My PawPaw

 I mentioned in the previous post that my precious Pawpaw died in July. I never did get to brag on him on here, so now I am! He was one of those people that was just sweet spirited. I remember being a teenager and thinking, well, everyone thinks their grandparents are sweet. One night I was babysitting, and a friend of the parent’s knew my uncles and grandfather. She asked specifically how he and my grandmother were doing and then stated what a sweet man he was. It dawned on me then that not everyone has awesome grandparents. He was am amazing singer and sang at all of the grandchildren’s weddings that had gotten married so far. Whenever we told someone my grandfather was singing, they would shake their head sweetly and say how nice! When they heard him, they were blown away! He also sang each granddaughter “You are 16 going on 17” from the Sound of Music on our 16 birthdays. I am so thankful that I still have the voicemail of him and my grandmother delivering their “singing telegram” for my birthday this year. He and my grandmother cooked Sunday lunch for us (and my dad’s 4 bros and their families) every Sunday from the time I can remember until I left for college. Those are some of my best family memories, and I am so thankful that he made his family a priority. I think my dad definitely got that quality from him. Her loved politics and we will miss him at the debates this year. I also loved that he was willing to match my grandmother when they got dressed-how many men are confident enough to do that?! His gentle spirit will live on in our family’s legacy through all the lives he touched. We all know Jesus had a special spot for him leading a choir of angels!

Preston and PawPaw

PawPaw and the greats...I have a pic just like this with the grands!

PawPaw-80, Pres-4 days

One of his former students wrote in to the CA:
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/jul/28/letter-teacher-heart/
Another article from a staff writer in the CA:
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/jul/28/troubadour-touched-memphis-with-voice-teaching/

After reading is obituary, I felt like I needed to get busy!

EDWARD JOSEPH BOUSSON JR, 81, dearly loved husband and father, affectionately called 'Pappaw' by his nine grand and seven great grandchildren, passed away July 22 following a short illness. He lived a full life of devotion to family and music; sharing his rich, tenor voice and musical gifts throughout the Memphis area for nearly 60 years. 'Mr. Boo', as he was known to hundreds of music and theatre students, taught at Tech and Kingsbury High Schools. He often said he knew from the beginning he wanted to sing for a living. Ed earned his undergraduate degree from Memphis State University. After completing his Masters in Music at LSU in Baton Rouge, he auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera. He later landed a spot to sing on the Arthur Godfrey Radio Show. While performing at Memphis Open Air Theatre, he met and married his 'dance partner', Joyce Small. He performed with Memphis Opera Theatre and was lead tenor in shows like La Traviata and Madame Butterfly. A much sought after vocalist for fundraisers, rallies and special events, he performed for President Richard Nixon and at the dedication of St. Jude, singing 'Danny Boy' for founder Danny Thomas. For a number of years, Ed was also a weekly performer on the WREC 'Good Morning Memphis' television program. He served in Korea as part of the 304th Signal Battalion with the U.S. Army. Always civic minded, Ed was involved with several non-profit organizations and was elected to two terms in the Tennessee House of Representatives. For 31 years, he served the Memphis School System as a teacher and assistant principal. After retirement, not yet ready to stop, Ed continued his music career and also worked as a billing agent for FedEx for seven more years. He was also a past President of the Memphis Area Retired Teachers Association. Since the age of 24, he was song director for several churches, and until knee replacement surgery a few months ago, led the singing at Macon Road Church of Christ. At the age of 70, working with one of his students, pianist David Troy Francis, he went to Hollywood to record his first professional CD, titled 'Splendored Things', a story of love songs featuring classics, 'Til There Was You,' 'Over the Rainbow', 'If Ever I Would Leave You' and 'You'll Never Walk Alone'. Survivors include his loving wife of 58 years, Joyce; and their five sons: Eddie (Julie); Mark (Tracey), Jeff (Kathy), Danny (Chyrel) and Brent. Visitation will be held 5-7 p.m., Friday, July 27 and Saturday July 28 from 9-10 a.m. funeral services will begin at 10 a.m., Saturday July 28, all will be at Memphis Funeral Home and Memorial Gardens on Germantown Rd. Online condolences and floral tributes may be made by visiting www. memphisfuneralhome.net.

Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true.

Adult Cruise 2012

Let me start with our crazy week before we left for the cruise. We have been talking about this trip for a year now! I have been working extra every month to save for it, and we had gotten all the plans situated months ago. I got a call from my cousin on Sunday afternoon with the news that my grandfather had passed away. It was very unexpected and my first death of a grandparent. I dropped off the food I was taking to our church ice cream party, and my mom and I headed to my grandmother’s. We were there on and off all week making arrangements and just being with family. It was a really wonderful week amidst our grief, but we were able to just be together a lot that week. The tricky part was that my dad and youngest brother were at the Northern Tier in Canada. It is the most extreme boy scout camping trip you can go on. They were camping and canoeing for 9 days. When they weren't in the canoe, they had to carry it. Sounds pretty miserable to me! Anyway, because it is the wilderness, there was no way to get in touch with them until they reached the end on Thursday. It sounds completely crazy, but we had Canada on the phone all week trying to work out a solution (and yes, we referred to them as Canada, as if they are one person). After they got out of the water, they were supposed to camp and then make the drive home which would take another two days. My mom had to get Jake’s BFF’s dad to fly up there, meet my dad, take the car of boy scouts back to Memphis, and then dad and Jake got on a plane to come home. I was sick at my stomach all week thinking about my dad and Jake and how they would react to the news when coming off the high of this huge accomplishment. It was rather terrible. We had to hold the visitation to Friday and the funeral to Saturday. This meant Luke and I would have to miss the funeral.

Oh yea, and Luke had THE BAR that Tuesday and Wednesday. Just the most stressful two days of law school. Just the accumulation of three years of hard work. Just a little bit stressful.

We still haven't figured out God’s timing in all of this.

We were finally able to sneak away for a few days. We went with two of our very favorite couples, and we had an absolutely wonderful time! We had planned on riding the train to NOLA on Friday before the boat left on Saturday, but Luke and I had to stay in town for an extra day. It worked out that The Neller’s could buy our train tickets, so we met everyone in NOLA about 3:15 am on Saturday. Here is the beautiful room that awaited us!

We were so excited to be getting on the boat. We have been talking about and planning this trip for close to a year! We were ready for a vacation!! Each couple that went has two kids…let me just say that mine are the oldest and farthest apart…we all needed a vacation!!

The Roberts

The Nellers

The Cantrells

 

Luke loved the melting chocolate cake. Two in one night!

Full Bellies!

This dress is the perty one I won from Shabby Apple!

Yes, that would be me with a disco ball. Pure Awesome.

On formal night, Luke was getting ready and found this little teddy bear stashed away “for safe keeping” (thank you Kate for making us smile and miss you!)

    

We ate a ridiculous amount of food this night!

And what’s a cruise post without a towel animal? 

Our first port was Progreso. There is really not much in Progreso, but we all fell in love with the authenticity of the town. Only two cruise ships port there a week, so it is not very touristy at all. We went to the Mayan ruins this day.

   

We loved Cesar, the tour guide!

In this structure, the sun will shine through that middle hole perfectly a couple times a year. When it isnt lined up in the middle, it shines through the two windows either side. The Mayans were pretty impressive. We also learned that in December, the calendar will finish a cycle, and the end of the world is not imminent. Glad I found that out before I finished my bucket list this year!  

The squiggle line on the wall is where the original wall stopped and the preservationists built it back up.

     

Spanish Catholic temple

We got to swim in this cenote which was 175 ft deep at one end. It was created by a meteor.

           

Our three hot men!! We could spot them anywhere!

Andy

Luke

Colin

  

         

After the ruins, we hopped back on our bus and they dropped us off in the middle of Progreso. We sat on the beach and ate a delicious lunch of fish tacos and margaritas! I think this was one of everyone’s favorite meals!  

We also all bought gifts for the babies!   

We got back on the boat and continued the fun with a hand stand contest in the kiddie pool. After I wrangled a mask from one of our judges, I think I was the winner (haha!)

This was my little buddy from the table behind us. He would come and sit in my lap every night. Loved getting to love on a little when I was missing mine!

   

The second port was Cozymel. We went to an all inclusive resort called Nocci Cachum, and it was awesome!

Our last day at sea :(  

Erika dubbed this the brain side of the table 

So I guess that made us the beauty side

I was walking my little friend around the restaurant and my friends got aholt of my camera!

     

We enjoyed the shows every night and we also saw the comedian several times. 

We were all ready to see our littles, but we had a wonderful time! I think it was just what we needed, the perfect amount of time away ( 5.5 days), and the perfect size traveling group. I sure was ready to see these faces!

Grammy so graciously gave up her last week of summer to come wrangle our kiddos for the week! Can you tell I’ve never left my kids before?! Haha! Here were my instructions for the week. I promise I am not even OCD or anything. Thanks Grammy for our week off!

Several people have asked me what was my favorite part. I think my final answer would have to be dinner. It was so nice to not have to cook or prepare anything (or clean it up, for that matter!) It was also so nice to be able to dress cute and have  conversations the whole meal without any interruptions! I realized how much I missed having community with my friends. As cheesy as that sounds! The past year, (heck-the past 3 years!) we haven't been able to hang out much with our small group as much as we would like. Luke has had 2-3 night classes a semester, and I have worked 2-3 nights a week. That schedule was not conducive to hanging out with anyone during the week! Anyway, I loved that part of the cruise and I feel like it revitalized me to make the extra effort to make time for our friends.

Life is good today, life is good today. –Zac Brown Band