The Franklin Family: Trip to Indiana

The night that we got home from Disney, Brian's grandmother passed away. She was 99 years young. She lived an amazing life. She did everything and when I say everything, I mean everything. Some of her jobs included, a homemaker, a truck driver, worked for her husband's construction company, owned part of a bowling alley, and during the depression, she let people work to earn room and board. To say she was a jack of all trades would be an understatement. But, the thing that I will always treasure and remember most about Great Mom was the way she took me in as her own. From the time Brian and I met, I was part of her family, and not the married-part-of-the-family, just part of her family. She would often call to check on us and would sit and talk about anything and everything, asking about me, the kids, my parents, my sister's family, and it wasn't small talk. She truly wanted to know how everyone was doing. She was an amazing woman and she will be greatly missed.

Great Mom was from Indiana, and her husband is buried there, so that following Wednesday, we left to take the 10 hour drive up to West Lafayette, Indiana. Brian's sister, Elizabeth, rode with us up there and back which was wonderful. The kids loved having her in the car and we enjoyed catching up with her. We made two stops on the way up, one in Nashville for some good ole' bar-b-que and the other for a restroom/gas stop. The kids once again were amazing! A total of 36 hours in a car over 2 weeks and they never complained once. They were itching to get out once we got to Indiana, but happy and agreeable!

It really was a great trip. Brian's brother and wife, and their 4 kids flew back from England, so it was amazing to be able to spend a few days with them because obviously, we don't get to see them as often as we like and the kids LOVED spending time with their cousins. Brian's brother Bradley worked at a church in the area, so we were able to go to the recreation center and let the kids run around on the indoor track and play a little basketball. It was nice to have a place to run around other than in the hotel. But I have to say I enjoyed the hotel too. It felt like we were back in college in the dorm. We had about 6 different rooms all next to each other so we sort of had our own wing :-) We got lots of great pizza from Arni's. Brian had it every meal possible, including left overs for breakfast. All around it was a great trip with family and I think it was just the way Great Mom would have wanted us to remember and celebrate her.

While we were there, we also got to visit the Purdue campus, which was really fun to see. The girls were really excited because it snowed all day!

Here are some pictures from the trip. (You know I have the camera glued to my head no matter where we are :-)