Not even sure what to title this blog... (updated with pics)

Hey all....  wow, not even sure where to start this blog but have a lot to say so hopefully you can hang in with me for the long haul.  My life has literally turned upside down over the past 10 days.. 

On Friday, March 18th, my family lost my dear cousin Karen, who very unexpectedly passed away.  Just 5 days earlier, we were mostly all together in Chicago, celebrating my baby shower. She went to bed on the 17th and to our knowledge, never woke up and preliminary findings suggest a massive heart attack.  She was 48.   Needless to say, this has completely devastated my family.  She was more than a cousin, she was my sister, at times my best friend and just an all around wonderful person. We spent weeks up north in the summer and at Christmas.  When I talk about my family, I mean her and her mom ,dad, and her sister (Aunt Joan, Uncle Bill and Susan) just as much as I mean my immediate family of my mom,dad, brother, SIL and niece&nephew.  We are all one. 

I left Wednesday to fly to Lansing for the services.  After a few mishaps, including a canceled flight and renting of a rental car, we (my brother SIL and myself) arrived in Lansing, MI for the visitation.  While it was completely sad to be there, it was so uplifting to see how many friends she had, what they had all meant to her, what she had meant to them and how she had affected their lives. She was a very active member of the gay community in Lansing and I could not have been prouder to call her my family after hearing the stories from people of how she got them involved and was helping to make a difference in Lansing/E. Lansing.   I could never have imagined how many people showed up at the service on Thursday.. the church was filled to capacity and when we asked the pastor how many the church held, he said, "normally the max is 300"!! Holy smokes!!!  I can only hope to be so lucky to have that many people come out and witness my celebration of life!! She would have been thrilled and I'm sure she was smiling down from heaven on all of us. 

Here are a couple of pictures from my shower of Karen.  (not sure why you may have to click on the little box to see the picture.. so irritated iwth blogger right now!)

Karen, Emma (cousin), Susan (cousin - Emma's mom)

Me and Karen

I'm sad to think about what our lives are going to be like without Karen, what our summers and Christmases will be like, but I know that a little part of her will always be with us and our fabulous memories will get us through. All I ask is that you keep her family in your thoughts and prayers as I'm sure the next several months are going to be so difficult for everyone. 

On the baby news, everything is fine... moving right along. I had a pretty rough, stressful week and the traveling and complete lack of sleep had me a little nervous for baby boy, but he's doing great. I have my glucose tolerance test this week so I'm trying to stay off of the sugar so as not to have to add another thing to deal with in gestational diabetes.   He is kicking up a storm, which, honestly I LOVE!!!  I love feeling him in there and am getting anxious for the next 3 months to fly by!! Here is an updated pic of the bump...  I really don't feel like I'm as big as I am in the picture.. must be what I'm wearing!! :)

Finally, as I had mentioned maybe like a million times, we were scheduled to go to NYC this past weekend for our last little trip before the kiddo arrives..  needless to say, we ended up canceling the trip.  My sweet kind-hearted husband ended up donating our tickets to the Knicks/Bucks game to the Boys and Girls club instead of trying to sell them for a profit.  Will wonders never cease!  Instead of NYC, we spent the weekend at the ballpark here in PHX..  the last weekend of Spring Training!!  I'm kind of glad to see it end so now I can have my weekends back!!  Here is our last Spring Training picture!

Hope you are all well... am hoping to catch up on blogs this week.

xo,js