Hope took her first trip last month to visit Grandpapa and Grandmama B in sunny Sarasota. Embarrassingly enough, we'd been talking about it for a while prior and been simply procrastinating, but Grandmama's ovarian cancer diagnosis in late January finally got us to hop on a plane. I really wanted to be there to help my folks get started with the treatment - providing extra hands for mundane tasks like cooking, to be close by as chemo got started, and giving them some happy distraction with little Hope.
I flew the first leg solo with Hope, and although she elected not to sleep on the PDX > ATL leg until the final five minutes (see photo) the travel ended up long but relatively painless. B joined us about a week into our stay, which totalled almost 3 weeks - a nice break from the cold, and some needed catching up time with gMama & gPapa. We managed to get a pastoral exception from our childhood church for Hope's baptism, and were joined in Sarasota by the core Stanley family - Grammy, Pappy, Aunty Ellen (the godmother) and Uncle Jeff. Uncle Alex also escaped New York for the weekend as the godfather. While family was together in total only a brief while, it was the first time since our wedding that we were all able to sit and relax in the same place. So while cancer certainly brings its complications and a challenging road ahead, there was still a silver lining to the start of 2009.
I'll be blogging the trip in three installments - Part 1, our Sarasota routine - Part 2, Hope's baptism & festivities - Part 3, wrapping it up with family. Enjoy!
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