Cruise 2012

Okay, so I know my last post about dating was a little heavy about my journey in dating and how I emotionally had to deal some things to get to the point that I am. I did that because I know there are other widows out there who have the same fears that I had. I did it because I know wanted people to know that moving on from my past was a very hard thing. A very good thing for us- but hard. 

But, 

Dating has not been all difficult. Dating Kyle has been amazing, in fact, many of you know that Kyle and I are engaged! I’m so excited. He’s amazing and I’m happier then I ever thought I could be especially considering where I was eighteen months ago. Dating him has been such a fun adventure. We’ve had plenty of trails that we’ve had to deal with and get through together. Dating this time around, after having been married for six years, is a totally different ball game. Dating as a single mother adds a whole new element to it. Trying to blend our two families together has been a roller coaster. 

But we’ve already handled so much and I know that we can handle lots of the things that are going to get thrown our way because of our pasts and families and just life. I know we’ll be a stronger couple because of it. 

We’d only been dating for three months when we went of a cruise together with a group of friends. How crazy is that? 

The craziest thing is that we booked the cruise only a week after we’d started dating. :) I have to admit that I was a little freaked out to book a nonrefundable cruise with this guy I’d only been dating for a week. I mean, what if we didn’t like each other in three months?

I’m so glad that I did. We had so much fun! 

Here are just some of the highlights from our fun on the boat. 

 

 

 

 

Yes. We had an odd number of guys to girls. Jen's husband, Clint couldn't make it so Jen came to be the chaperone for Kyle and I. Akward. Sorta. Awesome. YES! This is one of many pictures of Kyle and his two women. :) 

 

The first day in Cabo San Lucas. We stayed on the beach for most of the day. When we got hungry, we had to go find some authentic tacos. 

 

Cabo the second day, we went on to a ziplining tour where we rappelled and rock climbed our way through a desert canyon. 

 

In Puerto Vallarta, we rented a van and spent the day touring around the authentic parts of Puerto. My favorite part of the trip was going to a non-touristy beach, making friends with some guys, hanging out at their house and snorkeling with equipment that we rented from him. We saw sting rays and turtles. 

I LOVED this trip. It was so amazing to go and spend ten days with Kyle. 

One thing that I’ve really love about dating Kyle (okay, I could go on for a long time here…) is that it’s just been real life. There is no show, no pretending. I think the first time he came to my house, there were dirty dishes in the sink, toys all over the floor, Leah was freaking out about something and I had to spend some time calming her down and getting her ready for bed. Not exactly the greatest impression, eh? 

After having been married and then being alone for as long as I have, the thing that I want most is just normal real life. 

I can’t wait to have Kyle come home from work each night. I can’t wait for boring evenings of dinners, playing with the kids, getting them ready for bed and watching TV together. I’m excited to work in the yard and run errands, for lazy Sunday mornings and dealing with the kids. 

We’ve even planned a very small, very simple wedding. I just don’t care about a wedding. I want a marriage. 

Those are the things that I used to take for granted and now it sounds like a perfect, real -life fairy tale. 

Hopefully, with another cruise or two :) 

Black Hills Part 2

Okay, so I realize that this is a ridiculously long post. So long that blogger is forcing me to do it in two posts. And no one besides me and Steph will really care. But here I go, journaling away.

*If you really want to follow or journey through the Black Hills, start at the last post*

After Jewel Cave, we spent the rest of the day doing touristy stuff around Keystone and Custer. 

 

 

I was really excited to find out that there really was a Custer County Market. I wrote one into my book and thought I was totally making it up. Now I have to rewrite my book to make it match what’s really there. *sigh* this book will never be done.
 

We splurged and had an awesome sisterly dinner and made good friends with the waitress there all the while hoping that the weather would miraculously clear so we could go rock climbing on Saturday. 
 

Boo. 

It was the worst day. The cancelled our tour and refunded our money. That was seriously what we’d come to South Dakota to do. Everything else was just a bonus. We were there to rock climb. 6 hours with a guide to teach us everything about rock climbing. Boo. Boo. Boo.

We decided to go hiking on some trails that took us right up to Cathedral Spires. I was excited to get up close with them and see them again. 

This is what I found:

 

This was Thursday. 
 

 

This was Saturaday. 

Can you believe that fog?? You couldn’t even see them at all. Though I was disappointed about the weather on this trip, I would've been SO angry if the fog had been this thick the whole time and I never got to see the Spires at all.

 

The hike was still really cool - hiking through the snow-- The fog gave the whole place an eerie feeling and again made me feel like I was stepping right into my book. 

At the end of the trail, someone placed all the logs in a giant peace sign. 

The trail map marked this trail as “strenuous” Which, I guess it would be if you were a 400 lbs man with arthritis.  

 

This is me. Trying to look like I've been on a stendous hike. 

 

Stephanie does a much better strenous face.
 

See the top of that spire? That's some of our rock climbing friends. That's the closest we got to rock climbing this whole time.

 

On the day we had to leave, this is what we woke up to sunny, blue skies. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I guess we’ll just have to go back there and try to rock climb. 

It was seriously the most amazing trip EVER. It wasn’t a traditional trip like Disneyland or the beach. We just went to some random location and learned everything about that place and I LOVED it. 

On the way home, I took some NON-DROWSY Dramamine so I wouldn’t get car sick while I was working on my pictures - the label lied. I was so tired, I was loopy. I had to pull over and make Stephanie drive for two hours while I passed out. AGAIN: Greatest sister ever. A few days after , I found that she'd stolen my phone and took a picture of me sleeping - mouth open and drool running down my chin. 

I thought about posting it. 

But I won't. 

I don't love you THAT much Steph :) 

The Black Hills Part 1

*Warning. Longest Post Ever. Proceed with Caution* 

Okay. I know I’m going back in time here. My summer had been so busy and consumed by Kyle :) But I have to blog about the trip that I took back in May. 

Before I get into the awesomeness, let me gush a little bit about my best friend. 

This is Stephanie. 

 

She’s my sister-in-law but really she’s my sister. She is amazing. Her and I became best friends right away after she married my big brother. Our daughters are best friends. She is such a good listener. I don’t think there is one secret that I’ve kept from Stephanie. She’s the first person to know anything –She was the first person I told when I was pregnant with Leah. She’s the first person to know that Kyle and I were planning on getting married, even before there was a ring on my finger. She just genuinely cares. So to add to her awesomeness, she was the first person to read my book - the 400 page novel that took me three years to write, remember? And she agreed to come with me on this trip to South Dakota to go experience and research the location where my book takes place. She got in a car with me for twelves hours to drive around Custer State park and look at rocks! - rocks- (I’ll explain my fascination with the rocks) all the while I was obsessing and talking about my book (and Kyle) And she was totally interested. She pulled over and pointed out places where certain events might have happened in my books- “Look, Tahsha, that looks like uncle Shawn’s ranch.” “That looks like a place where Shea would go rock climbing.” And, the whole way home, she helped me outline my entire next novel. 

Can I just say that I have THE BEST sister in the whole wide world? 

Okay. Thanks for allowing me to gush. 

Onto the trip. 

So, this trip was a totally “bucket list,” “live your life” “wild mountain skies” kind of trip. I thought about going to the Black Hills of South Dakota for years now, but never did it. I’m sure everyone has those things that they would love to do, but never get around to because of life or whatever. So, after a while of dealing with Brad’s death, and being completely inspired by the way he lives his life, I decided - what the heck. I don’t have one good reason NOT to go to the Black Hills. So I decided that I was going. No matter what. No matter if I went alone. I would just plan it and GO. Luckily, Stephanie is amazing (as I’ve already mentioned) and wanted to come with me. So we planned a girls trip tot he Black Hills to go rock climbing. How freaking cool is that? 

Let me give you a little info about my book. Shea Chapman is a sixteen year old girl who goes to live in the Black Hills of South Dakota, when she discovers Kalem, a mysterious indian guarding the sacred Warrior Spires, she knows something is going on in these lands. She never expects to discover a lost Native American tribe or to find out that they believe that she is sent there to save them. 

The drive there was long, made easier by our lengthly talks, country music and trips down memory lane to listening to high school music. :) 

 We got to Custer late at night, almost couldn’t find our hotel, and crashed. 

The next day, we were ready for a full day of sight seeing and woke up to rainy, hazy, foggy BLAH.

We made the best of it anyway and prayed that the weather would clear up for our rock climbing trip that we has scheduled for the next day. 

I was worried that this day would be a disappointment because of the weather, but it turned out to be amazing. We spent about nine hours driving through Custer State Park and the Needles Highway. Because of the weather and the fact that it was a weekday, there was NO ONE else on the highway. I felt like we were there all by ourselves. 

 

 (Some of our animal friends we saw along the way) 

 

(This is just how I imagnied the ranch where Shea lives with her Uncle Shawn.)



 

We saw some other amazing things on this drive. I LOVED the rocks. The needles are all over Custer State Park. In my book, Shea rock climbs with a group of native american kids from a nearby reservation. So every time we would see a rock formation, I’d have to pull over and photograph it. Stephanie kept making fun of me (Seriously guys, I was so IDIOTIC about the rocks!!!) They are just so beautiful. I really felt like I was emerged in my book. Which was a good thing because I’d never been here before so I was happy to see that I wan’t too far off when I wrote it.
 

Eventually, my enthusiasm for rocks wore off on Steph!

The road narrowed and we pulled around this little bend and stopped right into this:

I didn’t know what we’d done. We were following our GPS exactly - how did we end up in a dead end? The giant spires loomed all around us, like they’d closed in on each other blocking our way. We slowly drove into this little circles and found this: 

A tiny tunnel that lead through the rocks. So at least we knew that we hadn't actually transported into my book (hehe *nerd alert*)

We stopped the car and got out and Stephanie finally joined in my craziness about the rocks. It was the most surreal feeling being in the middle of this ring of spires. ALL ALONE!!! No one was there. We yelled and whopped and danced around and climbed all over for probably thirty minutes. I tell you-- there is a feeling there! It’s probably magnified by my complete obsession with this area for the past few years. BUT I totally know why the ancient Native Americans considered this land sacred and why there are so many legends and mythical stories associated with this land. There is something different there. 

*We came back here two days later and the place was packed with people- you could hardly find a place to park. Stephanie and I marveled at how awesome it was to get to be there by ourselves the first time. What a cool experience and feeling that was. That feeling was totally gone when we were surrounded by a ton of people.* 

 Then, if I thought that that was amazing, I had no idea what I was going to experience right after. We drove through the little tunnel, and wound down the hill side (stopping to take a picture of the silhouetted mountains off in the distance *steph is a nerd about silhouettes like I’m a nerd about rocks) Then we turned a corner and faced these: 

 

Cathedral Spires. This is what I had come for. This is what I’d drove twelve hours for. My  book had a “sacred land” dominated by these spires (I renamed them Warrior Spires)  I’d been thinking, writing and studying about these formations for three years. 

 

I was so excited. We stopped and got out and I was completely giddy. I mean- retarded excited. I couldn’t believe that I finally was seeing them!! Again, there we were  ALL ALONE!!! Seriously, I can’t describe the feeling we had by being there alone. We got out and I went crazy! I was near tears. Stephanie grabbed my camera and filmed my freak out. Normally, I’d save myself the embarrassment and hide the pictures from the world, but I want you to see how excited I was. 

 

 

Even Steph was in love!

 

Of course we had to get some good jumping pictures in. 

My life felt complete at that moment.

 

We continued our drive through Custer State park and ended at Mt. Rushmore. We really had fun walking down on the Presidential trail, and learning about how they made the sculpture. Can I say it again, I LOVED being there with Stephanie. 
 

 

That night, we were freezing cold and VERY tired. (Steph more then me. She drove the entire day so I could be a dork and take pictures of rocks out the window - did I mention that she loves me?) We ate our microwaved meals (we were spending a ton of money on gas-- we drove 12 hours so we could drive around all day) and our delicious pie from the purple pie place and rented Pearl Harbor. I’m not sure why, but we got talking about that movie on the drive and we really wanted to see it. (I think we were mostly talking about Josh Heartnet and how we used to have high school crushes on him - he was one of many posters that graced my walls growing up.) But then we quickly remembered that that movie is super depressing and they all die and the Japanese won’t stop shooting. It gave me anxiety.

 

 

We were scheduled to do a rock climbing tour the next day, but because of the weather, we decided to push it back one more day and try our luck. 

The weather sucked even worse that day. 

So we went to Crazy Horse Memorial, which the idea is really cool when they finally finish it. We were just excited to be indoors where it was warm and dry. (Really - most of the time the high temp. was in the 30s) 

 

Then we went on a tour of Jewel Cave. The whole land here is pockmarked by these cave systems. In my second book, Shea spends a lot of time in these caves so I really wanted to go experience it. No pictures do it justice though. It was really interesting to learn about caving and what they have to do to train for some of the expeditions that they are still doing here. I love caves. Kinda goes hand in hand with my weird love for rocks. 

Dating.

Okay. So it’s no secret that I’ve been dating someone for a while now. (if my complete lack of blogging hasn't clued you into the the fact that I’ve been a little preoccupied.)   

I don’t want to gush like crazy about him and be all lovey-dovey disgusting 

But I will anyways. 

For just a minute. 

He is amazing. He is cute and fun and happy. He treats me so good. He’s kind and thoughtful. We have so much in common and get along so well. He’s been through some rough things too. And those things have perfectly molded him to be just the person I needed to get through all of this. The right person and the EXACT right time. 

Seriously-- I know you don’t quite get it, but I KNOW that God put us in each other's paths at the exact time he did because he knew we needed each other. We were both broken- hurt- and not sure where to go and how to move on. And being together made it all possible. Have I said it yet? Cuz I don't know how else to say it. He is freaking amazing!

But I wanted to talk about the whole concept of dating on here. I know there are other widows/widowers out there and the idea of dating is terrifying. It was for me. 

Let me say this: though, yes, I’m twitterpated and all sorts of in love and it’s been an amazing few months, it’s also been very difficult for the both of us. Moving on is a necessary and very painful process. It’s hard to let go. Sometimes I didn’t want to at all. But I knew that good things were in store for me–for Leah–and allowing myself to totally and completely embrace all the good things about this new relationship and all it’s possibilities meant that I HAD to move on. I HAD to let go. How could I fairly give my all to a new relationship if I had both hands and feet curling around the past? I couldn’t be stuck there forever. 

For him, dating a widow can be super challenging. Think about it. No really, THINK ABOUT IT. Dating a woman who lost her husband just barely more then a year before. I didn’t want Brad to go. I didn’t want my marriage to end. I still love him and I always will. Imagine trying to deal with the feelings of jealousy, the worry of not living up to the ghost of a husband, worry of being compared, the worry that your girlfriend will never love you as much as she loves her late husband, the worry of trying to fit in with the new family who lost their son/brother in law, of trying to get along with the late husbands family (who are and always will be a big part of my life) Seriously, I was amazed that he didn’t go running and screaming for the door. Heck, sometimes it still amazes me that he’s here. He is seriously wonderful people. Those things have been hard for him, but he’s dealt with them so well, in the right way. I’m so lucky. 

Right now, I’m in such a good place. I am happier then I ever though I could be.

When I think back to those dark times, I can’t believe that I’m this happy. HOW? HOW is this possible? How can the woman that lost her husband 19 months ago be so happy? How can I already be moving on and feel such peace about it?

When Brad died, I felt such despair, and I’d resigned myself to that despair. I was convinced that I could move on with my life, I could even figure out a way to be okay, to be content, but I knew that I would never really be totally happy again because all that got torn away from me could never come back–so how could I really be happy?

I knew I was eventually going to have to date again. In fact, it was one of the many scatter-brained-shock-induced thoughts that went through my head the night that Brad died. I was going to have to date. Images of bowling alleys and cheap dinners flashed through my mind. (My only real dating experience was in high school- I was having serious PTSD.) 

At that point, I knew I wouldn’t even want to start thinking about dating until it had been 5 years or so. But even then, I was convinced that I’d never want to get married again. I was rationalizing ways that it would be okay for Leah to be an only child raised by a single mom forever. I was trying to figure out things to do to keep myself occupied and entertained for the rest of my life. I was convinced that I didn’t need a man to make me happy. That I didn’t HAVE to get married. In fact, I was kind of bugged by people’s comments: “Oh, you’re cute and young, you’ll get married soon.” Like that was some end all solution and that would solve all my problems.

Yup. I was convinced that dating was not in my near future. 

Then the loneliness set in. I was bugged by the loneliness. That year I probably had more close friend then I’d ever had in my life. I was constantly surrounded by people and fun things to do. So how could I feel so lonely? 

I was starting to realize what I was missing. So the idea of dating crept seriously into my mind. I thought about if for a long time. And it was hard. That was the start of my process of moving onwards and letting go. That was a few months before I even started dating. 

I wanted to wait a year. I don’t know why. Maybe some traditional sense of mourning. I wanted to be respectful, and plus, I had way too much to do to start worrying about boys. 

Then, with the year mark hovering around, I finally opened myself up to dating. It was exciting and new, and hard all at the same time. Somethings that I really thought would bother me didn’t at all, and some issues that arose really surprised me. 

I just want you to know that it hans’t been an easy process. I’m convinced that even if this relationship never ended up going anywhere, that dating and being in a relationship was a major key to my healing process. (don’t worry - we’re still doing wonderfully) It opened up to me worries/concerns/issues that I didn’t know I had- that would definitely halt my healing if I left them to fester. And I was able to deal with them, (with his help.) 

It’s been a tricky balance of holding on and letting go. It’s hasn’t been a cake-walk the whole time, but I know that because I have appropriately dealt with those emotions and hard situations, and I still will whenever they come up, (oh, they still come up) that the future ahead of me is bright and full of promise and a super cute guy. 

I'll keep you posted :)