It was a rough weekend.

Do you ever have those weeks, or in my case weekends, where everything just feels heavy, wrong and difficult?

And when it's all said and done you have to remind yourself that life is still good and you've been blessed with so much?

I had one of those weekends last week.

It started out good.

My husband and our oldest boy headed off last Thursday to LasVegas to run in the Ragnar relay race.

They were excited and prepared and it even looked like the weather was going to cooperate....mostly.

 Besides snow at the beginning of the race at the top of Mt.Charleston and a strong headwind later in the race I think the weather mostly did cooperate and they had a good time.

Back at home however things weren't looking so good. A terrible storm was blowing in and earlier in the week our dog started eating less and having a bit less energy.

I guess we weren't too worried because she's been getting older and she kind of normally acts that way when the weather changes.

But by Thursday evening she was not doing well.

First thing Friday morning I took her to the vet and her prognosis was not good.

I took her home and hoped to nurse her through the weekend until my husband and son got home.

Unfortunately by Friday night it was apparent that she wasn't going to make it through the night.

Each of the kids said goodbye to her and we all cried.

She'd only been with us for a couple of years but she was truly a part of the family.

These pictures were taken the day we brought her to live with us.

Can you tell she especially loved my husband?

 She filled a place in our hearts we needed to have filled with unconditional, excited, happy, silly, slobbery, warm love.

Our youngest girl, who started out being terrified of dogs, ended up being McCall's greatest fan.

Early Saturday morning McCall passed away in her sleep.

It was hard.

I wasn't sure what to do because I'd hurt my back Friday carrying our sweet dog to the car and back.

She wasn't a small dog.

So I called my neighbor and asked him if he could help me.

What a blessing good neighbors are.

Friday night it snowed too. Something to the tune of 15 inches. It was a lot.

So my neighbor and his wife even helped me shovel the drive-way.

Calling my boy on the race and telling him about McCall was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

We were a pretty sorry sight around here all day Saturday, we were depressed and I was in pain.

So we decided to go see Brave at the dollar theater. That was a nice distraction but the best part was when I fell asleep for half of it.

Late Saturday, early Sunday morning, my little girl started throwing up........

As is often the case with little ones the stomach flu hit in the middle of the night and she didn't make it to a place that could contain the mess. Needless to say it was everywhere.

Around 4 AM my husband and son came through the door after driving all night, they were exhausted but happy and I was happy to have reinforcements arrive.

Unfortunately one of their team mates had gotten the stomach flu on the race and passed it around to everyone.

So my man and my boy got sick within a couple of hours of getting home.

I'm sure being exhausted from the race didn't help either.

Luckily only 3 of our 7 ended up getting it. That was a blessing too.

After spending Sunday cleaning and disinfecting and nursing I was exhausted both mentally and physically. And I was happy the weekend was over.

I think it's going to take a while for all of us to mourn our sweet McCall, but we are so grateful we were able to have her for the short time we did.

Today I looked out the back window into the yard and it just felt empty.

She was deeply loved. 

The neighbor who helped me this weekend has offered to give us a puppy when their dog has puppies in a couple of months.

I think I need a little time. It just feels too soon. The kids are split, a couple of them want a new dog right away a couple of them don't. I guess we'll see.

Sorry this has been a little bit of a depressing post.

Thanks for reading.