Summer so far...

The kids got out of school on May 29th, but I worked with kids who needed extra help until June 10th, so by then I was more than ready to join my kids in Summer Vacation 2009!!! We've been busy with normal summertime activities and trying to keep cool as Texas summer heat is in full swing.

Dan and I at a country concert.. we had so much fun!

My parents came to Plano for a week (Dad works in Plano often) and the boys stayed with them for a few days until I was able to meet up after school got out. Dan was busy with summer coaching so he held down the fort in Hooks. I also got to have some great fun time with Jill, my longtime friend, and to get together with some of my DFW area friends. I celebrated my 34th birthday this week, feeling blessed beyond belief by my sweet husband and boys, but missing so much Mark, on a day important to our family.

Jayden playing with Grandpa Big Mark

Life is plugging along, and we all know that's the way it should be. We are counting our blessings and doing our best to enjoy every day, especially in the slowed down summer pace that we teachers adore! However, having lost my brother, who passed away unexpectedly on May 16, nothing seems normal. Dad, Mom, Angie, Dan, and I best describe it as an empty feeling, a real physical feeling that is always there. We can be enjoying dinner or a ballgame, or swimming with the kids, and then it just hits. It is the loss, the pain, the memories, and especially the feeling that he should just be there with us, or at least be around to look at the pictures and laugh with us later. For all of us, crying is part of each day, somedays it is worse than other days, some days the memories are easier to swallow, and other days the why? and how? questions weigh heavy. We get through it day by day, moment by moment, all of wishing that we weren't having to go through this at all. We just miss Mark, we miss the role he played in our family, and we miss our sense of "normal" that we are used to, as wacky as it may have been at times.

My sweet friends

So, we pick up the pieces, day by day, and put the puzzle together as best we can just for that day. We keep texting and facebooking and telling each other that "we will get through this." We know now more than ever that life is about today, and that our time on earth is unpredictable by us.

The boys with Grandma