In the summer we found out my maternal grandma had stage 4 lung cancer. I didn’t really share this with anyone to respect my mom’s wishes. My mom flew back and forth to Seattle to help take care of grandma where she was staying at my aunt & uncle’s house.

She stopped eating and lost weight. She was in so much pain and hospice came a few times a week to help. And still she was amazingly strong!

My mom went up last week as things started to get worse. I wrote my grandma a letter which was really hard considering that I knew it was going to be the last letter to her. My mom read the letter to her when she arrived Seattle. A little part of me was hoping she would wait until I’m in town but at the same time I didn’t want her to be in pain anymore.

Last Thursday they doubled her morphine since she was in pain. She was having a hard time letting go. She passed peacefully on Friday afternoon after my uncle got home from work and kissed her. She was such a lady since she waited for everyone to go to the kitchen for a few minutes before she left.

Tyler, my sister and I will be going up to Seattle this Saturday to be with family and then drive my grandma’s car back down to Phoenix. Thank you all for your sweet comments & messages on Twitter and Facebook. It means a lot to me and my family. xo!

9. the reception: where was it at? show us some pictures! what day did you get married?

We got married on November 24th, 2008 which was on Monday the week of Thanksgiving. We thought it was a perfect day so family and friends could come and stay longer. Most of my friends were still in college at the time so it made sense to do it during Thanksgiving break. Also a lot of my family relatives wanted to stay for Thanksgiving. It was much cheaper to do the wedding on Monday anyways. It was nice since we had more than enough time to have our bachelorette/bachelor parties before Monday.

We got married at Stonebridge Manor, a grand old estate that was turned into a wedding venue. We got married in the backyard and the reception was also in the backyard too in a 6,000 square foot tented pavilion.

I’m glad we had the ceremony and reception at the same venue. Everything about the estate was gorgeous! Now I’d love to go back and re-live the day again.

We carved pumpkins on Friday night at my parents’ house. I wanted to do something simple and fun so I went for polka dots…of course! My dad’s friend gave me a great idea of using an apple corer. That worked out really great and it was a really good arm workout for sure!

My cousins {Dana & Shane} came down from Seattle to visit for the weekend. We carved pumpkins, the ladies went for mani-pedi’s, good games of bowling, AutumnFest with the pup {Cheerio} and clay shooting at the range.

I hope you all had a great weekend! I’m making it a goal to catch up on blogs this week. xo!