Dayton

Saturday we took the day off!  My brother in Pennsylvania was in Dayton and we decided to meet them there for the day.  My little niece, Mia, is 9 months old and I hadn't even met her yet (yes, I am aware that I haven't met another niece, but there isn't an ocean between me and Mia!)  The kids were ecstatic!  Miss Lilly was so excited that she literally was not able to control herself and we had to threaten, repeatedly, to stay home or turn the car around.  She could not contain herself!  Dayton is only a few hours away and has a really cool Air Force Museum that is FREE!  It was incredible, huge, amazing ... I think I could go back tomorrow and spend another two days there and not see the same things.  This is a picture of me and the kids with the Wright Brother's Airplane.

There are three huge hangers with actual full size airplanes, from the early planes, through all the world wars, and space rockets and even a stealth bomber, which was huge and incredibly cool.  My sister-in-law and I decided that there was nothing like this kind of a museum to remind us of how little we know about so many things! 

 Master S.  It was family day at the museum, so they had a lot of demos about torque, gyros, rattlebacks, and a special presentation on boomerangs from a boomerang world champion (who knew?!) ... he ate it up!

 Miss Lilly.  She was disturbed by all the 'pretend' people in and around the air planes.  I don't think they were wax, but she thought they looked real enough!

 This is the airplane that dropped one of the atomic bombs in Japan during WWII.  Apparently it landed in SLC because on the logo on the side it has Nagasaki on one side and SLC on the other (again, who knew?!).

 Cousins -- there just isn't anything in the world as great as cousins!

Big D and his cousin that just turned five ... they are almost the same size!

 Because this was an Air Force Museum, there were lots of things about famous war planes and the people who flew them.  My brother and I have a great uncle who flew in the Vietnam War and it was so cool to see his picture/story displayed in the Medal of Honor display.  I grew up hearing about this story and met Uncle Bernie several times, but it was different to see him honored in a place like this.  Made me realize what an incredible man he was and also remember the incredible people that I come from (yes, that means you Grandpa and Grandma!).

 Even more awesome, was they have the plane ... the actual plane that he flew ... the one that he rescued a fellow downed pilot in under enemy fire .. there at the museum, on display. 

 And the plaque on display tells his story.  Plus, after eating in the cafeteria there, we found a little kiosk that had video of him talking about that experience.  Which was really cool for the kids to see him talk about his experience.  He said more than once that he had a strong impression, despite being in a dangerous circumstances, that he needed to rescue this fellow pilot and that if he learned anything, that it was so important to follow through on those impressions.

It was a great Saturday!  Loved spending time with people that I love and miss.  We need to do that more often!  It was a good reminder that family, those here in our home, far away (even thousands of miles and oceans away) and those passed on (weather I knew them or not), make us who we are and continue to help us become who we are to be.  I am so grateful for FAMILY!

Friends

Friends - I count myself lucky because I have many!  Funny thing about friends is that while they may always be your friend, they may not always be the friends you know.  There are so many wonderful people out there ... you know who you are ... who at one point or another in my life, or at several points in my life have been there, present, listening, aware and involved, but aren't now.  I still hold them close to my heart, but we are either in different locations, or different phases of life and don't have the same connections.  Heavens!  Just the pure insane 'busy'ness of my life right now, keeps me from truly seeing my friends here as much as I want to and some of them live next door or work with me at work/church!   Trying to stay in touch with those scattered all over the world seems so daunting to me and honestly just doesn't happen, except an occasional Christmas card.   There are even lots of people that I consider friends that I don't really know that well, who I want to know better, but because of life it is kind of on 'hold'.  Interesting though, that I don't stop thinking about them - any of them!  I don't stop missing them.  And, most importantly, they don't stop affecting me and changing me.  To me, a good friend is someone who makes you better than you are, who leaves something with you, in your heart that you will never forget and shapes who you are and how you interact with everyone else around you.   There are so many of you that have done that for me and continue to do that for me.  I hope that someday, maybe in the next life, I'll be able to gather my friends both near and far, past and present (or future for that matter) or at least spend time with them and enjoy their spirit and presence again.  Today, I am thankful for friends, for people who see me for who I am, who forgive me, who have lunch with me, who call me on my birthday, who think about me and pray for me, who listen to me ramble, who let me freak out, who have confidence in me, who share, who love, who have taken the time to be a friend.  I am grateful and I will never be the same because of it!

I've been reading a book.  It is about parenting.  There are lots of really good things in it - things that I really struggle to do and be.  The longer I attempt to be a parent, the more I realize that I am not an expert - I'm not even a novice, I'm a full on practicing, learning, mistake making Mom (as with many other roles in my life!).  But, I'm trying.  I hope my kids know that I am trying - that I'm not perfect, but that I LOVE them.  Oh, how I love them.  I was watching a clip about Brandon Flowers http://mormon.org/me/5233/Brandon/ from Mormon.org, who is a rock star, a dad and a member of our church and he said, "There is a chamber in your heart that you don't know exists, when you have a baby ... I'm overflowing with that love that I didn't know was there before." I want my kids to know I don't always display it, or say it (I'm working on that) but they are what keeps me upright most days - they are a part of my heart that I didn't know was there before and it is overflowing.

Life is full of challenge.  Sometimes we are very aware of it in our own lives, or in other's lives and sometimes we are not.  I was talking with a nurse at work yesterday day and we joked that it seems sometimes that our biggest challenges are our spouses or our children!  The people we love the most.  Challenges can come in lots of different packages, many times we don't even see or recognize that others are having them - sometimes I don't realize my own challenges.  Challenges of faith, strength, endurance, sanity, psyche, health - we all have them.  But, we also have blessings - even simple blessings.  Sometimes they come in very little things that just keep us moving in the right direction and having faith even when we are in doubt, or strength when we are spent, or presence of mind when we are losing it.  I am blessed because of my children.  They are often that little thing that keeps me moving.  Today I am thankful for my children.