The "lasts"

We are moving in 7 days. Crazy talk. Recently, we've revisited some favorites spots.

The last trip to Salvador Molly's:

The last sip of Cacao's drinking chocolate:

The last trip to the coast :

The last trip to the nursing home:

The last WES drop off and pick up (which technically isn't happening until Friday):

Too many lasts. Our good friends from church are hosting a goodbye party for us on our LAST Sunday, which is next week. Sigh.

Tyler's coworkers threw him a surprise party last night. It was dear to see so many people who genuinely love and appreciate him. DePaul Treatment Center (alcohol & drug programs) was a Craigslist hope that was only intended to last a year while Tyler reapplied to medical school. Now, 4 years later, he is saying goodbye to people that have shaped his hope of working in addiction medicine. There were about 20 incredibly loving and talented people at the party, most of whom are in recovery themselves. That's incredible. You'd have to have been at the party to feel the love. In my short time of working in the mental health field, the possibility of staying in recovery seems like an exception, not a rule. But nope, 20 people with rebuilt lives and huge hearts.

We'll have last days of work next week, last visits with friends, last walks and jogs at Cook Park (where after 4 summers we have yet to see an actual butterfly in the butterfly garden);

last memories of our 4 years in the Pacific Northwest. It doesn't feel like we're leaving. It's all these "fake" lasts. I'll probably have a break-down in tears as we drive away a week from now, but until then, we'll keep enjoying our "lasts" while they last. 

Kristin

When Sundy and I were married 4 years ago, there were three family members noteworthily missing: Paul, Sundy's brother who was at basic training (I advocated a wedding date 3 weeks earlier so that he could attend, but that is another story), Sundy's cousin Crystal (on a mission in Mississippi), and my cousin Kristin (on a mission in Texas).

Through our lives, Kristin and I grew to be close friends. We were both the oldest in our families, and as kids we would often get together with our fellow elder cousins Trent and Nicole (and the younger cousins later on) for Sunday card games, football matches, and philosophical discussions about whose parents were the most strict or which school classes were the most boring. More recently, when Kristin and I were both single twentysomethings, we would go on hikes and commiserate about our frustrations with the Happy Valley dating scene.

Because we moved to Oregon before Kristin returned from her mission, it was not until Sundy and I had been married for a year and a half that wife and cousin finally met each other. Even after they met, the two never had much of a chance to get to know each other, so we were excited when she agreed to fly up from Orem and stay with us for a week. As our time in Oregon is winding down (2 more weeks!), we took advantage of her visit to do some "last things" in the Portland area. We visited some of our favorite restaurants (Salvador Molly's, Rimsky-Korsakoffee, (Sundy wouldn't go for The Native Foods Cafe)), visited some new sites we hadn't yet been to (OMSI and the Rose Festival), and made our sixth and final trek to the tourist-trappy-but-still-worth-seeing Multnomah Falls. The falls provided our only real disappointment, the last leg of the trail to the top had washed away and we were unable to complete the hike.

Sundy and Kristin really hit it off. Perhaps too well. They spent more time than I was comfortable with swapping Tyler stories. Between the two of them, they now have nearly my entire life covered, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.