Loving our Missed Ones

A lot of things have happened since I have last posted.  I think a year has almost passed.  A lot has happened time.  Some good, some bad, some hard, some happy, and some sad.  But I think it's time that I start posting again. 

With that being said, a move in September last year took us to our new home in Western New York.  I'm still not sure how I feel about it but this is where my family is.  Enough said.  With us being in the East and family in the West, it makes it hard to participate in all the holiday festivities.  I miss that.

When I was a kid I remember going to my grandparents graves and putting flowers on their headstones.  I would do that in the morning with my mom and then go to our annual Smith BBQ.  Even while we were living in Idaho somehow we always managed to be in Utah on Memorial Day.  My kids very rarely went to the last day of school.

This Memorial Day wasn't the normal.  I couldn't visit my dad's grave and I couldn't participate in my family's lunch.  We made some great memories with friend's here but I wanted to do something to honor my dad.

So the girls and I decided to play and sing the song that was sung at my dad's funeral.  He has always loved the mountains and had lived in Utah his whole life.  So this song says it best.  Hope you enjoy.  It's definitely not performance quality but its the memory that makes it special.

More to come: New header and new family kid pictures!

where were you on 9/11?

....on our honeymoon! We had just made it to Glacier National Park on September 10th, 2001. I was sick the whole day with an upset stomach and had not been able to keep anything down. The morning of September 11th, we woke up and finding myself starving I asked Jake to run down to the kitchen and get the free breakfast. Jacob wasn't too happy with me because it was not the way a honeymoon was suppose to be.

As Jacob went downstairs their was a crowd gathered around a 4" TV. Because we were inside the park, no TV's were in any of the hotels. The twin towers had been hit. He ran upstairs to explain the news. The rest of the day we went to the lounge (where there was one bigger TV) and watched the news. It was the first time I had been separated from McKay and I missed her a lot. I ran up quite the phone bill calling her everyday that week. We did enjoy the rest of our honeymoon but someday I would love to go back up there and really enjoy the beauty that we got distracted from.

I count my blessings all the time and I am glad to live in a free country!