My littlest nephew celebrated his first birthday this past weekend.

But throughout the weeks leading up to the event I told my family in Northern CA that I would not be able to go.  And I truly meant it.  But last Wednesday I felt the desire to go home and visit with family.  The desire was strong and after talking with my mother, decided to go.  Other than my mother and my sister, I didn’t tell anyone else.  I kept waffling back and forth and depending on a number of circumstances could have decided to not go.  So I kept it a secret.  But Friday night after the very sad Clipper loss, we packed up the car and drove 6 hours to my mother’s house.  We slept a few hours when we arrived and was able to have a wonderful breakfast with my parents and my sister’s family at my mom’s house.  We’re loud when we get together and I often get irritated.  But this time, I enjoyed the familiarity.  I’m so grateful that our hotel allowed us to check in early so we could rest a bit more and get ready for Baby Mathias’ birthday.  Everyone was surprised and I was able to catch up with a few of my cousins.  Really surprised!  No one was expecting us and at first when we pulled up, they looked at us confused. 😉  I’ve never pulled off a surprise like this before.

This is the baby quilt I made last year when Mathias was born.

On Sunday, since we were in town, we celebrated Mother’s Day a week early and had a nice lunch with my Mom and Sister yesterday.  One of my aunts joined us and later, my sister’s MIL.  It’s nice to sit with the women in the family and chat about the goings on of life.  Then later, we packed everything back up and headed home.  We got back to LA in the middle of the night and the family and I are taking the day off to recuperate.  I thought I’d take some time to clear the suspense so ya’ll know where I’ve been.

I don’t think anyone in the family reads my blog but you never know and I’d rather be safe than spoil the surprise. 🙂

I’m really happy we went this weekend.  It’s been a long time since I’ve felt the urge to go up north and see my family so when this urge hit me last week I was a bit surprised.  It was so strong and a bit of me was scared by that.  I had some negative thoughts that I’m not going to document here but suffice it to say that it scared me.  Thank goodness everything about the weekend was positive and I really feel now that I was compelled to go to connect with my cousins in a way we haven’t been able to connect in a long time.  Surprisingly, I didn’t talk a lot.  I just listened to what everyone’s been up to.  And I think that’s what was needed.  I’m thrilled and overjoyed by being able to listen to them.

Today, I’m taking the day off work.  We’ll be unpacking and getting my crafty on. 🙂

~Melanie