Father's Day

I honestly wasn't sure if we were going to have Father's Day this year.  I really didn't know how everyone was doing knowing that one of us was missing and at Mother Joseph's (Mojo's) trying to recover from a stroke.  She had only been in there for a little under a month but you could tell everyone was worried sick.  I wasn't doing too well knowing that Grammie was away from all of us on a family holiday.  I hated it when she couldn't come.  It just didn't feel right without her there.

About a week ago I decided to host Father's Day and we were going to put the grill into use by making burgers.  The weather was supposed to be nice so I planned to have it outside.  I assigned everyone something to bring and let Grandpa be in charge of the burger.  I bought it for him and he just gave me the money.  I tried to make it as simple as I could for him.  Ben and I provided all the condiments, the cheese, the lettuce, onion and tomatoes and beans, I had Grandma bring a homemade peach cobbler, mom made a potato salad, Erika and Red brought fruit and I just didn't have Tracy, Doug and Jenn bring anything.  Kevin and Karla brought their own food and I invited Trish and Amy but they decided to stay around home.

Tracy spent time at Mojo's with Grammie before coming to the party.  Grammie wanted to see pictures so I sent a bunch of pictures for her to see even though I wish she could have been there with us instead.  I think I ended up sending 50 or so pictures and I wasn't sure how many of them she actually got because the cell service inside Mojo's was spotty at times.

We ate our food, talked about random things as they came up and I told everyone about how my new job was going at WSDOT.  At this point I have figured out everything and was pretty bored in the afternoon after my supervisor left.  The only thing I hadn't been trained in was the appointments and the ordering of supplies in which I had to take classes for that.

Since it wasn't anyone's birthday we didn't have to make a cake or cupcakes.  Everyone helped clean up some of the stuff and we got ready to celebrate our two dad's, Grandpa and my dad.  They opened their gifts and cards and we sent more pictures to Grammie.  Tracy showed up just after we were done with the presents.  She sat, ate and visited for a while.

I tried to get people to play some disc golf since we had just gotten our new disc golf cage but no one really wanted to play.  I even had a football out just in case someone wanted to play catch.  The mood felt somber.  This was the first time I think anyone felt this way at a family gathering in recent years.  I was too little to remember how people felt when great grandma and great grandpa passed away and weren't at family occasions anymore.

We started bringing stuff back into the house and cleaning up a bit before everyone started leaving.  Everyone started to leave at around 4:30-5:00.  I knew Tracy would go back to Mojo's and since Doug and Jenn were here they would go see her as well.  I think mom and dad stopped by with Grandma even though Grammie didn't want that many people to go see her.  We did anyway against her wishes because it was important.  We didn't know how much longer she had with us and at this point she could still talk.

Ben and I cleaned up the rest of the food, washed all the dishes so we didn't have to do it later, brought in all the tables and made sure all the chairs were put back into the garage.  I was wiped out but somehow Ben talked me into taking our disc golf cage and our discs to the park down the street to throw around some discs.

We spent about an hour out in the sunshine enjoying the rest of our evening even though the day didn't go like I wanted.  I know we all have to deal with life but I just wasn't ready for it to change as drastically as it did.  I really wanted it to be the same as it was before last month.

Next Adventure:  A Mini Vacation from Work and Driving to Selah