Sunday, November 07, 2010

Lift Up Your Hearts With a Smile-- It's Family Time

I think I've been putting this off for fear that someone is going to get mad at me.  .  Emma had a four day weekend not too long ago so we planned a trip home so that we could catch up with everyone.  Well, that four day trip ended up turning into a two day trip since we had a long photo shoot on Thursday night and we didn't end up getting everything ready to leave until after lunch on Friday and we had to get up at the crack of dawn on Monday to get back for a parent teacher conference.  So, as usual, we did not have time to see everyone we wanted to see.  There are some dear friends from high school that I haven't seen in years and I didn't see any of my dad's side of the family this round.

It was the first time I had been home since Tony's funeral in May and I was just sort of longing to be with other people that understood the enormity of how the world has changed since losing him.  The girls had been asking me about Tyler (Tony's son) non-stop and I  felt like we needed to be near them.  All of us getting together was a painful reminder that Tony wasn't with us..  But, it was almost like I could hear his laughter mixed in the conversation in the next room.  So bittersweet.. We have so many precious memories.  But they are still so painful to think of.. I love them all so much.  

My hope is that we'll have a little bit more time when we go home during Christmas break.   Here are a few highlights from our trip.. We made a point to get family pictures as I'm determined to get more acquainted with my tri-pod so that I'm in more pictures. The one  in the middle is my favorite and totally captures who my family is and who we want to be.  I decided to hold on to the rest until we decided what everyone wants to put on their Christmas cards.  



Blessings,

Dana