First order of business coming into Casper was to stop off at our first home. Other than being painted a darker color, everything looks exactly the same. We extended that driveway.
We built that fence. The vinyl "Welcome" on the door was mine. Shelby and Brennon were born while living in this home. I would have loved to ask to go inside, to see the basement that we built, the wood floor we put in. I'm sure Randy would have loved to see the massive two-story shed he'd built. We loved this house.
Next was driving past our second home, the home we lived in when we said goodbye to all of our friends, some for the very last time in this life.
We finished this at the end of August and moved the next November 1st, so we didn't get to really enjoy it. It still looks just as bright, green, and fresh as we had always hoped it would be.
The one thing that was the most important to me was actually something I had to pluck up the courage to ask for. We noticed that people were sitting on the front step, but it almost felt a bit weird to ask for something that means so much to me, but wouldn't mean anything to them. We almost passed by the house, and ended up kind of swerving into the driveway when I gathered my courage enough to say, "turn in."
The light post was added by Randy pretty early on in the landscaping work and is one of my favorite aspects of the whole front yard. After getting the wiring all figure out, we laid the concrete for it, having each of the kids place their hand in. Little did we know that just five years later, one of those hands would be gone. I got out of the car, swallowed down my tears, and asked if we could simply take pictures with their hands. They were SO nice to say yes.
Tyson: 2 years and 10 months
Brennon: 4 years and 6 months
Shelby: 5 years and 7 months
Keilie: 9 years old
I'd like to believe that Caden was letting me take a picture with his hand here.
It was nice to talk with the current owners. They purchased the house because of the updates we put in it: Master closet, laundry chute, and front landscaping. They hate the house for the same reason we do: flooding. I love the look of that home, but it was a serious stressful home to own and live in. It was even stressful to have someone that was basically begging us to buy it (they wanted to live near their parents that lived around the corner from us) because we couldn't impress upon their minds enough how stressful it was to have the underground river that made the sump pumps go off every three minutes. They bought it... and sold it years later after having it flood three times, despite adding one more sump pump to our two sump pump redundant system. I'm serious-- STRESS!!!
After talking with them for a few minutes, we wanted to head to our all-time favorite restaurant in Casper: Chopstix. They're open for business... except on Monday. Talk about devastation!! We went to our next favorite: Sanfords.
I sure love these kids!!
After eating, we loaded up to go to our third order of business in Casper: Casper Mountain with the Longhurst's.
While my family was off in the Razr, a family of three deer passed right by us. It was quite fun. We said goodbye at 10:30, headed back to our hotel with plans to swim at our allotted 8:00-9:00am time slot. *Covid means there can only be two families in the pool area at a time, with no hot tub.
Tuesday: HAPPY 20th ANNIVERSARY!!!
First up (after two hours of swimming!): Casper Mountain hike to the waterfall
I love my family so much. I am the luckiest girl in the world.
We didn't plan to spend much time with friends, mostly because we have SO many and didn't have enough time, so we only met with Kim and Josh because Keilie has been so vocal about it for years. But at that moment, we both felt like we needed to try to reach out to Caden's best friends: Brayden and Danielle.
Brayden was at work, but Danielle and Stormy happened to be home. It was so nice talking with them, hearing about the growing up years that we missed. I held it together well until Stormy brought a current picture of Brayden and Danielle together. As I gazed at the boy, now a 6'0 man, that meant so much to my Caden, I couldn't help but feel an overwhelming love for him, even now. We didn't know that the last time we parted would be the last time. It broke my heart anew. We'll probably travel to see these two when they marry, will probably send them gifts when they have their babes, but it feels wrong, somehow. It should have been Caden telling us about them, should have been him traveling to see his friends, instead of us doing it in his memory. I'm so, so glad that we did, but it hurt too. I'll love this family forever.
One of our favorite restaurants in Casper happened to be closed on Monday, so we planned to stop for lunch. When I called to see if they were open, Randy made sure I asked if they had indoor seating. Nope, only takeout, even though other restaurants in town were open inside. When we pulled up, Randy asked the guy walking around taking orders if we could come inside. I'm telling you, I wished the seat would swallow me up. We'd been told twice that it was takeout only, and here he was asking to eat inside. He sent someone else to talk with us. "We used to live here, and this was our favorite place. We've traveled long to eat here, and it would mean so much if we could." They said yes, but I don't think they were very happy about it.
As the kids excitedly told us they "remembered this place," I was transported to all the times we'd eaten there, always being placed at the same spot. And just like then, we, indeed, got placed at the same table. I burst into tears. I hadn't fully recovered from seeing Danielle, I admit, but being there just felt so special, I cried and cried. The sweet ladies rubbed my back and brought me an entire box of tissues. We tipped them really, really well. The kids remembered and loved the food like we knew they would, and Keilie even tried sushi for the first time. I wish I could have recorded it, but I didn't want to bring attention any more than was necessary. You could see the exact moment she regretted her decision. It struck us as funny so many times through the meal. We felt all the emotions at our beloved Chopstix!
Last, we headed to one of our all-time favorite places in Casper: Ayer's Natural Bridge. It's a 45-minute drive opposite of where we'd come from, but it was worth it.
Not two minutes later, Randy got word that a large sale that he's been working on for a while went through. It felt so surreal to be cheering for GREAT news with our daughter sobbing in the back. I was just making the comment to Randy when he slammed on the brakes, exclaiming, "There it is!"
The phone must have come off of the hood while we were speeding to get back to the park. We first found the three pieces of her case, losing hope that we'd find the phone whole. Brennon ended up finding the actual phone, 20 feet away from the case, barely a scratch on it. The only thing wrong with it was that it needed to cool down, since it had been in the hot sun for about 20-minutes by this time. Shelby started crying even harder, this time out of relief.
Seeing the oil rigs working, most still sadly, I felt transported to a distant time. We rarely see anything like this anymore. It made me miss Casper, as many things over this trip had. We were now heading out of town, so I tried to capture and hold onto things that had once been an everyday sight in our lives.
Leaving felt more final than it did the last time. Or maybe it was just sorrow at our time in Casper coming to a close so quickly. We could have spent another week and not been able to visit as long with friends as I would have liked. We are so blessed in our associations from our time in Casper. I will miss it forever.