Happy birthday, Gabe!

Our very own "Ozzy!" Do you watch Survivor? One of the Survivor heroes of all time is Ozzy, who can climb trees, swim, and conquer all the wilds. Our Gabe is much like Ozzy! If there is a lizard or salamander he'll catch it. No tree is out of his league. That's Gabe up in that tree on the right. Mason (Gabe's mimic) is going up the tree in the middle and he made it nearly as high as Gabe did. When I got scared about Gabe getting down I insisted Mason come down! Fuddy dud old Grammy! They both made it down just fine! Gabe turned 17 today. I am so proud of him; he's such a fun guy and has such a good heart. Love you, Gabey!


This will be a challenging Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving has always meant so much to our family. When Don's mom and dad lived in this house the whole family would come every Thanksgiving to celebrate. This house has always been more home to me than anyplace, because we always came here. As a military brat there was never any place that I always went to any more than this house. To have Thanksgiving without Don's body here will be emotional, but I know his spirit will be with us. He lives on in all of us and in our memories. I thank God for the many Thanksgivings we shared; and he and I were thankful for every other day besides Thanksgiving, too. We were blessed and I thank God for blessing us.

Gabe won't be here for this Thanksgiving, either. He is going to his other Grandpa's house so they can go hunting. I understand that, and I'm going to pretend that Don is hunting with them. As far as I know Don never went hunting in his life, but I need to pretend that he's with Gabe. :) Maybe I'll just pretend that he's gone to the store for something and will be right back. The facts are tough, so I'll hang with pretending right now.