to High Tea with me and even held her little pinkie up with me when we drank tea.  She loved hearing stories about my students in my class.  Nanny was a special lady.  She never met a stranger and she never had anything mean to say about anyone.  She played the piano beautifully and loved to sing.  I think I got my love of music from her.  My last words with Nanny were very special.  I went to see her yesterday in the hospital and when I got ready to leave I told her "Nanny, I'm gonna go but I'll be back later.  I love you."  She said "I love you."  I turned to walk out and she said "Krista, you're a good granddaughter."  In there with the tears, I was able to get out "Thank you Nanny, I love you."  I will never forget those words.  She meant so much to me and I'm so glad she knew.  Thanksgiving 2011 I posted each day about how thankful I was for different things and I posted about her one day and wrote about how thankful I was for everything about her.  She was so excited to see that post that she printed it out after adding a picture at the top of the page of me and her and she had planned to share it at one of her Young At Heart meetings.  I don't know if she ever had a chance to share that with her friends.  But if she didn't, I'm so glad she knew how much I loved her and how thankful I am for her.  She lived an amazing life and raised 3 wonderful daughters.  All 3 of them are strong ladies and I'm grateful for all of them.  My life won't be the same without her, but I'm comforted in knowing that she is up in heaven right now with our Savior and one day I will see her again and we will both sing and dance together eating snickers, chocolate pie, and smothered steak.....Nanny I love you and I know you are watching over all of us.  Thank you for all you ever did for me and for the love you showed.  You wanted to go home.....now you are finally home!

I'm back....and have been for awhile!

In case you are wondering, yes I am back.  I know it has been a few days, ok more like a few weeks since I posted anything from my trip.  The truth is, I was sick the last part of the trip and did not have much energy.  It was enough to get up and get ready and get out the door, much less blog anything.  The other issue was our crummy internet.  It was slow and dropped the connection a lot while we were online.

The next few days that I blog about are going to be very minimal but at least I came back and told you that I made it home alive and in one piece (even if I did have a double ear infection with one eardrum ruptured).

Dec. 29:  We were in Aukland this day with no plans for any excursions.  We did have a power jet boat ride planned but when we both came down with whatever it is that we had, we cancelled it because we didn't know how sick we would be in Aukland.  I'm glad we cancelled it.  We ended up doing a Hop On Hop Off Bus Tour on this day.  It gave us a chance to see the highlights of Aukland.  We got off at the Sky Tower stop and went up as high as they would let us go.  That was a pretty neat experience.  The views were great!  There were people there that were doing a "sky jump."  If I would have felt better, I would have done the jump.  It was sorta like a controlled bungee jumping thing.  They also had the "sky walk" but since I would be doing the bridge climb in Sydney, I didn't want to spend double the money and do basically the same type of thing.  That's about all I remember from Aukland.  I remember sleeping a lot on the boat (I think.)  My memory has faded but at least I got the highlights.

Dec. 30:  This is the day that we woke up to pouring down rain.  Thankfully our excursion was at noon so the rain had a chance to let up that day.  The seas were so rough too.  We weren't docked but anchored down in the middle of the bay area and the ship was really moving.  We tendered into the port and got on a catamaran boat and went around and saw different areas in the Bay of Islands.  We were supposed to go the "the hole in the rock" but the seas were way too rough for that and I'm so glad they didn't even attempt that because I was getting a little anxious with all the big jumps in the water on our boat.  A sweet little lady even got sea sick on the boat.  It was rough!  The highlight of the catamaran was seeing some dolphins swimming out there.  That was fun exciting!  When we got back to the dock it was raining again and they started loading people onto the tender boat but then stopped.  Apparently one of the motors wasn't working.  So they decided to circle around to the other side of the dock and keep loading.  I'm not really sure what good that did to keep loading on a boat with a motor out.  I think they were having a lot of tender boat issues....not great if there was an emergency on the boat and we needed those boats to keep us safe.

Dec. 31 was a sea day.  When I was looking back and my little notes I made so I could remember what we did that day, I found the phrase "lots of food."  So I think that must have been the day that we ate a big breakfast and then went to the suite luncheon and had some great indonesian cuisine (so good!) and then we must have eaten a lot for dinner....I'm not sure.  I just think it's funny that I made a note about how much food we ate.  I also made a note that we went to the spa after dinner.  That was pretty much part of our nightly routine.  We were planning to stay up late and go to the party in the showroom but we both were so tired and the ship rocked us to sleep.  So we were out early.  Don't worry though, I celebrated the next afternoon/early evening with NYC and the ball drop in Times Square.

I'll add January 1-5 later.  There are a few of those days in there that were travel days.  But they are coming soon!