Saturday, July 29, 2017

Tahoe...the one where we LIVED.

13-day epic roadtrip. 
11 cities. 
Over 1,600 miles. 
Lots of laughs.
A few catfights 
(oh who am I kidding, a few full on WWF fights between the kids, if I'm being 100% honest here). 
But we survived - and were all still talking to each other by the end of it!

This trip was fueled by some serious emotions.
Because, here's the thing about raising a medically fragile child: you don't know what the future will bring.

Of course, nobody knows.
But we're just reminded of it every.single.time we look into this sweet face.

In a few weeks, we go to Stanford for a heart transplant evaluation.
We don't know what next summer will look like, whether Bodie will be in any position to travel.
Heck, we don't know what next month will bring.
So we throw ourselves into NOW, because that's what we got.

So, this trip...

We played in the snow at over 9,000ft
 
(well, if you're Dusk and Sierra, you played in the snow -  if you're the less adventurous type like Bodie and I, you sit at the bottom and watch Sierra slide down - I mean, we're living more in the moment now, but let's not get crazy here...)
 

We swam in a pool next to sharks (no pics of that - sorry!)

We hiked in the forest and in the meadows.
 
We (ok, Dusk and Bodie) spent hours building tree forts - and then swinging from the branches in said forts.
We ate s'mores with Popo Alan.
And braided our hair to match Grandma Jan.
 
We waded into the lake with our clothes on...because it was too warm and beautiful not to. 
We had too much sun, too much water, and ate too many s'mores (just kidding - no such thing!)
We rounded out our trip with time spent with our heart buddies at Camp Taylor

And at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

An on our way home, we made an impulse stop to feed some ostriches and emus, because...why not? 
  

We came home exhausted and spent, with laundry for days. 
But it was worth it. 
It was all worth it. 
Even the WWF fights. 
Because we were LIVING. 
While this crazy journey we're on permits us to. 

This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip, of the kids and I at the wave wall (I'm sure that's totally the technical term for it) at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  
It was hands down my most favorite place at the Aquarium (possibly because the sound drowned out all the other sensory overload the rest of the Aquarium had sent my way). And the kids loved, too - their looks of surprise and excitement were awesome. We just sat there for some time, letting the waves crash outside the glass surrounding us. 

Such an incredible reminder that, even in the midst of the waves crashing around us in our lives, of the walls crumbling down around us, there is always a sweet, quiet spot to be found. A spot to sit, to seek the beauty around us, and to just BE in God's presence. Such a powerful reminder as we go into the next phase of Bodie's medical journey.


Photobucket