Whew! We made it!

Well, another Christmas has come and gone and we made it through. That is 14 Christmases without Lauren, but the last seven have been better for us, since we gained a daughter-in-law and two granddaughters.

We made a trip to South Carolina and were happy to see and visit with our family and some dear friends. We really had a great time!

On the way back, stopped by the kids' house just in time to see our granddaughters playing with the gifts Santa had left for them and it was a wonderful time!

Our Christmas with the kids included a trip to our new trampoline park here in our hometown, where the girls had a ball. (I think their parents liked it pretty well too.)

For the last part of my time off, I decided to take on a project I had started and abandoned shortly after Lauren's death- I wanted to get our family photos organized. I am way behind in categorizing and putting them into albums, and that is one of my retirement "dream" projects-to get them into some semblance of order for my son and granddaughters to have in the future.

I had earlier abandoned this project because I think I started it too soon. It was extremely painful to look at photos of Lauren then, and it is not much easier now. I basically had to talk myself into it, and once I started, I was able to get through it. My husband, who recently retired, was with me this time, and we enjoyed looking at photos as I got them into their initial categories, so that I could put them into tubs, and later I will go back and really get them organized.

We laughed at a lot of the memories that came back, "marveled" over our hairstyles and clothes from the past, remembered family members who are no longer with us, paused over friends we have lost touch with and looked with wonder at our beautiful children as they grew and matured in these photos. I won't say there were not tears. There certainly were and I am sure there always will be.

I decided to share a few photos on this blog post. Looking forward to being able to share these photos with Rosemary and Vivian someday in the future.

I almost forgot what it was like to be a young mother.

One of my favorite photos of my Lauren and Aaron

Me at 16 practicing the piano at my childhood home.

My Rosie helping me sing "Silent Night" at mass this Christmas season. Behind
us is my son in the Communion line, getting a blessing for Vivian. 

I guess "Frank" and I were on a date back in the day.