Life's a Dance: Valley Vacation Part I

This post is going to be pretty long just because we had such a good time, so I am going to break it up into Part I and Part II. :)

Orange Tree on a Beautiful Day

As many of you know, my step dad was diagnosed with Stage 4, Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer the Monday after Christmas. It was a total shock to us. He has been through chemo since and is doing well. We did have a scare with a blood clot back in April, but he seems to be doing good. Lung Cancer does not have a cure and the life span of course, is different for everyone.

Mr. T's family is from the Valley and one set of grandparents farm and have an orchard. Many of you probably eat fruit and veggies from them. :) My parents got to meet Mr. T's family when we were having wedding showers and then of course at the wedding. With his family being SO wonderful, my parents just adored them. After visiting with them the little they got to, Bob-O decided he wanted to go down to the Valley. He has never been down there, just heard our stories and tasted all the yummy fruit that we would bring back from our trips down there.

My mom and Bob-O in the Orchard.

We decided no time was better than Memorial Day weekend. We loaded up and headed south on Friday after work and picked my parents up about 2.5 hrs south of us and then continued on the journey. The Valley is about 6 hrs from my parents house. About 3 hrs into the trip Bob-O asked if we were almost there, and little did he know we were only half way!

We finally got to Meem's house Friday night at about 11:30. We were all exhausted, but we stayed up a while and visited. It worked out well b/c my MIL and Mr. T's aunt had been visiting Meem and helping her all week, so we got to see them too! We spent the day with Meem and everyone on Saturday and just had good food, fellowship and a little bit of shopping at the Bazaar.....boy was that interesting! We went to dinner with Mr. T's other uncle and his family and then we got home and gambled a little. ;) Cousin Matt taught us a dice game called Liar's Dice and it was so much fun. Meem was winning all the pots and I finally won one. It was great just to have some good family time. I am so blessed that I married into the family I did. I had to ask my mom if she ever thought she would be hanging out with my in-laws. That just shows how fabulous they are!