St. Joe

After David's dad's funeral, we thought it would be good to take Mom to Paul and Cindee's cabin on the St. Joe river in northern Idaho. We all wanted a chance to take a few more days to let the reality of Dad being gone sink in before returning to real life. The funeral was Friday and we left Sunday, traveling 13 LONG hours to get there.

Despite the long and rather frustrating drive (Ben apparently does not like long car trips and thinks he should eat every hour and a half), we were so glad that we made the decision to go. We talked a lot about Dad, enjoyed watching the kids play on the dock and in the water, and spent time just being together. Grief is a funny thing. It comes in waves. Most of the time we remembered Dad and wished he could be there with us, and other times it felt like a bad dream that he WASN'T there with us.

The dock on St. Joe's

The crazy boys before jumping from a train trestle

The cousins...NO FEAR

What a wonderful group of little people: Josh, Sophie, Lexie, Kate, Alyssa

One of my favorite memories of this trip will be the last night together. We sat around the fire pit that David and Paul dug (with help from the kids) and sang Dad's favorite songs ("Little Purple Pansies", anyone?) and laughed at his favorite sayings ("Illegitimus non corborundum," "Feile hande machte arbeite schnell" (sorry, I can't spell in Latin or German), and a few I will NOT write down for posterity). We are blessed to have had him as such an important part of our lives. The day before he died, he laboredly said to me, "I saw all your children." How grateful I am that he did. They all had him as part of their lives, if only for too short a time.