Sunday, May 19, 2013

Farewells

Life has been pretty crazy the last few months and my dedication to update the blog more frequently has been lackluster to say the least.  But things seem to be slowing down just enough.  Hopefully it will last!

Today was a day I totally appreciated all my mother did to send me off on a mission!  It is a lot of work! Even split up among 4+ people!  I'm exhausted.

Today was our parents' mission farewell.  My mom was crazy stressed and worried about it but I don't know why, we told her all she had to do was show up at her own house and we would do everything else.  But I guess speaking in church can be a terrifying experience for some, she was on pins and needles all week.  Of course, she and my dad did a fabulous job.  One funny thing that happened was the church clock was broken but nobody knew it, so my dad, being the last speaker, was trying to fill up some extra time.  The bishopric slipped him a note to let him know (and check his watch) so he wouldn't keep trying to fill empty minutes that didn't exist!  But it was a great meeting.  JaKayla played the piano, a solo of "I'll Go Where You Want Me To Go" and did AMAZING!  It's nice to have someone else take over on the ivories!  She is getting really good!

So many friends and family showed up to support my parents, our family has been very blessed with great influences throughout the years!  It was so fun to see everyone and catch up!  Facebook just can't replace human interaction, you know?  After the church meeting, we invited everyone over for lunch (Cade took a bunch of pictures, so check out his blog for more info).  We thought we had a ton of food, which we did, but surprisingly ran out of sandwiches (one of my responsibilities, unfortunately.....sorry Mom!).

Even though the farewell was today, my mom and dad won't actually leave until June 3rd.  And even then, they will just be at the Provo MTC for 2 more weeks.  The exact departure date for Seattle is June 14th, so still almost a month away.  But I realized today that it will be kind of strange to be an orphan for 18 months.  No more Sunday dinners up in SLC, no one to watch the corny Hallmark movies with, and no one to remind me all the time how awesome I am (even though I know they're biased).  It got me kind of sad to think of it!  Even though we are going to try to have monthly family get togethers, this will be the first time that I will be completely on my own, living the single life 24/7.  I guess I realized how much I really do still rely on my parents!

I'm sure the next 19 months will fly by and then we'll all be reminiscent of that one time my parents lived in Washington for 18 months and wasn't that so cool.  Life is funny that way!