Tag: family

Happy Anniversary to my husband. 9 years ago today we decided to renew our vows. It was a recommitment not only to each other but our family as well. We have navigated the ups and downs of marriage, the ups and downs of raising teenagers and watching each one set out on their own path over the past 9 years. Looking forward to the next set of adventures as we continue to learn and grow individually and as a couple. As our love deepens, I am so grateful to have this strong, supportive, passionate man to share my life with.

Live In The Moment

The best thing about being grandparents is knowing there is no perfect. Things don’t go as planned , and all that matters at the end of the day is that you loved and felt love.

This was the 1st time we had all three of our grandchildren together and my daughter hired a truly gifted photographer that has captured beautiful pictures of her family. Here we have a 2 1/2 year old, a 6 month old and a 1 month old. As you can see, the memo that it was photo day was not received.  Someone is crying in every pic of the day but the joy of having them all together will never be lost in my heart.

So, take the pictures, make the memories. It does not matter if they are “insta worthy” or “perfect”.   This day does not come again, there are more to come, but this one only happens today.

Thankful Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!!

This year, like for many of you, looks different for our family.

When my son joined the military, I felt like my dad had really prepared me. He was always happy to celebrate holidays and birthdays whenever we could be together. The day didn’t matter. This is our 3rd Thanksgiving without our Marine but now, we have a nurse, an EMT and a essential worker doing COVID clean-ups, and we are in the middle of a pandemic, as 1st year empty nesters.

Today, my husband and me spent a quiet day with our granddaughter, baking, watching movies, dancing and singing. Tomorrow we will celebrate with our daughter and son in love and his parents. When we get home, we will celebrate with our youngest and Christmas will be with our middle son and his newborn son.

It is weird to have each child have their own holiday with us, but we also know how incredibly blessed we are. We are healthy, happy, and know how much we love each other.

Our SILs parents are truly the kindest, most genuine people I have ever meet and am grateful to have them as family.

In life, just because things don’t look the way we thought they would, does not mean they are not just as they should be.

Halloween 2019

I have been a little quiet on the blog this week. Still learning to juggle my fitness schedule, the new kid classes, my volunteer work, house, family, choreography and oh yeah, sleep. The problem is I am so blessed with so many things I want to do, it is hard to focus and narrow down what is important in that moment. So I have slowed down to speed up. A saying my husband and I tell our kids a lot.

I started blogging to be able to write and share and inspire others. I am so grateful for all the positive feed back. Looking over my posts, while I happy with my content, it is lacking in the writing dept. No worries, fun coffee memes, inspiration, move of the day, food will stay but more posts about me and my life will be added as well, starting with today’s Halloween recap. So let’s dig in.

It has been a super fun week of Halloween inspired fitness classes, beginning with my Special Needs Zumba class Monday. They came in costume, we did some fun Halloween favorites in class like I’m Your Boogie Man and Thriller. The Thriller train did not end there. It pulled into Zumba Tues, Zumba Gold Wed, Special Halloween Zumba class Wed night and made its last drop off at Cardio Drumming Thur morning. There have many costumes this week, Black and Orange, I wore my Awesome Grandma shirt. Been Wonder Woman. Wrapped up with TuTus and tiaras at Barre Fit. By Halloween I was costumed out and passed out candy in pajamas. Overall a super fun week full of laughs and lots of smiles.

A Halloween post would not be complete without a picture of my granddaughter on her second Halloween being her adorable self out tricking or treating for the 1st time. Seriously the cutest flamingo I have ever seen.

I hope you had an amazing week and made some memories with family and friends.

Please share how your week went.

Soothing Sunday

Some Sundays are meant to do nothing…..and today is that day for me. Super busy week with my regular fitness schedule and then 6 new kids classes starting. Still made time for a fun girls night with wine and a concert under our towns water tower.

Fun housewarming party last night for one of our favorite kids and his fiance.

So today has been a football, brunch, mimosas, bubble bath, kind of day. I did get some work done here for the blog and some volunteer online work I do, but overall, just the kind of Sunday I needed.

I hope you all found the soothing Sunday you needed as well.

South Dakota Day 2

Today we took a walk and checked out the little town of Hurley. The main street has a bar, a bank, a post office and the library. The park has a really cool memorial that has been there since 1908. Looking at the homes we found several abandoned homes that you could tell were beautiful when they were lived in and loved. We looked in the windows and talked about how we would restore them. Looking out at all the open space and out at the corn fields I was struck by how peaceful and quiet it was. Walking back to my mothers in laws house I noticed how many homes had an American Flag proudly displayed. We then sat on the deck, Bbq’d dinner and I enjoyed a glass of Rose wine and watched the fireflies. It was a beautiful peaceful day and I am glad I left my phone behind to really enjoy the moments and connect with my husband. Excited for day 3, we head off to Mount Rushmore.

Being a MoM

The past few weeks my son has been home on leave for the 1st time as a Marine. I am guilty of several things on this list and today in the market I can add “hiding your tears in the market as you shop for Sunday dinner, because you don’t know when the next one is”. Parenthood is hard. Motherhood is hard. Being a Military Parent stretches and challenges you in ways you can’t imagine until you are there. You are filled with so much pride, yet this child you love more than anything puts themselves through brutal training and challenges to be ready to protect and defend at a moments notice. Our job as parents is raise our children to grow into confident, independent, young adults ready to conquer their dreams. Raising a child who’s dream is to defend an entire country and adopt a new family to fight side by side with, makes you realize you really rocked at your job, and you have a truly amazing kid. So hug your babies while they are home. Smaller or taller than you. Say ” I Love You”, listen to their stories, they are your heart. As they venture out into the world, no matter what path they follow, time is all you want. To hug, to listen, to love.