Jen's Alaska Trips
Just a short note to let y'all know some of what I have been up to over a good part of last year. My dad had a heart scare on July 4th 2017, but was blessed that it was able to be corrected by a stent placement. I flew up to Alaska for about 5 weeks to help them out for a bit. During that time I was lucky enough to spend some time with friends and family during the Alaska Summer. On my way back to Texas around the 1st of August I stopped in Seattle to stay with my Aunt for about 10 days. We tackled cleaning out a garage in Washington that belonged to my parents. What a dirty job that was, due to everything having a 40 year protective layer of dust. Also met with realtors, painters, the carpet crew, plus more while getting the little rental house they had there ready to sell. Then it was a quick trip back to Alpine for 3 weeks to help Matt finish up bus and house projects before my parents flew in to stay with us for a couple weeks before we left Alpine for the road again on the 1st of September 2017.
We took Mom & Dad with us on the first leg in the bus to my brothers house in Oklahoma. We spent a few weeks with the family in Oklahoma. In early October we headed for Pine Mountain GA for a Blue Bird Wanderlodge Rally via West Memphis AR. We stayed a few days right on the "mighty" Mississippi river and was pretty neat, most of the RV spaces and facilities were below the flood line, or in the case of the laundry area, it was detachable and was on a trailer so they could pull it to higher ground. Check out the picture of the sign on the bathrooms that show where the flood water came to in 2011.
From there we arrived at the rally. This was our first time to attend something like this and we both really enjoyed it. Since it was the first rally we tried to make it to every activity that we could attend which made the 4 days go by way to quick. We learned lots of tips on the inner workings of these pretty awesome rigs. Unfortunately during this I found out that Mom was having some health issues after arriving back home in Alaska. So after the rally wrapped up Matt, Scout and I headed to Houston to Matt's sister's house which had been severely damaged in Hurricane Harvey.
Once arriving in Houston and getting Matt and Scout settled and myself packed I flew back to Alaska to take care of Mom. This was an open ended trip as I was unsure on what exactly was going on health wise. What I expected to be a few weeks to a month turned into 3 months, tons of doctor visits, hospitalizations and surgeries. Mom had not been in great health for a few years but it turned out she had a lot of undiagnosed things going on. We made several trips to Anchorage for specialists and procedures. I was blessed to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas at home with my parents for the first time in many years. Sadly Matt and Scout were 4000 miles away in Houston working on getting his sisters house back to a livable state again. Mom had Gallbladder surgery at the beginning of Jan 2018 and did very well after surgery. We continued to address other issues during January. After getting some help lined up for Mom and Dad I was then able to fly back to Matt in Houston around the 1st of February 2018.
We spent a week or two wrapping things up in Houston & then headed to Matt's parents house in central Texas with the bus. Once arriving there it was determined that my Mom was going to need another surgery for Colon Cancer about the 2nd week of March. So we had about 2 weeks to accomplish a number of things. We took a job working on a rental house that belonged to Matt's parents. We installed laminate flooring in living room and bedrooms. We also tiled the kitchen and bathroom as well as installed trim. This project took us about 2 weeks to complete. I then packed up and flew out of Dallas to Anchorage for Mom's surgery. Her and I stayed in Anchorage for about a week and then got her back home and stayed for 3 additional weeks to help her recover at home. I stayed busy during this time caring for Mom and Dad as well as doing remote bookkeeping for the home health agency for which I currently work. After much research and legwork I was able to find some amazing ladies in AK who have been helping out Mom and Dad which has given my brother and I great comfort in knowing they are well provided for.
I flew back thorough Seattle and stayed with my Aunt for a couple days and got to visit a couple friends from High School who live in the Seattle area.
I was then on my way back home to Matt and Scout. This time I flew into Austin where Matt and I were able to spend a night with friends from Alpine that had recently relocated to Austin. After that quick visit we were finally back together in the Bus at Matt's parents house. It was then time to figure out where our next steps would take us.
