So it’s mid-april and I haven’t seen the sun since spring break in the US, and I’m struggling soooo much with it. We had such an amazing spring break that I feel like the sun was shining inside of me while I was there too.

Here’s the low down:

On April 1, we left school, went home and packed our bags, and hopped on a ferry to the airport. We were all excited because we were headed back to the States for a short visit! Our flight left at 11:30pm, so it was a longish wait to board, but once we did, we settled in for the long flight to SFO. It wasn’t that bad! Just a quick 11 hours. Paul slept for a lot of it, and I watched a couple movies and slept too. We landed in SFO (freezing!), and took a shuttle bus to our airport hotel where we tried to get a few jetlagged hours of sleep before going back to the airport to fly to Salt Lake City for my dad’s WEDDING!

We arrived on Saturday, sleepy but I couldn’t have been more ecstatic. We rented a house with all of my siblings (minus Grace), and they were all waiting for us when we arrived! Matt, Andie, Ben, Alayna and Heather were all cooking breakfast when we showed up midday. My heart soared. We spent the afternoon eating, laughing and getting ready for the wedding that evening. Dad came over to pick up Matt because he was the best man, and the girls all did their hair and makeup together upstairs.I could see the jetlag starting to wear on Paul, but he was a trooper and took pics with all of us before we left to go to the venue.

The girls dropped in to see Susan getting ready, but mostly we all hung out with Dad and Matt down by where the ceremony was taking place. It was a brisk, beautiful sunny day and the setting was jaw-droppingly gorgeous.The rest of the family started trickling in, and soon it was a full on Erhart family reunion. I had missed the rehearsal dinner, so everybody had already seen each other, but it was great to hug all my relatives from my dad’s family. We had seen most of them last summer at my cousin’s wedding in CO, but I can never get enough family time.

(FYI there are a lot of photos from the wedding, but since most of you were there, I’m not going to post that many…lol)

Paul crashed out the moment the ceremony started, and he could not be roused at all. It was a heart warming ceremony. Susan looked beautiful and I’ve never seen my dad look so happy. They even gave roses to all of the daughters during the ceremony since we weren’t a part of the bridal party. It was so moving. After the family pictures with the photographer, we all settled into a good party. I got caught up with my cousins and aunts and uncles and enjoyed watching all the festivities. Paul never woke up completely, so Donnie graciously took him home so I could stay.

The evening went by so fast. Dad and Susan did an epic first dance that they’d practiced for months. It brought tears to my eyes, as did the speech that Matt made as best man. It meant so much to me to be able to be there for this moment, and I had Dad to thank for that. I will treasure the memories of that night forever. 🙂

After the big send off, we all headed home. A few of us jumped in the hot tub and hungout for a few more hours before succumbing to sleep, which thanks to jetlag only lasted 3 hours.

The next day, we planned a BBQ with the whole Erhart clan. We split up the items to buy and everybody went to the store (minus Paul and I). We got to cooking and cleaning and at 1pm all our family showed up. It was such a great, easy going way to spend a Sunday afternoon. We grilled, ate, then all walked down to the park for a cousins soccer game and to let the kids play. It’s amazing to see everybody all grown up, to see our parents together, to see the kids play together. I feel so lucky to be a part of such an amazing group of people and I genuinely wish we all could be together more often…we need more weddings…

The evening fell, and everybody went home and we all settled in back at our house. I had brought the movie Sisters from China, and so we three sisters cuddled up and watched it. It wasn’t as good as I had hoped, but we laughed and then bid each other good night.

The next day we all met up at the kitchen table to discuss summer plans. And Matt, Alayna, Andie and Ben all booked tickets to come see us in Phuket!! It always makes saying goodbye easier when you know exactly when the next time you’ll see those missed faces. I was over the moon. We spent the next couple of hours cleaning and packing and all headed to the airport together.

You may think that I would get tired of spending so much time with my siblings, but really I never get enough time. Seeing them for so short a period was hard, but they fill me up with such joy that it will carry me to the next time I see them in person. We all shared one last meal at the airport, the headed to our respective gates. We even ran into Dad and Susan to say goodbye one more time. I couldn’t have asked for a better weekend.

But we were off to San Antonio!

We arrived kind of late, but we picked up some tacos and headed home for dinner and chatting. Paul was soooo happy to see Grammy and Papa and I think they were equally happy to see us.

We slept well, then got up for our traditional trail run at Mcallister Park. It was so refreshing to run in nature, but it kind of kicked our buts. Then I brought lunch to my old coworkers (and friends!) at Oak Grove. It was weird to be back. So much was different, but so much of it is still the same. I rushed home from there to help load up the car for an overnight camping trip at Pedernales Falls. We used to camp there when we lived in SA, and Paul had never been camping, so we decided it would be a perfect diversion. It really was.

The weather was perfect. Clear and sunny and warm until the sun set, where it was just cool enough but not too cold. We drove through the hill country, set up camp and settled into the art of camp cooking. We took Paul and Colonel down to the river to throw rocks and then ate a delicious dinner followed by s’mores. I fell asleep so content. The next morning we had breakfast and packed up and headed home. Donnie and I had worn ourselves thin, so we took the rest of the day to nap and spend time with Ron, Angie and Paul.

Thursday was a whirlwind shopping day, picking up stuff we needed after another trail run in the park. I met up with my friends again for a beautiful happy hour at one of my fav SA patios. We also managed to get out and try some new craft brews in the city of San Antonio. It just happened to be Craft Beer Week for the week we were there. Pretty perfect timing. We met up with a friend to watch a sorry Spurs game, then headed home to rest before an epic travel day home.

For the first time in a long time, I didn’t want to leave SA. It was such a perfect week of weather, and everything worked out so well in terms of what we wanted to do. We made one last stop at the Crown and Anchor in Austin to treat ourselves to hamburgers and pints before we headed to the airport. It’s ok though, we’ll be back in two months and I’m sure I’ll be just as happy.

Contrary to our trip out to the States, our trip home to China was not fun, or easy. Paul threw a massive fit right as we were entering security in Austin, and we had a terrible 5 hour layover in SFO in the middle of the night. The flight home is always longer, this time 14.5 hours, then we still had to wait at the airport for 2 hours before our ferry home. We were all spent, and have spent the week trying to recuperate. We’re almost there.

Just to twist the knife a little more, the weather here has been horrible. We’ve had rain and wind and humidity, and all I want is to see the sun…hopefully next week.

Well that’s all I’ve got. It’s Friday afternoon and I’m headed home! Love to all!