One Fine October Weekend

Our family has traveled home the past three weekends. We had to attend a funeral for Brad's Grandma earlier this month. The next weekend Brad went and cut down some trees for his lovely girls a.k.a. cows. Then last weekend, we went again. Sue had planned a get together with our family since it was the 1 year anniversary of Charlie passing away. Colby had found this rock down by the river where we spread Charlie's ashes. Sue and Judd had Charlie's name engraved in the rock and they were going to place it down by the river. I couldn't miss out on this so we decided we would go home, now that gas prices have dropped significantly, yeah right.

This is a moment that I couldn't pass up on taking a picture of. Ryen LOVES Doyle. She has him wrapped her little finger. I must say, it is pretty cute. Doyle will do anything that Ryen asks of him. My family was truly blessed when Doyle came into it. We love him so much.

Jack loves to have his sugar kissed. He will keep his neck back so that you are able to have better access to it. He starts to laugh and grabs his little hands. Geez he is cute.

I love this picture. Che' was holding Jack and supposedly Chris kept eyeing her and the baby. Che' decided to ask Chris if he wanted to hold the baby. Chris, with the sweetest way you could possibly say it, said Yeah. Che' gave him Jack and I couldn't believe the smile on Chris' face. He is going to be such a cute dad. What an amazing guy he is. I am so excited for both Jennifer and Chris. I can't wait to see their baby.

Here is the rock with Charlie's name engraved in it. It was so pretty. What a special day to reflect on Charlie's life. I miss him so much. I'm not going to lie, that day was pretty rough on me. I am flooded with a bunch of emotion lately, and it hit me hard when everyone was down at the river. I remember last year at this time. It seems so long ago but yet in some ways not. I just hope that Charlie knows that we are still thinking of him.

I love this picture. I truly have an incredible family. I am so lucky to have been brought into this family. Family..... sometimes you can't live with them, but you definitely can't live without them.

As I finish up this long post, I just have a few things on my mind. I attended a funeral this afternoon of a pretty special young man, Marcus. He has been living with a brain tumor for the past two years. Brad and I became very close to him. He would visit us each Sunday in the library to see if we had candy to give him. He visited me and baby Jack in the hospital the day Jack was born. He was an amazing kid. I will miss him and especially will miss him calling our family "The Strawberries".