It's been a crazy few weeks

I apologize ahead of time. I'm having trouble with the layout so it will be a little hard to read.

It's been a crazy few weeks for our family and once again, a long time since I've posted anything on the blog. I'll start with our nephew, Sean's birthday party on May 17th. It was a fun gathering to celebrate his first birthday. He was such a trooper since he had been up the night before with a 103 degree temperature as he was getting over his double ear infection. Since then, he's had tubes put in his ears and we're all hoping that it will help the little guy. The party was celebrated with a great meal of lasagna, salad, and bread followed by cake, presents, a trip to the park with all of the little nieces, nephews, and cousins. The guys even played some basketball. Good times.

This Sarah about to go down the slide at the park at Sean's birthday party.

After Sean's party, we started looking ahead to Kim's wedding in Jamaica and preparing for a busy Memorial Day weekend of socializing, packing, and going to the Brookfield Central H.S. parade performance on Memorial Day. My Grandpa Whitehead had seemed to be having more and more health problems and complications and was very frustrated. We got the call on Saturday morning that he had passed away in his sleep sometime the night before. He passed away the way he had always hoped. While we were sad to lose him, we knew he was in a better place and happy to be with Grandma again. We went down to Iowa on Sunday and over to Winterset, Iowa on Monday for the evening visitation and the funeral Tuesday morning. Kim flew in from Virginia so we were all able to be there. We stayed at our family friends', the Meases', while we were there. It was so nice not to be in a hotel room and to be with them. They're like my second Mom and Dad. The picture below is of Sarah riding their play horse in their basement. Sarah did great with all of the traveling, etc. She wasn't too happy during the funeral when I had to play the piano and sing and Jason played the saxophone. She's in a clingy, Mommy phase right now. My Aunt Jan and my sister helped occupy her when we were busy during the service. It was nice to see our extended family and friends and to hear all of the fun stories about Grandpa. He and his friends were quite the pranksters.

After the funeral, we drove all the way back to Milwaukee to unpack, do laundry, run errands, and re-pack for Kim's wedding in Jamaica. Mom, Dad, and Kim only had one day to do that while we had two. It was a stressful experience, but we all made it down there safe and sound and had a fabulous time. The first night was the welcome dinner so we got to meet Cleo's family and friends. It was a wonderful evening as we were right next to the water enjoying great food, music, and conversation. The picture below are of
Cleo and Kim welcoming everyone to the dinner.

Cleo, Kim, Vicky and Jerry Mease, and Jason at the welcome dinner

Below: Kelvin (Cleo's oldest son), Cleo's Uncle Charles, Brennan (Cleo's second son), Rebecca (Cleo's mom), and Cleo's Aunt Shirley

We slept in on Saturday morning which felt awesome. While we missed Sarah, we knew she was in good hands as she was staying in-between Jason's folks and his sister and family. We were relishing the opportunity to sleep in and catch up on a bit of sleep. We ordered room service and ate out on our patio overlooking the resort and the ocean. Jason went snorkeling with Cleo, his boys, and Uncle Charles. It went much better than our honeymoon snorkeling in Maui. :) While he was snorkeling, I went to Kim's room and we had a leisurely morning getting ready for the ceremony. We both had our hair done by a lovely Jamaican woman who crazily hairsprayed our hair to withstand the humidity. I was surprised when Kim asked me to do her make-up. Being the younger sister, I always looked up to Kim for make-up and hair advice. I was honored that she trusted me with that on her wedding day. The nerves started building up as we neared the ceremony time. It had been windy all day long and right when the ceremony started, there wasn't even a light breeze to be felt. We all dripped sweat throughout the ceremony, but it was still beautiful. The minister was charasmatic, yet focused the marriage on their committment to God and their love for one another. It was lovely! Once we got through the pictures on the beach and in the garden area, we moved onto the reception.

Below: Kim before the ceremony. She waited up there until the last minute to avoid the heat.

Below: Jason and I before the ceremony. He walked my Mom down the path and I walked by myself as the Matron of Honor.

Below: Kim and Cleo Battle's first dance as man and wife. They danced to the Etta James song, "At Last".

Below: Cutting the cake. Note the beautiful view in the background.

Below: Paul (Kim's former co-worker in Milwaukee and he introduced Kim and Cleo), Vicky, and Jason having a blast on the dance floor. It was very hot, but it didn't stop all of us from dancing!

Above: Brennan, Kelvin, Kim (Paul's wife), Paul, and Vicky

Below: Kim, Paul, Cleo, Kim, and Aunt Shirley

We had an fabulous night and everyone danced right up to the end. The dance ended around

9 p.m. so Jason, Kelvin, Brennan, Dad, and I got our suits on and cooled off in the pool. A fun way to end the night. On Sunday, everyone did their own thing. We eventually met Mom, Dad, Vicky, and Kim out on the beach and relaxed by the water. It was overcast the entire time we were there, but the sun still filtered through pretty strong. That night, we all met for drinks and dinner. Everyone mixed so well and had a truly enjoyable time. It was sad to see it end.

Below: Mom and Dad dancing to the local entertainer who sang and played the keyboard.

Below: Kim and I at Sunday night's dinner. Our bunched up cheeks hide our eyes when we smile.

Below: The view from our room

Below: The view from the end of the pier looking toward the resort. We stayed at Coyaba Resort on Montego Bay. It was a small, family-owned resort and we loved our stay. The food was excellent and the service was amazing.

Our flight home was uneventful. Since we got home late we didn't pick up Sarah until the next morning. I could harldy wait to see her. She had a great time while we were gone, but I think we were both glad to see each other. I had to take her straight to the pediatrician for her 18 month check-up where she measured 34 1/4 inches (95th percentile) and 26.4 pounds (85th percentile). She got some shots but all is on track. We went to school to see Jason since he was anxious to see her, as well. She was beside herself with excitement when she saw him come to the door. Too fun.

We spent the week getting back into the groove of things. We had a huge storm on Saturday night and water got into our basement. Our sump pump simply couldn't handle all of the water. We're in the process of seeing if we can save our carpet without the threat of mildew and getting estimates on a more powerful sump pump. While it was a record-setting rainfall storm, this isn't the first time we've had water when it's rained a lot. We now know that the previous owners lied on the disclosure statement when they said they didn't have water problems. A few neighbors have said otherwise. Ugh. We've kept a positive attitude. After all, it's just carpet. Many people have had sewage back up and high levels of water. We're blessed to have a roof over our heads, clothes on our back, food in our stomachs, etc. It's all relative and life is good.

If you made it to the end of this post, thanks for checking in. Let us know how you're doing when you get the chance.