Fourth of July, River Rats, and Missing my Papa =(

I love coming to Mimi's house. It is always the best, most relaxing, but most FUN time ever. In the course of the past 48 hours I have -

Eaten at Conestoga (best hole in the wall steak house EVER),

shot some guns (#6 on list),

learned to drive a stick shift (#96 on list),

watched my little cousins shoot fireworks in Mimi's yard,

watched Finn dance on the hood of Griff's jeep,

attended a cousin's sleepover at Griff's,

loaded up four River Rat tubes, a cooler, etc. and floated for five hours down the Choctawhatchee.

(The blue is to represent Lauren, turned Tugs our cooler holder!)

(self-timers work wonders!)

TUGGSS just chillin. He was our lifesaver on this trip =)

Just cruisin w the hubs... =)

This was our view for 5 hours... beautiful river through Mimi's property

WOW. I'm exhausted. What a great weekend with family. What was originally planned to be me and Pat coming to visit Mimi turned into me, Pat, Alex, Sherri, Kent, Trey, Mom, Joy, and Finn coming =) YAYYY!

The only thing I would change about the whole weekend would be to have Papa here. It has been over a year and a half since he went to live with Jesus and it still just doesn't feel right. I miss his loud, beautiful voice. I miss his clean smell. I miss snuggling up beside him on the couch as he "watched" TV with his eyes closed. I miss watching him lead the choir at church. I miss all the cousins piling in the truck to go check the cows with him. I miss watching him come in from a hot day of farming and scarf down a tomato sandwich. I miss his "light shot" and his funny sayings. I really, really, really miss him.