Take me down to the Paradise City

Take me down to the Paradise City, where the grass is green and the girls are pretty....

oh won't you please take me home

I am from a small town in California called Paradise (and it is beautiful), yes went to high school there, you know did the normal kind of growing up stuff there, my parents don't live there anymore though and many of my friends have moved. So staying the night there is complicated, because well, there isn't really room for us anywhere.  We did however, make a brief appearance there during our California trip, a whole 7 hours!

We kept it really simple and saw my brother and sister for a few hours for lunch

 

I leave Uncle Jordan in charge for like a second and this is what happens

Sarah meeting uncle Nick and his family

 and then we went to see 2 of Carrisa's closets friends, Lyndsey and Lynae.

We were soooo excited to meet sweet baby Emilee, she is the same age as Sarah.

It was bitter sweet  as so much of it felt like Carrisa should have been every part of this....... 

so many precious babies that Carrisa's should have known.......

Norah also got to meet Emilee, Carrisa's best friends daughter 

 

 don't ask how, but Norah got a train stuck in her hair while we were there

 thought we were gonna have to get the scissors, but it eventually came out

I have never seen Maya play so well with another little boy, Maya & Joey were seriously best buds!

sweet James, love him

I loved when Seth play guitar for the kids, so fun

I love children group photos

I have been semi-dredding this post, not because I don't want to remember our time in Paradise, but because I feel like I have to explain myself.

 

Why you may ask?  well, we only saw a few people while we were there, and I know tons of people would have just loved to see Norah.  I kept it small for a reason though.  For one, I just couldn't handle a huge get together for such a short trip, that would have just been chaos, our trip had already been so crazy, and I couldn't handle a big party for a few hours and only getting a few words in with each person, it would have been to much for me and the girls.  For another reason, it was not our place to invite people to someone else's house, whether my sisters house or a friends.  And finally, I knew that if I invited a few more people here and a few more people there, I would end up leaving someone out anyway and hurting their feelings.  The situation seemed a bit impossible. There is no way for me to know the depth of relationship my sister had with each person, and I therefore don't always know who should or should not be included in something because they may have been closer with Carrisa.  I am doing my best, but just cannot do everything.  Sometimes I just have to do what is best for my family and for this particularly short trip, seeing just a few people and enjoying that time with them is what was best.

 I don't want to contradict myself, because in a blog post a few weeks back I talked about how important people are, and I truly believe that, that is why we even made this short trip, 5 hours of driving (with 3 small children) for 7 hours of visit time in Paradise

If you have had your feeling hurt by me not telling you we were coming to Paradise or were not included on our short visit I am truly sorry.  I want people to still feel like they can be a part of Norah's life and that is why I write here. You are always welcome to come to our house and we will be back to Paradise again.