Memories, Faith, and Hope

This past Friday there was a mass shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut, 20 students were killed and 6 adults.  We were fairly busy all day getting ready for a Christmas party the boys were hosting for a bunch of middle schoolers.  But when the craziness died down at our home it hit Ken and me really hard as we read and watched the news stories all weekend.  As a parent it is hard to imagine the anguish and sorrow that has been inflicted upon these poor families who were just going about their lives, doing what they are supposed to do, trying to raise a family.

We believe in eternal families and while that is comforting, I am sure that those who lose their children still ache to hold them and to be with them now.  Especially parents who look forward to each new milestone in their child's life and whose only real dream consists of seeing their child achieve all that they dream of.  Parenting is hard on your heart.  Even though I have had the opportunity to spend every day choosing what I want to do as a mother the past nearly 14 years, it still feels like time slips by way too fast.  I've been there for pretty much almost every moment I possibly could be with them.  I love to play with them, the cleaning bug has never quite bit me either, so I really have enjoyed my days with them.  But there is not enough time, there never is.  I cry tears over that all the time. We can't even fathom what these parents must be going through, my heart breaks for them.

Ken and I have been talking about the shooting and our situation all weekend.  First, we decided our children's teacher needed better Christmas presents then what we had been planning.  I guess that could sound flippant, but I don't mean it that way at all.  Our children have wonderful teachers and I can't even imagine how they are feeling right now.  Rose is in first grade and it really hit close to home that all the children murdered at the school were in 1st grade too.  I have no doubt that Rose's sweet teacher would lay down her life to protect the children in her class if she needed to.  We have been really blessed with caring, competent teachers for our children.  For the first time ever, our children actually had their thank you cards and Christmas presents prepared and given to their teachers before the last day of school of winter break.

Secondly, this Christmas season more then others in the past we have really been focusing on our Savior with our children.  Actually, it has already been our most spiritual December as we have focused on serving others and on building our faith in Christ.  I'm really grateful that other circumstances had already been leading us down this path before this incident.  The shooting has only strengthened our desire to make the world around us a little nicer, more loving, and full of charity.

And lastly we decided that we are extremely grateful for the memories we have made and we want to make that a priority.  In fact, our experiences and adventures together as a family are so dear to our hearts.  We are at a time in our life where it feels like our children are so busy and going in different directions.  We have simplified as much as we can the past couple years, if we did any more that would be to deny our children the opportunity to pursue their talents and interests, which would be wrong.  We only do things they absolutely love, we aren't doing activities just for the sake of doing them, but with 6 of us at different stages of life it gets difficult.  We manage-- barely, but we have also learned over the past 5 years that the vacations we go on bond us and strengthen us.  We need them, like really, really NEED them.

We have gone on awesome vacations through the years but it's not views like this that are burned into our hearts.

It's the memory of our daughter making funny faces like this while rocking her aviators.

The weird conversations about how their sunglasses look like flies eyes.

And all around eating breakfast laughing and enjoying the day.

Or how blue our only blue-eyed child's eyes are when she is near the ocean.

We don't want to go to Cancun because of how fabulous it is, it's about how fabulous it is to experience together.  Time slows down.  It's out of the ordinary routine and the memories and moments become crystallized.

Because we hope that we will only ever have to bury our daughter, the mermaid, in the sand.

And we wish that the only wars in the world happened with sandballs (or snowballs:)

With all that has happened, we have decided what we will be doing to celebrate our 15th anniversary this summer.  We are making reservations to go to Cancun for a month again.  It was by far one of our most memorable vacations.  We also feel like it would be foolish to NOT take advantage of our unique situation.  Ken working solely from home gives us this opportunity to be mobile during the summers and as long as he is in this position we should take advantage of it.  Ken worked sporadically throughout last summer's month and it felt like the best of both worlds.  He came home refreshed and not behind in his work at all, and it felt like we had a 3 1/2 week long vacation with him. There was really only 2 or 3 days where it really felt like he worked to me and the kids because he was so available to play around with us most of the time.  Otherwise he worked when we were busy shopping, cooking, reading, or napping:)

We had considered going away by ourselves and asking my parents to watch them, but we were so on the fence about it already.  And given our feelings right now we can't bare the thought of leaving our children.   However, we wouldn't mind if someone comes to visit us in Cancun so we can get away for a night or two! (see Here)