I literally sat here for about five minutes trying to organize my thoughts so that I can share the past few days with you. But my brain just won’t work… I am that tired.

So be warned… this post is going to be full of thought bombs snapping and popping as the neurons in my brain try to make connections.

My poor cousin Katy came out to see me at the tail end of an epic amount of visiting family and traveling. My house is a wreck and I’m completely disorganized. I’ve ignored all of those mundane things you have to do in life to keep things functioning for way too long. My house is in desperate need of a boring day but I want to make sure Katy has a good time while she’s here so I’m trying to keep chugging along. I really do hope she’s had fun.

On Friday I took Katy hiking…

The plan was to go for a hike and then drive to Evergreen and have dinner. After we got done with the hike we got in my car to find that it wasn’t working right. The engine was shaking the car and it would just creep when I tried to accelerate. (This is the hoopty with the fire fighter butt dent in it that I refuse to replace.) Katy and I just looked at each other like “Oh shit, we’re stuck on a mountain with a fussy baby.”

I opened the hood of the car because that’s what you do when cars break down… right? I looked at it, touched a few things, shut the hood and started the car up again and it was normal. We were a bit freaked out so we went straight home where we enjoyed rehydrating/dehydrating watermelon cocktails.

Coconut Watermelon Cocktail

1 shot of watermelon vodka

glass full of coconut water

splash of club soda

squeeze of lime

This drink was so refreshing that it went down a little too smoothly if you know what I’m saying 😉 We sat in the den and giggled through two episodes of Master Chef before passing out for the night.

We were planning on driving to Estes on Saturday to visit my Great Aunt Freida and Uncle dub who live there during the summer. I was too scared to drive my car up another mountain. But Katy really wanted to see her and then go visit a friend in Fort Collins so we rented a car just to be safe. I offered to let her go by herself so that she would have a way to get home but it was really important to her that we saw our Aunt Freida together and I’m so glad that we did.

It took two hours to get to Estes. The drive was absolutely beautiful…

Aunt Freida was my mom’s aunt. I would call her the matriarch of the family because she always kept everyone together. She was always a steady figure in our mother’s lives as they were raised by their grandparents in Wichita Falls, TX along with their brother Paul.

I hadn’t seen Aunt Freida and Uncle Dub in years but they were just like I had remembered them. They both have the kindest eyes. We stayed for a few hours catching up over a nice lunch.

Our cousin Hogan stays in Estes with Freida and Dub during the summers and works at this restaurant. Luckily he got to take a break and enjoy lunch with us for a while. We were able to visit for a little while longer before heading back down the mountain for Fort Collins.

Aunt Freida and Uncle Dub were disappointed to find that we couldn’t stay longer. I felt really bad so I promised to come back to visit again with my husband in tow before they head back south for the winter.

On the way down the mountain I started to get a migraine. If you really know me you know this is bad news. I get the most debilitating headaches that can land me in the ER. We were stuck on this windy road behind the slowest truck on earth. There were no stores in sight. So I spent an hour and a half trying not to throw up as I navigated my way back to civilization so that I could buy some medicine.

Once we got to Fort Collins I got the medicine I needed. I dropped Katy off at her friend’s house and headed back home for another hour and a half. The girls were dog tired and so was I…

Once I got home I looked out and saw the moon looking down on me. I’ve always thought of the moon as a woman who keeps an eye out on us during the night. I always compare my mother to the Sun and the Moon and I found it to be fitting since I finally got a chance to visit with her family.

I don’t typically talk about my mother much. But I can’t help but talk about her with Katy here. I’m so glad she came, I feel like I’ve gotten a chance to reconnect with a big part of myself that I tend to push aside.

Anyway, I told you this post was going to be crazy. I hope you were able to follow along. I would sit here and edit this post until it made sense but I’ve still got some entertaining to do so I better get moving!